Karen Hazell-Raine is undertaking roles as Associate Professor Nursing and Associate Dean of Research and Research Training with the Faculty of Health. Karen is by training a Registered Nurse with graduate accomplishments in applied psychology, specialist mental health and has widened her practice in accordance with the transdisciplinary nature of healthcare systems. Her career is founded on extensive training and practice in process-oriented group psychotherapy, and subsequently integrative and dyadic (parent-infant) psychotherapies and counselling. She is an infant mental health specialist and has engaged in formal study of attachment theory and related assessment measures. Personality is central to Karen’s work in terms of human development, mental health and parenting in the context of the emotional quality of early relational experiences. In the spirit of simultaneously optimising both maternal and child mental health, her clinical practice, research, teaching and service development centre on maintaining a focus on mothers, their unborn children, infants and their relational environment.

Karen has near 40 years of real-world lifespan mental healthcare experience equipping her with a high level of mental health education and research translation capability. Her experience spans interdisciplinary clinical and strategic leadership and business administration, service development, education, quality improvement, Policy, advanced practice in specialist perinatal-infant mental healthcare, violence abuse and neglect services, and the dynamic maturational model of attachment and adaptation. Karen is an authorised trainer and maintains research capability in observational adult-infant and adult-toddler relationship methods.

Karen’s Doctoral research demonstrated proof of concept, that an antenatal measure of maternal personality is a stronger predictor of postnatal mother-infant relational quality than both antenatal and postpartum (perinatal) depressive symptoms.

Karen was the inaugural recipient of the Elaine Tolley Medal for mental health research, Westmead Medical Research Foundation.

As a longterm member of the World Association of Infant Mental Health and Australian Association of Infant Mental Health (AAIMH), Karen was foundation President of the Northern Territory Branch AAIMH.

Karen is registered to supervise higher degree research.

Research interests

• Mental health
• Antenatal detection of postnatal mother-infant relationship quality
• Perinatal/parental infant and child mental health (0-5 years)
• Early identification and intervention for maternal/parental and infant/child mental health challenges
• Perinatal/parental and child mental health in priority populations
• Observational adult-child (<5 years) relationship measures