New Zealand's mental health legislation is out of step with New Zealand's commitments to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This webinar will be presented by Associate Professors Sarah Gordon (Lived Experience Academic) and Giles Newton-Howe (Psychiatrist) and will cover their legal challenge to our current legislation, and the implications of that challenge for reform of our legislation.
Associate Professor at University of Otago, Christchurch
Sarah's personal experience of mental illness shaped her university study with the areas of psychology, medical law, bioethics, and psychological medicine being the focus through to PhD level. Combining this theoretical education and personal experience, Sarah has spent the last 20 years working and advocating for an improved mental health sector and societal perceptions of mental health from the perspective of a person who personally experiences mental illness.
Her recent research has focused on two themes: reducing discrimination associated with mental illness among medical students and the Police, and promoting recovery-focused services and resources – in line with the recent major reorientation of service delivery models in mental health in New Zealand and internationally.
As a service user academic, she has done this through service user-led and co-produced research that involves meaningful service user involvement in all conceptual and developmental stages of the process, which has also been another research focus.
Sarah has promoted the growth of the service user academia discipline in various ways and now has the support of four others who make up New Zealand's only service user academia team at the University of Otago, Wellington.
Associate Professor at University of Otago, Christchurch
Giles trained in psychiatry at Imperial College in London, undertaking five years of clinical work in the Hawke's Bay before accepting a role in the Department of Psychological Medicine. He is a general adult consultant psychiatrist with a sub-specialty in substance misuse psychiatry. His research interests include the clinical understanding of personality disorders, particularly as they relate to psychiatric patients and mental state disorder. He is also interested in the interface between psychiatry and society, particularly the application of coercive practices.
He is a member of the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders and the Australasian Society for Psychiatric Research. He is one of the systematic reviews editors of the British Journal of Psychiatry and sits on the board of the British Journal of Psychiatry and The Psychiatrist.
At the University he is responsible for the sixth year program in psychological medicine in Wellington. He is an accredited examiner for the RANZCP and works as a consultant psychiatrist for CCDHB in the Regional Personality Disorder Service.
