Keynote Speakers

The International Youth Mental Health Conference is delighted to announce the following keynote speakers.

Professor Max Birchwood
Clinical Director, YouthSpace
Professor of Mental Health, University of Birmingham
Birmingham, United Kingdom

Dr Christine Bennett
Chief Medical Officer, BUPA Australia
Sydney, Australia

Professor Jane Costello
Dukes Institute for Brain Sciences,
North Carolina, USA

Mr Richard Eckersley
Founding Director, Australia 21
Visiting Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia

Professor Bob Illback
Director of Planning & Evaluation, Headstrong
Dublin, Ireland

Professor Patrick McGorry
MD, PhD, FRCP, FRANZCP
Australian of the Year 2010
Professor of Youth Mental Health University of Melbourne
Executive Director Orygen Youth Health
Victoria, Australia

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Professor Max Birchwood
Clinical Director, YouthSpace
Professor of Mental Health, University of Birmingham
Birmingham, United Kingdom

Max Birchwood is Clinical Director of ‘YouthSpace’, Youth Mental Health services in Birmingham, UK and Professor of Mental Health at the University of Birmingham. He has published over 200 articles, chapters and books and current grant income exceeds £4M. He is a founding member of IRIS and established the first early intervention service in the UK and developed some of its conceptual basis, including the critical period concept and the role of affect in the development and early phase of psychosis. He is one of the leading pioneers of the application of CBT to psychosis and developed the cognitive model of ‘voices’; he is PI of the UK MRC COMMAND trial applying CBT to reduce compliance with commanding hallucinations.

Dr Christine Bennett
Chief Medical Officer, BUPA Australia
Sydney, Australia

Dr Christine Bennett was appointed as Chief Medical Officer of Bupa Australia in June 2008. From January 2010 Dr Bennett’s role has been expanded to offer strategic advice on clinical governance and health policy as Director of Healthcare Leadership for Bupa International Markets. Prior to that she was MBF’s Group Executive, Health and Financial Solutions and Chief Medical Officer since 1 May 2006.

Dr Bennett has over 25 years of health industry experience in clinical care, strategic planning and senior management. Prior to joining MBF Dr Bennett was the CEO of Research Australia and she has held chief executive positions in public, private and social enterprises including Chief Executive at Westmead – Australia’s largest teaching hospital.

Dr Bennett also has experience as a commercial consultant and advisor in health and biotech industries for KPMG Australia, is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and on the board of HeartWare, a publicly listed medical device company.

Dr Bennett has an active commitment to and involvement in medical professional issues, social policy and medical research.

In February 2008, Dr Bennett was appointed by the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to be Chair of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission that has provided advice to governments on a long term blue print for the future of the Australian health system. The report was presented to the Government in June 2009.

Professor Jane Costello
Dukes Institute for Brain Sciences,
North Carolina, USA

Elizabeth Jane Costello is a developmental epidemiologist whose work takes as its focus the integration of developmental science and psychiatric epidemiology, with the goal of understanding and preventing mental illness.

Dr. Costello was educated at Oxford and the London School of Economics, with postdoctoral training in psychiatric epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently a Professor of Medical Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University in North Carolina. She is the Principal Investigator of the Great Smoky Mountains Study, a longitudinal study of the development of psychiatric and substance abuse disorders and access to mental health care in a representative sample of 1400 children and adolescents living in the southeastern United States.

Dr. Costello is editor-in-chief of Frontiers in Child and Neurodevelopmental Psychiatry. In 2009 NARSAD awarded her (jointly with her husband, Adrian Angold) the Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Research.

Mr Richard Eckersley
Founding Director, Australia 21
Visiting Fellow, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health
Australian National University, Canberra

Richard Eckersley is a founding director of Australia 21, an independent, non-profit research company, and a visiting fellow at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, Canberra. His research explores progress and wellbeing, and includes: measures of national progress; the relationships between economic growth, quality of life and sustainability; the social and cultural determinants of health and happiness; visions of the future; and young people and their world.

His work has been published in leading international scientific journals and major Australian newspapers, and has been brought together in a book, ‘Well & Good’ (Text, 2004, 2005). He has also edited and contributed to three other books: ‘The Social Origins of Health and Wellbeing’ (Cambridge, 2001), ‘Measuring Progress: Is Life Getting Better?’ (CSIRO, 1998) and ‘Challenge to Change: Australia in 2020’ (CSIRO, 1995).

Richard is a co-author of a national index of subjective wellbeing, the first of its kind in the world, and of the Australian Wellbeing Manifesto. He has served on many boards, committees and advisory groups, including the ACT Community Inclusion Board and the board of Families Australia. He trained as a zoologist and has worked as a science journalist, policy and issue analyst, and futurist. He has held senior positions with CSIRO, the Commission for the Future and the Australian Government.

Professor Bob Illback
Director of Planning & Evaluation, Headstrong
Dublin, Ireland

Robert J. Illback, PsyD has served as Director of Planning and Evaluation Research at Headstrong – The National Centre for Youth Mental Health (Ireland) from its inception in 2007. For the previous 25+ years, he served as President and Senior Evaluation Researcher at REACH of Louisville, and Professor of Psychology at Spalding University in Kentucky (USA).

Prof. Illback is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science (APS), and the American Association of Applied and Preventive Psychology (AAAPP). In 1990, he was named the inaugural recipient of the Donald R. Peterson Prize in recognition of career contributions in professional psychology.

In addition to numerous journal articles related to children and youth, he has co-edited several books, including Integrated Services for Children and Families: Opportunities for Psychological Practice (APA Books, 1997) and Emerging School-Based Approaches for Children with Emotional and Behavioral Problems: Research and Practice in Service Integration (Haworth Press, 1996). He also has served as principal investigator for a number of large-scale mental health systems of care change initiatives in the United States. His professional and research interests include systems of care in youth mental health, school-based and school-linked integrated service programs, community-based intervention, program planning and evaluation, and planned organizational change.

Professor Patrick McGorry
MD, PhD, FRCP, FRANZCP
Australian of the Year 2010
Professor of Youth Mental Health University of Melbourne
Executive Director Orygen Youth Health Research Centre

Patrick D. McGorry is Executive Director of Orygen Youth Health Research Centre (OYHRC), Professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and founding board member of headspace, National Youth Mental Health Foundation. He is a world-leading researcher in the area of early psychosis and youth mental health, and has played an integral role in the development of effective treatments for young people with emerging mental disorders, notably psychotic and severe mood disorders.

Orygen Youth Health (OYH) is Australia’s largest youth mental health organisation, based in Parkville, Victoria. It comprises a world-renown research centre and a clinical service targeting the needs of young people with emerging serious mental illness. Orygen Youth Health’s early psychosis service, (EPPIC), was founded by Professor McGorry in 1992, and has been hugely influential internationally.

Prof McGorry has published over 300 papers and book chapters, edited five books, and serves as Editor-in-Chief of Early Intervention in Psychiatry. Prof McGorry has also played a major role in mental health reform in Australia as a key adviser to the Because mental health matters: Victorian Mental Health Reform Strategy 2009-19. More recently he has been invited to attend the US/Canada Policy think tank on youth mental health.

With an emphasis on early intervention and a commitment to educating the community to the early signs of mental illness, Prof McGorry’s extraordinary 27-year contribution has transformed the lives of tens of thousands of young people with emerging serious mental illness, the world over.

International Youth Mental Health Conference – July 29-30 2010, Melbourne Australia