Welcome to our 2025 Summer Short Series! We're back with bitesize episodes showcasing recent work from our team at the Centre for Appearance Research!

In this episode, we are joined by Dr Maia Thornton, Senior Research Fellow at CAR, who tells us about her recent paper entitled: The Visible Difference Parenting Toolkit: development of an ACT-based intervention to improve the well-being of parents and caregivers of children with appearance-affecting conditions and injuries. 

Maia discusses a support intervention for parents of children with visible differences, which she developed during her PhD.

In this episode, we also introduce two new podcast hosts. Dr Kat Schneider and Dr Ella Guest are both Senior Research Fellows at CAR who will be joining the podcast team.

Read Maia's open access paper: https://academic.oup.com/jpepsy/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jpepsy/jsaf054/8205549 

Find out more about the Visible Difference Support Hub https://visibledifferencesupporthub.com/

Cover image by Trevor James
Music by Sian Evans & John Landau: toplinefilm.com
Episode developed and produced by Maia Thornton & Ella Guest
 
 

Summer Short Series: Visible Difference Parenting Toolkit

Welcome back to Appearance Matters: The Podcast! In this month’s episode, Ella speaks to Dr Kerry Montgomery, who is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Appearance Research, about the STAR Project. Kerry’s work explores how people with conditions that affect appearance and that can be passed on to their children make decisions about starting a family.  They talk about research Kerry has carried out with prospective parents who have visible differences and genetic counsellors.  

Please be aware that this episode contains discussion of pregnancy, family planning, and termination, which might be sensitive for some listeners.  

If you’re interested in hearing more about the Centre for Appearance conference, Appearance Matters 11 (9th – 11th of June 2026) click here:  https://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/appearance/news-and-events/am-conference 

Photo by Warren Umoh on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/a-chain-link-fence--qycBqByWIY?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditShareLink

Episode 104: Family planning when you have a heritable visible difference

Appearance Matters: The Podcast! Is the official podcast of the Centre for Appearance Research - a world leading research centre investigating body image and appearance psychology research, based at the University of the West of England in Bristol, UK.

Hosted and produced by Nadia Craddock, Bruna Costa, Maia Thornton, and Abbi Mathews.

New music by: https://toplinefilm.com

New tracks tagged ##VisibleDifference