Prof Harold, a psychologist who is director of the University of Otago Centre for Research on Children and Families, has just been appointed an honorary professor of law in the United Kingdom, at the Cardiff University Law School.
This reflects his earlier work in the UK, as well as at Otago since he became the Alexander McMillan Chair and Otago centre director in 2008.
He also holds a personal professorship in the Otago University psychology department.
His Cardiff appointment highlighted the work being done in New Zealand, across disciplinary boundaries, including in family law and mental health research, to promote children's wellbeing during parental separation and divorce, he said.
New Zealand was already "well ahead internationally" in its recognition of the need to work across such boundaries and was developing initiatives to protect "children's psychological welfare and wellbeing" during parental separation.
He will contribute to research activities at Cardiff Law School relating to initiatives being developed in the UK and New Zealand, involving the family justice system and aiming to improve outcomes for children.
He maintains contact with research colleagues in the UK each day by videoconference and email, and short visits will also be made each year between Otago and Cardiff, to pursue common research objectives.
Prof Harold, who came to Otago from the Cardiff psychology department, was surprised and "very, very flattered" by the new appointment.
It was "quite rare" for a psychologist to be appointed to a law school.
It also signalled a strategic change within the British family justice system, with increasing recognition that the Family Court might need to take more of a mental health approach to complement its legal focus in dealing with the effects of family breakdown on parents and children, he said.
• In a recent conference address, New Zealand Principal Family Court Judge Peter Boshier said 43% of divorces in New Zealand in 2008 had involved children - 7600 of them in total.
The country did not want for its future "children who are increasingly abused and neglected".
Judge Boshier was also "enormously grateful" to the centre and Prof Harold for preparing a briefing paper, incorporating evidence-based research, to be considered in preparing his address.
