Professor Amanda Baker on Healthy Lifestyles Approach
Healthy Lifestyles Approach: We are pleased to announce Professor Amanda Baker, Co-Director, Centre of Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Abuse, University of Newcastle as a Keynote Speaker at the The 17th International Mental Health Conference to be held at the brand new Sea World Resort Conference Centre on the Gold Coast, QLD from the 11 -12 August 2016.
Professor Amanda Baker will be speaking on; “Taking a Healthy Lifestyles Approach to Substance Use Among People Living With Mental Ill Health”.
The 20 year gap in longevity between people with versus without mental ill health has drawn recent attention to quality of life and physical health more broadly. Motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioural approaches using a healthy lifestyles framework represents an important new innovation in early intervention and treatment.
A healthy lifestyles approach framework reduces stigma, is more appealing to people, as it encourages small changes across a number of health behaviours and avoids prematurely focusing on substance misuse, which may elicit resistance.
Self-efficacy for behaviour change is thus enhanced and as behaviour change accrues across health behaviours, the overall outcome may be reduction in risk for chronic physical ill-health and enhancement of well-being. Healthy lifestyles motivational interviewing and cognitive behavioural strategies can be employed by health practitioners in various settings such as primary care, and youth and adult mental health and substance use treatment settings to address comorbidity.
Healthy Lifestyles Approach
Professor Amanda Baker was awarded an honours degree in psychology at UNSW in 1981, a clinical psychology masters degree at the University of Sydney in 1984 and a PhD from UNSW in 1996.
Between 1984 and 1995 she worked clinically in mental health and substance use treatment settings in Australia and the UK. She took up an academic position at the University of Newcastle, Australia in 1995. Professor Baker has continuously held NHMRC Research Fellowships since 2003. She is Co- Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Mental Health and Substance Use: Translating Innovative Prevention and Treatment (funded 2012-2017). She leads an internationally renowned program of clinical research trialing novel interventions that target co-existing mental health and substance use problems and is an expert in health behaviour interventions and smoking cessation research.
The Healthy Lifestyles Approach will discussed at The 17th International Mental Health Conference will be held at the brand new Sea World Resort Conference Centre on the Gold Coast, QLD from 11 -12 August 2016.
You are invited to join us as we address the conference theme “Guiding the Change” across the broad spectrum of mental disorders.
This conference will bring together leading clinical practitioners, academics, service providers and mental health experts to deliberate and discuss Mental Health issues confronting Australia and New Zealand.
The conference program will be designed to challenge, inspire, demonstrate and encourage participants while facilitating discussion. To register your attendance at the conference CLICK HERE.
