Directors
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Dr Prosper Yawo Abusah (Director)
Prosper Yawo Abusah was born at Anloga in the Volta Region of Ghana. He was educated at Achimota School. After Six Form, he proceeded to the then Yugoslavia to study Medicine. After obtaining his MD degree, he went to the UK to specialise in Psychiatry. He held various positions in hospitals across the UK.
Dr Abusah obtained DPM (London) in 1976 and MRCPsych in 1977. He worked as a Senior Registrar and Clinical Tutor at the University of Leicester from 1978 to 1982.
From 1982 to 1986, Dr Abusah was a Lecturer and Consultant Psychiatrist at the University of Jos in the Plateau State of Nigeria. From 1986 to 1989, Dr Abusah was a Consultant Psychiatrist in Papua New Guinea and a Lecturer at the University of Papua New Guinea.
From 1989 to 1992, Dr Abusah worked for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and was based at the Fiji School of Medicine as the Head of Department of Psychiatry and Senior Clinical Tutor.
From 1993 to present, Dr Abusah has been working with Central Australian Mental Health Services as Senior Consultant Psychiatrist and Honorary Lecturer at the Flinders Medical School of Flinders University. He is based at Alice Springs Hospital.
In 1994, Dr Abusah was awarded FRCPsych (UK) and in 1996 he obtained FRANZCP. Dr Abusah has publications on suicide and transcultural psychiatry to his name.
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Helen Walters (Director)
Helen Walters qualified as a Mental Health Nurse in the United Kingdom and shortly thereafter came to Australia. She converted her original certificate qualification into a Bachelor Degree and went on to do her Postgraduate Diploma in psychiatric nursing and Master’s Degree in Health Science. Helen has filled a number of clinical, educational and managerial roles during her career, working mainly in the public Adult Mental Health Sector; she has also worked at the Department of Health, Victoria. Currently Helen works as a Member of the Mental Health Tribunal in the state of Victoria, Australia. She also has a private consultancy practice.
Helen’s research for her Master’s thesis was titled “Working with newly recruited overseas qualified nurses from South Asia integrating with the Australian psychiatric nursing system” and she continues to have a vested interest in supporting overseas nurses, particularly from the developing world, to achieve the best possible clients outcomes and nursing experience.
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Samuel Awuley Doku (Director)
Samuel was born and raised in Prampram. He attained his primary education at Prampram Anglican School, and later went to Half-Assini Secondary School in the Western Region of Ghana. He worked as a Clerical Officer at the Ministry of Finance (Budget Division) Ghana from 1972 – 1974 and then went to the UK to undertake nurse training.
Samuel qualified as registered mental nurse in 1977 and practised in the National Health Service (NHS) until 1983. He left the NHS to work in local government and trained as a social worker. In 1988 he qualified as a social worker and worked in a residential social work within a local government social services department. In 1991 he left residential social work and moved to the Joint Health and Social Service Inspection Unit (South Tyneside Metropolitan Council) as an Inspection Officer and subsequently became the Head of Joint Health and Social Service Inspection Unit for a local authority, managing inspections, registration and complaints activities of the local health authority and local authority social services department.
In April 2002 all local authority inspection units in England were transferred to the newly established government regulatory body called the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC). Within the NCSC, Samuel was a Compliance Inspector. The NCSC later became Commission for Social Care Inspections and now the Care Quality Commission (CQC). As a Compliance Inspector with CQC, his duties include regulation of health and social care provisions in England.
Samuel has a BA degree in Social Science, MA in Social Policy and post graduate Diploma in Management Studies
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Alfred Philip Mayuka (Director)
BA, LL.B, LL.M – Grad Dip in Industrial Relations
Alfred worked in his own practice as a Barrister and Solicitor.
Alfred have 20 yrs administrative experience as a manager in companies controlled by the International Conglomerate , Lonrho in Zambia. He has worked as a senior state advocate for Attorney General’s chambers in Zambia. He worked for Victoria Legal Aid before setting out my own practice. Alfred has previously served on the board of NEAMI from 2003 to 2010. NEAMI is a non-government mental health organisation that provides rehabilitation and recovery support to people with a serious mental illness who requires assistance in areas of skill development, social contact and housing.
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Associate Professor Christopher Kewley (International Advisory Director)
Chris holds an Associate Professorial position with the Faculty of Health at The University of Newcastle New South Wales Australia and also holds an Adjunct Associate Professorial position with the University of New England in New South Wales. His extensive experience spans 33 years as a mental health clinician, educator and health service executive. This experience has been gained in the UK, South East Asia and Australia and has included integrated primary mental health care, acute inpatient, tertiary, forensic and child and adolescent inpatient services. Chris worked for 10 years for the Australian Council on Health Care Standards (ACHS International) and was responsible for evaluating the standard of mental health care within health facilities, integrated care networks, forensic and prison services across Australia against international standards.
Chris’ research interests are in the area of cross-cultural psychiatry, ethno-psychology, trans-migratory groups, stigma, discrimination, social rejection and citizenship. Chris is currently researching “To what degree do lay-beliefs influence attribution of mental illness and health seeking behaviour of African refugee communities in Australia”. This major research will be facilitated within refugee communities from the Republic of Sudan, Republic of Burundi, Federal Republic of Somalia, Republic of Ethiopia, Islamic Republic of Mauritania, and the Federal Republic of the Congo.
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Professor Anne Buist, MBBS,MMed,MD,FRANZCP, International Advisor (Women’s Mental Health)
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Is the Professor of Women’s Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, Austin Health and Northpark private hospital. Over the last 25 years devoted herself to the clinical care and research of women with perinatal mental illness. She was responsible for two inpatient mother-baby units, with day programs and outpatient care covering women in North East Victoria (approx 20,000 births/per year). She ran a registrar training program in women’s mental health, which includes mother-infant relationships and the introduction of innovative interventions to improve child outcomes.
Professor Buist received a four million dollar grant and led the beyond blue postnatal depression program 2001-5, screening over 40,000 women across Australia including the outback, CALD and indigenous women. The aim of this project was to demonstrate acceptability and feasibility of routine screening in order to improve mental health care for all mothers and through doing so improve their long term mental health and reduce the risk of their children having educational, developmental and emotional delays and their own mental health issues as adults; recommendations from this study have been accepted by the Federal government and are being implemented across Australia.
Other research has included the history of child abuse and perinatal depression, drugs in breastmilk, antenatal prevention, a cost analysis of perinatal depression, a qualitative study of why women delay seeking help and video feedback in the mother-infant relationship; all these projects had direct implications for clinical care as well as assisting in advising government and health services how to best ensure good outcomes. Other roles have included expert advice to the Victorian review of infanticide laws, chairing a subcommittee of the Victorian child death review committee, member of the Ministerial advisory committee on Women’s Health, currently on the National review of antenatal guidelines and past president of the Australasian Marce (perinatal) committee for which she is presenting the Marce Medal lecture in October 2015.
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