MISRA Symposium 2023

2023 MISRA Symposium

The inaugural MISRA meeting was held online on Monday, April 3rd and Tuesday, April 4th, 2023. The symposium featured a rich program showcasing the wonderful work addressing stigma and discrimination about mental ill-health being undertaken by stigma researchers from across Australia.

We are delighted to share presentations from MISRA's inaugural symposium below. You can also click here to download a PDF version of the program.

Day 1 Program

Meeting Welcome and Opening

Acknowledgement of Country and welcome to MISRA Symposium 2023.

Dr Chris Groot – Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne.

Keynote Address: Navigating complexity in addressing stigma and discrimination.

Dr Michelle Blanchard – National Mental Health Commission

Dr Michelle Blanchard is Executive Director – Strategic Projects at the National Mental Health Commission, leading the development of the National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy. Prior to joining the Commission, Michelle was Deputy CEO at SANE Australia and the Founding Director of SANE’s Anne Deveson Research Centre, which partners with people affected by complex mental health issues, trauma and distress to catalyse social change.

Michelle is also an Honorary Senior Fellow at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

Prior to joining SANE in 2017, Michelle held senior roles at the Butterfly Foundation for Eating Disorders and the Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre. She was also an Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for Youth Mental Health, University of Melbourne.

In addition to holding academic qualifications in psychology, political science, adolescent health and welfare and leadership and management, Michelle has a PhD in Youth Mental Health.

Session 1: Media-based interventions to reduce stigma towards people with complex mental ill-health.

Tackling stigma in the news: New Australian guidelines and education intervention for media reporting on mental illness and crime.

Dr Anna Ross – Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.

Anna is a Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, where her research focuses on addressing media-based stigma towards people with complex mental illness. Anna recently completed her PhD within the Centre for Mental Health, where she led the development of media guidelines to improve the quality of news portrayals of people with complex mental illness. She is currently leading a collaboration with SANE to evaluate their programs to address stigma in the media. Anna is also coordinating a cluster randomized controlled trial of Mental Health First Aid in Men’s Sheds across Australia. Outside of research, Anna is a subject co-coordinator in the Master of Public Health and is co-convener for the Mental Ill-Health Stigma Researchers Australia (MISRA) symposium.

Stigmatizing and Mitigating Elements of a TV News Report on Violent Crime and Severe Mental Illness: An Experiment.

Dr Amy Morgan – Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

Amy is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, the University of Melbourne. She leads a program of work in population mental health, focusing on developing and evaluating interventions to improve mental health literacy, reduce stigma, and prevent anxiety, depression and suicide. She has undertaken consultancy work for the Commonwealth Department of Health and National Mental Health Commission to inform Australian policy on stigma reduction. She is also a member of the National Mental Health Commission’s Public Stigma Technical Advisory Group for the National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy.

The Wavelengths Study: a randomised controlled trial evaluating a new podcast exploring how stigma affects people living with complex mental health issues.

Elise Carrotte, PhD Candidate – Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne

Elise Carrotte is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. She is a psychologist and researcher, and works at mental health organisation SANE in the Clinical Governance team. She has a decade's experience across both public health and mental health research. Her PhD involves exploring novel interventions using digital media and co-design methods to reduce stigma against people living with complex mental health issues in Australia.

Session 2: Stigma towards people with specific mental health conditions.

Suicide stigma in a community-based sample of Australian adolescents.

Professor Alison Calear – Centre for Mental Health Research, The Australian National University

Professor Alison Calear holds a PhD in Psychology and is the Co-Head of the Centre for Mental Health Research, at the Australian National University. She is a NHMRC Emerging Leadership-II Fellow and leads research in youth mental health, eHealth, and the prevention and early intervention of anxiety, depression and suicide. Prof Calear also has a keen interest in the promotion of help-seeking behaviour for mental health problems and suicide risk, with a particular focus on the effects of stigma, literacy, self-reliance and social networks.

Prolonged grief stigma in the COVID-19 pandemic: A vignette-based experiment.

