🎉 10 Years 🎉

Ten years – we have reached a beautiful mountaintop.

Our Scientific Advisor, Dr Chris Archer, celebrates with us!

Meeting for Minds path has been so rich. We are stunned and are stopping to reflect, be thankful and ask "what's next"?


A cornerstone of our future is engaging with world renowned researchers like
Professor Assen Jablensky, world leader in schizophrenia research. Please read
Susie and Keith’s words below, about this remarkable man’s work.


We will be celebrating to thank our community and to explore future vision for the
next ten years. My personal engagement has given us the freedom to create exactly
what we felt was needed, giving SYNERGIES a solid start. Our mission is to bring
the hard work of so many passionate researchers to light while also illuminating the
contribution that people with lived experience can make to the research world. This
contact, sharing experience and collaboration breaks down the stigma, especially
self-stigma -inspiring curiosity and creating a community of hope.


Research tells us that hope is the key to overcoming loneliness and despair. As a
concrete example, by fostering hope we can achieve real results, like reducing the
risk of suicide which remains a critical concern for young people aged 15 to 29.

 

I am looking forward to welcoming those of you who are in Perth, WA on the 10 th of
October World Mental Health Day to celebrate with us, see the view from the
mountaintop and grow the hope.

 

Maria Halphen,

Founder and Director

Join us in celebrating a decade of Meeting for Minds

A cocktail friend-raiser where we fundraise for the next 10 years. 

Hear from our Key Note Speakers &

maybe leave with one of our Auction Items!

Other items raffled on the night and all donations greatfully received
 
 

Vale Professor Assen Jablensky

Professor Assen Jablensky worked for over a decade at the WHO Division of Mental Health in Geneva, leading cross-cultural studies on schizophrenia and depression, including the WHO Ten-Country Study on Schizophrenia, and contributed to the ICD-10 framework. 

"I was privileged to have worked with Assen Jablensky at the Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, and to have had the benefit of his extraordinary intelligence and humanity. He inspired the advocate in me. Assen knew there was so much more to a person than their mental illness, and he recognised and encouraged their potential. I feel he embodied all that is great about being human."

         -  Signed Susie Hincks, Co-founder Meeting for Minds

Susie Hincks chats with Prof Assen Jablensky

"He has been hailed as a giant intellect, a reflective and brilliant researcher and an inspiring mentor. We owe him a great debt. Assen liked to quote Wittgenstein “ Psychiatric classification is like describing the shape of clouds” 

         -  Signed Keith Wilson, Director Meeting for Minds 

 

"It was a great privilege to work with Assen and his team at the CCRN from 2012 until he retired in 2020. As a mentor, I am particularly grateful for the confidence that Assen showed in me, and the opportunities he afforded me, as well as for the wealth of knowledge that he shared. Following Assen’s retirement, I eventually became the data custodian of the Western Australian Family Study of Schizophrenia. In developing my own program of research, I am aware of how Assen’s influence has shaped my approach. Especially he imparted how diverse mental health disorders are, which has led to my own research interest in the biological basis of subtypes of mental health disorders.

 

He often quoted the opening of Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." The WAFSS dataset remains a contributor to many international consortia aiming at discovering the biological basis of psychiatric disorders, such as the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium (PGC) and Genetics of Language (GenLANG)."

         -  Signed Dr Nina McCarthy, School of Biomedical Sciences UWA.

SYNERGIES

SYNERGIES is currently working in Western Australia and Switzerland.

Visit SYNERGIES for further information on our projects. See a film here.

Welcoming Paisley Madison, our New SYNERGIES Coordinator in Australia.

Paisley is a passionate advocate for wellbeing with 10 years' experience as a healthcare and non-profit facilitator.

 

Since joining our organisation in 2021, she has co-founded "20Peace" (our weekly community stillness sessions) and serves as a non-executive direction of Meeting for Minds. 

Reconnecting with PLEX in Lausanne, Switzerland

Since June, we have had the pleasure of gathering monthly with past PLEX participants—Jacqueline, Fernando, and Hasna—at Café de Grancy in Lausanne.

 

These informal meetups provide a relaxed space to discuss the latest M4M updates and exchange valuable observations and suggestions, that help shape our future events and programs.

Open to all, these gatherings aim to inspire others to join SYNERGIES and become part of our collaborative community. If you would like to participate in these gatherings, contact us via our social media channels or via email at: mathilde@meetingforminds.com.
 

GET INVOLVED!

Please consider how you can contribute with time, funding, ideas or just sharing us with your networks!

Thank you so much - your support is vital to us!
 

OUR PARTNERS
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