Cath Darling

Assistant Professor (Practice)

School: Communities and Education

Cath is a highly experienced Occupational Therapist with special interests in compassionate care, loss, and childhood bereavement. As well as delivering across all OT programes at Northumbria, Cath works clinically, providing specialist bereavement support to adults and children in connection with nature. She helps people adjust to life after loss and feels passionately about promoting involvement and amplifying disenfranchised voices.

Since qualifying in 2003, Cath has also forged a specialism in occupationa-focussed Aquatic Therapy. She describes this as 'facilitating independence and emotional wellbeing via the aquatic environment' and has practised in water for over 20 years.

Cath is interested in engaging with the natural world in her practice - utilising both water and woodland, to optimise the therapeutic environment.

Email Cath

Research Themes and Scholarly Interests

Cath's research interests include loss experiences of children in care, the impact of the natural world on grief processing, disenfranchised grief experiences of carers, amplifying the voices of seriously ill children and young people, and emerging and innovative occupational therapy practices.

Key Publications

Please visit the Pure Research Information Portal for further information
Empowering Older Persons Through Creative Engagement: A Feasibility Study of ‘The House of Evergreen Arts’ Among Chinese Community Members in Newcastle, England, Evans, L., Darling, C., Lee, P., Tsang, L., Luddington, S., Lai, F. 27 Jan 2026, In: Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology
Acceptability and Feasibility in Using Gamified Mobile Application for Working Memory Training in Older Adults, Lai, F., Yip, B., Hai, E., Darling, C., Man, D. 18 Sep 2025, In: Health and Social Care in the Community
Acceptability and Feasibility in Using Gamified Mobile Application for Working Memory Training in Older Adults, Lai, F., Yip, B., Hai, E., Darling, C., Man, D. Dec 2025, In: Alzheimer's and Dementia
Cognition in Virtual Reality: Assessing User Acceptability and Feasibility of Virtual Reality Cognitive Screening for Older Adults, Lai, F., Yee, B., Wang, E., Butler, J., Graham, A., Hai, E., Darling, C., Whittington, S., Lowe, J. Dec 2025, In: Alzheimer's and Dementia

Qualifications

MSc June 23 2003