Tamara Zammit – Curtin University

Tamara Zammit is currently completing a Master of Research (Psychology) at Curtin University. This research comprises two projects that investigated public stigma reported towards COVID-19 bereaved individuals with prolonged grief to improve understanding of public stigma and its negative effect on the bereaved. The first project is titled: ‘Public stigma toward prolonged grief and COVID-19 bereavement: A vignette-based experiment,’ and has been accepted for publication with Death Studies. Tamara works at the Curtin Specialist Mentoring Program mentoring neurodiverse students with an autism spectrum or related condition and volunteers at Lionheart Camp For Kids supporting bereaved children and families participating in grief support programs.

Attitudes Toward Repugnant Intrusive Thoughts and their Relationship to Obsessive-Compulsive Phenomena.

Tess Jaeger - School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Deakin University

Tess Jaeger is a PhD candidate within the School of Psychology, Deakin University, and a research assistant within the Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Her research, which utilises both quantitative and qualitative methods, focuses on self-beliefs relevant to obsessive-compulsive disorder and comorbid disorders such as eating disorders, disordered eating and weight-loss dieting, and strategies characterising efforts to challenge weight-loss diet culture.

Day 2 Program

Session 3: National studies/setting the scene

Reducing stigma and discrimination towards people with mental illness - community consultations.

Professor Nicola Reavley – Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.

Professor Nicola Reavley is a Principal Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for Mental Health, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health at the University of Melbourne. She also holds a Dame Kate Campbell Fellowship in recognition of research excellence at the University of Melbourne and is the Research Director of SANE Australia’s Anne Deveson Research Collaborative. Her research focuses on the population monitoring and interventions to improve population mental health and mental health literacy and reduce stigma and discrimination.

National survey of mental health-related stigma and discrimination.

Dr Bradley Carron-Arthur – BETA, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Brad is a senior adviser in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Brad leads a research function within the Department to improve the evidence base of priority policy issues. Brad has a background in mental health research, having undertaken a PhD at the Centre for Mental Health Research, ANU.

Stigma and broad concepts of mental ill-health.

Jesse Tse – Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne.

Jesse Tse is a PhD Candidate at the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, the University of Melbourne. Her PhD focuses on the lay concept of mental disorder and explore how that relates to other mental health variables, such as stigma and help-seeking etc.

Self-Stigma in Australians Living with Complex Mental Ill-Health: New Findings from the National Stigma Report Card.

Dr Chris Groot – Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne.

Chris is a Senior Lecturer in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He leads the School’s Mental Ill-Health Stigma and Telehealth Lab, which drives research, teaching, and public engagement programs that focus on stigma about severe and complex experiences of mental ill-health. This work addresses personal and perceived (public) stigma, the lived experience of stigma for those with mental ill-health, and stigma intervention methods. Authentic collaboration with community organisations and individuals with lived experience of severe and complex mental ill-health is a hallmark of his work. Chris has recently produced commissioned reports for the National Mental Health Commission to support the National Stigma and Discrimination Reduction Strategy and is a member of the Strategy’s Measurement Technical Advisory Group.

Session 4: Disclosure and peer support

Disclosure of mental health or suicide concerns at work: A systematic review.

Martina McGrath – Centre for Mental Health.

Martina is completing a PhD at the Centre for Mental Health at the University of Melbourne. Martina’s project seeks to identify factors relating to disclosure of suicidality in workplaces and to understand the role of stigma and discrimination in affecting disclosure. Martina is a co-author of a number of peer-reviewed articles.Having worked in the lived experience workforce since 2015, Martina is a highly experienced lived experience practitioner working in suicide prevention and mental health. In addition to completing her PhD, Martina is currently working as a research assistant at the University of Melbourne and is consulting on projects in mental health, suicide prevention and lived experience workforce development. Martina is a member of the Australian Institute of Suicide Research and Prevention’s Suicidology Industry Advisory Board (Griffith University) and the University of Melbourne School of Population and Global Health’s Graduate Research Training Committee. Martina is also a founding co-chair of the International Association of Suicide Prevention’s LGBTQA+ Special Interest Group and founder of the recently launched UnLonely Hour initiative.

