Gokce Cokamay Yilmaz

Gokce is a Research Associate in the Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Manchester and in GM.Digital Research Unit at the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust. She works in the BAY Trial (Behavioural Activation for Young People with depression in specialist child and adolescent mental health services) as a qualitative researcher under the supervision of Professor Penny Bee (qualitative lead of the BAY Trial) and supports finance management under the supervision of Professor Bernadka Dubicka (Chief Investigator of the BAY Trial).

Gokce graduated in Guidance and Psychological Counselling and completed her Master and PhD degrees in Educational Psychology at Ankara University. She conducted qualitative research in her master’s thesis and investigated school counsellor’s opinions on school mental health services. In her PhD thesis, she evaluated the effectiveness of a parent training programme which was for parents with children 7-11 aged.

After graduation from the university in 2010, she firstly worked as a school counsellor/guidance teacher in a private primary school in her home country for eleven months. Then, she continued working as a research assistant, respectively, in the Division of Guidance and Psychological Counselling at Amasya University and the Division of Educational Psychology at Ankara University. She also worked as an intern for three months in the Department of Child Development and Education in the University of Amsterdam within ERASMUS internship programme in 2012.

During working in Ankara University, apart from involving in research activities, she also assisted teachings (e.g., Developmental Psychology, Emotional and Behavioural Disorders, Personality Theories, Post-trauma Education, Life Periods and Adaptation Problems) in undergraduate programmes and worked as a volunteer counsellor under supervision for children and parents in her department’s Guidance Unit.

In 2015, she was selected to attend the European Association for Research on Adolescence-Society for Research on Adolescence Summer School in Atlanta/Georgia as a Junior Scholar and attended one-week summer school for PhD students which was supported by Jacobs Foundation.

In 2017, she was awarded a scholarship by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey 2214 Fellowship Program to improve her PhD dissertation in the University of Manchester and she worked as an honorary research assistant for seven months with Parenting and Families Research Group in the Division of Psychology and Mental Health under the supervision of Professor Rachel Calam and coordination of Dr Anja Wittkowski.  

After completing her PhD thesis, she worked as a research assistant in SPARCS project (An evaluation of the Solihull Antenatal Programme for expectant parents in the city of Salford) at the University of Manchester and acted as a project manager under the supervision of Dr Anja Wittkowski (CI of SPARCS). After that, she worked as a research associate in the Perinatal Mental Health and Parenting Research Unit (PRIME-RU) at the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust for two years. During her time in the PRIME-RU, she contributed to unit’s day-to-day activities, supervised placement/internship students, involved in PPI activities and public engagement projects.

Since August 2022, she has been working in the BAY Trial which was funded by NIHR HTA programme for 45 months.

Gokce’s research interests are child and youth mental health, parenting and parent training, and evaluation studies. She is particularly interested in learning mental health needs of under-represented groups and their experiences.

Chartered Member of British Psychological Society