Dr Luke Ward

Luke completed his BA(Hons) degree in Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Northampton. He then continued to study for his MSc in Counselling Children and Young People, also at Northampton, where he began his clinical practice, volunteering at The Lowdown (a local charity providing free counselling to young people). He now specialises in working with developmental trauma at Broad Horizons. He has also volunteered as a youth leader for an LGBTQ+ youth group and has provided training for charities, schools and therapy services on supporting LGBTQ+ young people. Luke is a registered member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) as well as Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). Luke completed his PhD at the University of Stirling in 2021, focusing on the regulation of gender identities for non-binary youth.

Luke’s main research interests centre around his PhD, which focused on non-binary youth and how their genders are regulated. This follows from his MSc research, which explored the everyday experiences of non-binary young people. He has also done a commentary on RuPaul’s Drag Race for a journal’s pop culture special edition. Currently, Luke is working with the MSc CAMH team on a project exploring the concept of "safe spaces" within the classroom and how to facilitate the discussion of "sensitive" topics. Luke is also working with clinical psychologists from Northamptonshire’s Gender Identity Clinic on a review of the literature around transgender people’s sexualities.

Luke is a qualitative researcher, with experience in feminist relational discourse analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis and thematic analysis. He is passionate about participatory and creative forms of research that focus on identities – particularly genders and sexualities.

Luke has supervised MSc students, whose dissertations covered topics, such as absent fathers, parental bereavement, transgender and gender non-conforming identity development in online spaces and the impact of covid on young people's mental health.

Luke has supervised various qualitative research methodologies and forms of analysis, including: thematic analysis, interpretative phenomenological analysis, autoethnography and feminist relational discouse analysis.

Luke has established connections across multiple industries, including: a psychotherapy service, youth counselling service and the gender identity clinic within Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust.

Luke is a tutor for the MSc in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, and predominantly teaches at postgraduate level. He is module coordinator for PSYM106, a therapeutic skills module in the MSc CAMH programme, helping students put theory into practice. He also teaches undergraduate research methods. Luke won the university’s award for ‘Advancing Equality and Diversity’ in 2020.

Luke has also previously taught across first, second and third year undergraduate modules, including both qualitative and quantitative research methods and child and adolescent mental health. He has also taught on the MSc Counselling Children and Young People programme.

Luke has/current teaches on:

PSY1004: Investigating Psychology

PSY1006: Becoming a Psychologist (Research Methods)

PSY2005: Research Methods and Statistics

PSY2014 Personality and Individual Differences

PSY3026: Child and Adolescent Mental Health

PSYM105: Understanding Children and Young People's Distress

PSYM065: Therapeutic Interventions for Working with Children, Young People and Families

PSYM132: With Young People in Mind: Clinical, Community or Educational Placement

PSYM086: Research Methods (Postgraduate)