Facing the stigma within: Supporting the sharing of lived experience in the mental health workplace.

Dr Alicia King – La Trobe University

Since qualifying as an occupational therapist in 2001, Alicia has worked in public and private mental health services, and in teaching roles. Most recently, her interest in lived experience as a resource for service development has led her to undertake research capturing service users' experiences of innovative and coproduced services, including peer worker co-facilitation of groups, a Recovery College, and a service to improve young refugees’ access to mental health services. Her doctoral studies explored the sharing of lived experience by staff, in designated Lived Experience and other roles, in two Victorian mental health workplaces. Most recently, she has joined the team of Monash University researchers at Melbourne Sexual Health Clinic (an Alfred Health site), bringing her expertise in qualitative research and interest in improving the accessibility, acceptability and impact of health services. Her research program continues to highlight the impact of stigma on health and wellbeing in our community.

Can contact with peers reduce mental health self-stigma?

Dr Rachel Maunder – Australian College of Applied Professions, Discipline of Psychological Science

Dr Rachel Maunder is a lecturer in the Discipline of Psychological Science and the co-chair of the Early Career Research group of the Australian College of Applied Professions (ACAP). During her PhD at the University of Sydney (2017-2020), her research focused on the use of intergroup contact for reducing public and self-stigma against people with mental illness as well as topics in the broader sphere of intergroup contact and prejudice. For this work, Rachel received the University of Sydney Faculty of Science Postgraduate Research Prize for Outstanding Academic Achievement and the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists’ (SASP) Outstanding Postgraduate Research Award. Now, she is continuing her research into approaches that may be able to reduce public and self-stigma against people with mental illness simultaneously, for which she has already earned the ACAP Research Showcase Award and a small research grant.

Managing the stigma of Mental Illness in the Church: Fresh Hope for Mental Health Eight Weeks Program.

Rev. Dr Inoke Veamatahau – Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne.

Rev. Dr Veamatahau is:

An ordained pastor under the Baptist Union of Victoria, in ministry for 22 years and currently serving in a local church, with specialty in pastoral care.
Doctor of Ministry (DMin) from Fuller Theological Seminary, USA – 2015 “Delivering Pastoral Care Using Online Communication”.
A current PhD research student at the University of Melbourne, School of Population and Global Health, looking at the role of faith-based community participatory approach to health and health promotion.
The unofficial Director of the Fresh Hope for Mental Health, Australia – a Christian Global network that provide faith-community based approach to mental health through peer-support groups, one on one coaching, group learning, training and resources. A serious gap exists between someone receiving medical treatment of emotional and mental health conditions and them learning how-to live-in spite of it. This gap is critical, so Fresh Hope has become the bridge, the guide from the point of diagnosis to living well.

Session 5: Stigma towards people with substance use problems.

Stigma and discrimination surrounding crystal methamphetamine (‘ice’) use in Australia.

Dr Steph Kershaw – Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, University of Sydney.

I am a Research Fellow at the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use, based at the University of Sydney. My research vision is to reduce the impact and harms associated with illicit substance use disorders. My research focuses on epidemiology and development of innovative and effective research translation models in the field of illicit substance use disorders. I have a particular focus on reducing stigma and discrimination and improving health outcomes among disadvantaged groups. I am project lead for Cracks in the Ice, a National Online Portal funded by the Australian Government to develop and disseminate evidence-based information and resources about crystal methamphetamine (‘ice’) in Australia.

Stigma in Relationships for People Living with Co-Occurring Schizophrenia Spectrum and Alcohol and Other Drug Use Disorders.

Beth Hobern – Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne.

Beth Hobern is a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne’s School of Psychological Sciences and works as a researcher in the Mental Ill-Health Stigma and Telehealth Lab. Her PhD explores stigma surrounding co-occurring schizophrenia spectrum and alcohol and other drug use disorders.

Meeting Closing Remarks

Dr Chris Groot – Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Melbourne.