Scientific Committee – Rethinking

Dr. Brigita Baks is a psychiatrist and psychoanalytical therapist based in Vilnius, Lithuania. She has been working in the field of eating disorders since 1999 and is founder and director of the Center for Eating Disorders at the Vilnius Mental Health Center. She is a supervisor of residents at the psychiatric university clinic of Vilnius University, and supervisor of psychoanalytic psychotherapy studies at the Kaunas Society for the Studies of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy and the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences. She is a member of both the Lithuanian Psychiatric Association and the Lithuanian Association of Psychoanalysis.

PG Diploma in Counselling, MIMH – Pune.
M.A. Psycology, University of Pune.

Dr. Mahesan Ganesan is currently a Consultant Psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health, Angoda, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He was registered as a consultant psychiatrist in 1995.

Prior to his work at the mental Hospital, he worked extensively in the conflict and tsunami affected district of Batticaloa, in Eastern Sri Lanka where he was instrumental in developing a community mental health service model. He spent over 9 years working in Batticaloa. He was responsible for providing services for over 1.4 million people as the only psychiatrist. There were hardly any services as there has not been any psychiatrist in this region for over 20 years. He helped develop a model with minimum resources that has now been implemented. It includes small acute inpatient care units in hospitals; many out reach follow-up clinics, and community work. He was instrumental in developing the concept of GBV desk in Batticaloa district in 2005 and helped to establish similar services in five other hospitals in the Northeast of the country.

The program also focuses on child protection, drug and alcohol abuse, psychosocial activities, developing services for the learning disabled children (intellectual disability) and more.

He also serves as a Board Member of Samutthana, Centre for Human Rights and Development, Survivors Associated and Global Initiative in Psychiatry (FGIP) Good practice group, and patron of Ampara special needs network.

Shehan Williams is Professor in Psychiatry at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Kelaniya, in Ragama, Sri Lanka. He did his post-graduate training at the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, and was trained in Psychiatry in the Professorial Psychiatry Unit, Warneford Hospital, University of Oxford and the Oxford Deanery Rotation in the United Kingdom. He is currently President of SAARC Psychiatric Federation. He is also Consultant to the Office of National Unity and Reconciliation, Presidential Secretariat, Sri Lanka and Honorary Executive Director, Lanka Alzheimer’s Foundation.

Head of the committee

What does “Caring for carers” mean to you?

– To me Caring for Carers means the understanding that when helping a person with mental health problems it is equally important to take care of the needs of those who carry the often heavy burden of providing a supportive and understanding environment, which enables the person to remain part of his or her social environment – an essential precondition for a successful process of recovery.

About Robert van Voren

Robert is Chief Executive of the international foundation ‘Human Rights in Mental Health-FGIP’, an international foundation for mental health reform. He is also Executive Director of the Andrei Sakharov Research Center for Democratic Development and Professor at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania. He is an Honorary Fellow of the British Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Honorary Member of the Ukrainian Psychiatric Association, Knight of Orange Nassau (NL) and of Duke Gediminas (LT), and was awarded the Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health in 2022.

What does “Caring for carers” mean to you?

– Everyone experiences emotional distress from time to time as a reaction to personal live events and social circumstances; mental health is therefore relevant to everyone. We are all in the same boat.

About Rob Keukens

Extensive experience in mental health care, particularly at the intersection of education and social psychiatry. Involved with the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry since 1992 and, in that capacity, active in reform projects in more than twenty countries. In recent years, the focus has been primarily on Ukraine. Currently working as a Content Advisor at GGZ Ecademy, a Dutch non-profit partnership of educational institutions and mental health organizations. GGZ Ecademy develops e-learning courses for mental health professionals and students (in collaboration with people with lived experience).

I did my Ph.D. in Health Service and Population Research at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London. In 2015, I established the Department of Public Mental Health at the National Institute of Mental Health, Czech Republic (NIMH CZ), and I had been leading the department until June 2021 when I was appointed as a director of NIMH CZ. As of February 2021, we also achieved a designation as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Mental Health Service Research and Development, and I became a director of this WHO CC. In the recent decade, I have been involved in the development and implementation of the mental health care reform in the Czech Republic; and I have been leading three nation-wide projects on de-stigmatization, early interventions in psychosis, and system for evidence based mental health care development. I co-authored both, National Mental Health Action Plan 2030 and National Suicide Prevention Plan of the Czech Republic. My research and practice is very much focused on improving mental health care in the region of central and eastern Europe. I am also serving as a Lancet Commissioner for Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination (commission due in 2022). I was awarded European Psychiatric Association research prize for the best paper published in 2016.

