St Patrick’s Mental Health Services (SPMHS) hosted our 2022 Founder’s Day conference on Friday, 25 November.
Founder’s Day is held to recognise and continue the legacy of our founder, Jonathan Swift, a pioneer in mental healthcare.
Our 2022 Founder’s Day conference explored the theme of prevention and promotion strategies in youth mental health. The conference touched on current research in this area, as well as discussing how prevention and promotion strategies are being, and can be, implemented in an Irish setting.
The conference explored both national and international perspectives. It will be particularly useful for academics, healthcare professionals and clinicians, child and adolescent practitioners, parents and carers.
Speakers and agenda
Professor Patrick McGorry, Professor of Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne and Director of Orygen Youth Health and Orygen Youth Health Research Centre in Victoria, Australia, delivered the keynote address. Professor McGorry is known worldwide for his development and scaling up of early intervention and youth mental health services and for mental health innovation, advocacy and reform.
Minister for Mental Health, Mary Butler TD, delivered the opening address.
Other speakers included:
- Professor Mary Cannon, Professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology and Youth Mental Health in the Department of Psychiatry, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and consultant psychiatrist in Beaumont Hospital Dublin
- Ruth O’Connell, mental health technical expert with UNICEF for the East Asia and Pacific region.
- Professor Alfgeir Kristjansson, Associate Professor at West Virginia University and expert in adolescent health behaviours with attention to substance use prevention and community health promotion
- Professor Margaret Barry, the Established Chair in Health Promotion and Public Health at the National University of Ireland Galway, where she is also Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Health Promotion Research
- Tiernan O’Neill, Moyross Education Support Programme
- Diana Chao, founder of Letters to Strangers, the largest global youth-for-youth mental health nonprofit, impacting over 35,000 people on six continents
- Blezzing Dada, mental health advocate with a focus on intersectionality
- Dr Niall Muldoon, Ombudsman for Children
- Professor Fiona McNicholas, Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Download the conference programme here.
You can learn more about the conference here or watch a recording below.
Look back on past Founder's Day conferences
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