Vanessa Cameron is currently the Chair of the Federation on Global Psychiatry (FGIP) having previously been the Secretary. She works as a consultant to the World Psychiatric Association. She was previously the Chief Executive of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a post she held for over 30 years. She was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours in 2013 for services to psychiatry and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Her particular interests are in the public perception of psychiatry, the eradication of stigma in psychiatry, equality issues and organizational change.

What is the main message of your contribution to this conference?

– Human rights are essential to state-of-the-art mental health services AND their positive impact is utterly underestimated.

About Marianne Schulze

Dr. Marianne Schulze, LL.M., is an Australian-Austrian human rights expert and a Member of the Board of the Federation Global Initiative on Psychiatry. She studied law at the University of Sydney, Australia, the University of Vienna, Austria and international human rights at the University of Notre Dame, USA.
She was a co-negotiator of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities for a NGO consortium. Her publications include the e-book “Understanding the CRPD, A Handbook on the Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities,” available in English, French, Chinese and Arabic. With Professor Maya Sabatello she co-edited “Human Rights and Disability Advocacy” (UPenn) a negotiation account by self-advocates. A member emerita of the Advisory Panel of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency Platform, she currently chairs the Board of Salzburg University.

I am a psychiatrist, now retired from clinical practice as a Consultant at the Maudsley Hospital in London, who has had major interests in the past in eating disorders, carers of patients with a psychosis, and health services research. My research now concerns methods of reducing compulsion and ’coercion’ in psychiatric care, for example, through the use of ’advance statements’ or ‘joint crisis plans’. This is related to my interest is mental health law, which I argue discriminates against people with a mental illness. I propose generic legislation covering all persons, whether they have a ‘mental’ or ‘physical’ disorder who have a difficulty in making a treatment choice which has serious consequences. I am interested in the implications of recent human rights treaties, for example, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, for such law.

My past posts have included Dean of the Institute of Psychiatry (2001-2006), and Medical Director of the Bethlem and Maudsley NHS Trust (1997-1999) then joint Medical Director of the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (1999-2001). I was a Visiting Professor in the Department of Sociology at the London School of Economics (2005-2014). Between 2007-2015 I was an Associate Director of the NIHR Mental Health Research Network, with lead responsibility for Patient and Public Involvement (PPI). A major aim was to increase the involvement in mental health research of service users and carers as partners in the conduct of research, as well as to engage the interest and support of the general public.

Prof. Szmukler is currently the chair of the Special Committee on Human Rights of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, UK.

What is one myth about mental health system that needs to be challenged?

– The belief that professionals and clinicians always know what’s best for people with mental health conditions overlooks the essential role of lived experience in shaping effective, inclusive care. Challenging this myth is about shifting from building systems FOR people with mental health conditions to co-creating systems WITH them. Only collaborative, inclusive systems where professional knowledge and lived experience expertise work together, can mental health care become truly responsive and equitable.

About Charlene Sunkel

Charlene is the CEO of aves Mental Health, which she founded and launched in 2018. With a lived experience, Ms Sunkel is a global advocate for the rights of people with mental health conditions. Her contributions extend to authoring and co-authoring numerous papers from a lived experience perspective for well-regarded international publications. She is Editor-in-Chief at PLOS Mental Health. Ms Sunkel’s has served as a Commissioner on the Lancet Commission on Global Mental Health and Sustainable Development, and on the Lancet Commission on the Future of Psychiatry. She Co-Chaired the Lancet Commission on Ending Stigma and Discrimination in Mental Health. Ms. Sunkel lends her expertise to various international boards and committees. Previously, she contributed her insights as a member of the South African Presidential Working Group on Disability and the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health. She served as a former Principal Coordinator for the Movement for Global Mental Health. Ms. Sunkel have been recognised through national and international awards, including Inseta Women’s Award, Tributes Award for Human Rights, Jim Birley Scholarship, Swiss Foundation/ WHO Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Mental Health, the Pardes Humanitarian Prize in Mental Health, WPA Presidential Commendation, AMHROA Mental Health Advocacy and Humanitarian Award.