CONFERENCE PROGRAM

Crick Lund is Professor of Global Mental Health and Development at King’s College London and Honorary Professor of Public Mental Health at the University of Cape Town. His research interests lie in mental health policy, service planning and the relationship between poverty and mental health in low and middle-income countries.

Iregi Mwenja

Angi Yoder-Maina is the Executive Director of a local Kenyan NGO called Green String Network (GSN) based in Nairobi, Kenya. GSN’s programs create opportunities for people currently in Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Sudan at the most local level to learn about the effects of trauma, begin to heal, and come together as a community to plan community-wide activities and structures to support further healing, and reconciliation. In practice, this involves developing context-specific materials which are designed to teach community participants about the effects of trauma and provide a safe environment for them to share about how violence impacts their own lives. 

Angi has her Bachelor of Arts in Peace Studies and Political Science from Manchester University, North Manchester, IN USA (1994). She has a Master of Arts in Public and Social Policy with a concentration in Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies from Duquesne University (1998). Angi has recently completed her doctoral studies in Applied Conflict Transformation Studies Doctoral at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in Siem Reap, Cambodia.  Her dissertation was entitled: “Healing-centered peacebuilding:  A Grounded Theory using a Trauma-Informed Lens.” 

Twitter: @angiyo58

Dr. Daisy Singla is a clinical psychologist by training, a clinician scientist at Sinai Health and assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto.  In July, she also became the first womenmind scientist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health.  To date, Dr. Singla has led or contributed to developing and evaluating programs focused on improving child growth, health and development, as well as reducing maternal depression worldwide.  She has worked in rural Uganda, Kenya, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan and now brings these innovative lessons to the United States and Canada.  In 2018, she became the youngest recipient of a $13.1 (USD) Pragmatic Clinical Study Award which aims to scale up talk therapies for perinatal populations across North America.  In 2021, she received both the Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Careers from American Psychological Science and Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution in Applied Psychology from the American Psychological Association (APA). In short, Dr. Singla aspires to increase access to evidence-based psychological treatments to enrich the lives of all women, their children and their families. 

Dr. Elisa Lacerda-Vanderborn is an Assistant Professor in Counselling Psychology and the co-coordinator of the Community Engagement: An Ethical Practice program in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada. She leads and is involved in several national and international research projects on mental health and education, including communal ethics, community engagement, Indigenous-non-Indigenous relations, settler-ally sensibilities, and relational qualitative methodologies. She is also the founding member of an emergent interdisciplinary international research group devoted to social-justice oriented and community-led initiatives and scholarship, Apoema: Community Perspectives. 

Elisa’s scholarship is rooted in critical hermeneutic philosophy and critical and socio-cultural theories that align closely with Indigenist scholarship and advocacy. She investigates the power of disciplinary psychology in guiding social practices that afford access and privilege to some and constrain them to others. Specifically, she is concerned with social implications of the translations and applications of theoretical disciplinary psychology concepts and ideas into social institutional practices, services, and legislation concerned with mental health and child welfare. This work has made inroads into the decolonization of mental health from a non-Indigenous positioning, proposing communal selfhood as a theoretical framework for social equity, wherein individuals are historically, socio-culturally, politically, and communally constituted against power relations. 

http://werklund.ucalgary.ca/educ_info/profiles/1-8764804

https://werklund.ucalgary.ca/graduate-programs/med-community-engagement 

Ruth Dixon first started performing her poetry on the open mic scene in Hull in 2010. Since then she has taken spoken word shows to the Brighton and Edinburgh Fringe Festivals and performed as part of the BBC's poetry festival 'Contains Strong Language'.    Ruth has several years experience counselling adults and teenagers. She has also worked in Fostering and Adoption, helping young people leaving care and family support. Ruth has further training in Life Story Work, and Attachment-based Practice and likes to integrate narrative approaches into my work. She is passionate about trauma-informed practice and exploring ways for a person to make meaning of their experiences without labelling. Ruth challenges the culture of psychiatric diagnosis and believes that mental distress is primarily a result of what people have experienced, which all too often arises within social injustices that need to be named.   My Work:  Inspired by her therapeutic work with traumatised children as well as the #MeToo movement, 'Tilt' is a collection of spoken word performances which explore what happened to Ruth's mum. Andrea struggled with severe mental health problems throughout Ruth's life and was diagnosed with several psychiatric "disorders". After her death in 2014, Ruth  came across hundreds of her letters letters. She also acquired  Andrea's medical notes which attested to an 'unfortunate woman' whose best chance of survival was lifelong sedation. But in scratching beneath the surface Ruth began to uncover a different story.

Lian Zeitz is a global mental health and well-being expert working to make sure all people are supported with love and dignity.  Lian has worked with therapeutic programs for struggling youth in 15 states in the US to identify pathways for young people to play a greater role in their own care and the development of mental health programs. He has also worked internationally on areas such as suicide prevention, post-traumatic stress disorder, and substance abuse in Bhutan, Colombia, Kenya, Indonesia, and Zambia. He is passionate about the lived experiences of people in therapeutic programs, healing-focused community development, and pathways to successful transitions in life. He was previously the Global Director of Love and Compassion for citiesRISE, a global platform committed to transforming the state of mental health policy and practice in cities and beyond to meet the mental health needs of populations across the world. In this role Lian supported the design and scale-up of mental health programs across 5 international cities and built a network of youth leaders passionate about mental health across the world. Lian currently serves on a number of international boards and advisory groups while completing a Master of Divinity at Naropa University, studying contemplative wisdom, bioethics, youth mental health, and community healing. Lian earned a B.A. from Quest University Canada, where he focused on public mental health and literature, and a certificate for Leadership in Mental Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Shuranjeet Singh is the director of Taraki, a movement working with Punjabi communities to respahe approaches to mental health. Informed by his experiences of mental health challenges, Shuranjeet founded Taraki in October 2017. Focusing on 4 areas - mental health awareness, education, social support, and research - Taraki and their team of 14 volunteers have pushed forward the mental health agenda in Punjabi communities. Alongside this, Shuranjeet is a lived experience consultant at the Wellcome Trust as well as a doctoral student at Oxford University.

Enoch Li is a social entrepreneur and Founder of BEARAPY – an award-winning B2B social enterprise that provides consulting and training services to organizations and executives to build mentally healthy workplaces and strengthen employee wellbeing in creative ways in China and Asia-Pacific. Enoch’s personal mission is to reduce burnout and mental health issues through helping adults access their inner playfulness. Through Bearapy, Enoch works with multinationals, governments, and start-ups across Asia-Pacific to advocate emotional and mental health awareness for resilience, emotional awareness, leadership development, and optimum productivity. Her work is widely recognized in the society: she was awarded the Social Contributor of the Year 2018 Award by the International Professional Women's Society in China, and the Speaking Out Award by Mind HK. Bearapy was recognized by the Beijing government’s OTEC Awards as the Community Hero 2020 based on the social impact contributed in the mental health space. She has helped tens of thousands of people through Bearapy, her writing, and speaking. Enoch has been a TEDx presenter, and featured and published in CNN, Harvard Business Review, Forbes, South China Morning Post, Thrive Global, China Radio International, and CGTN, in addition to her blog, NochNoch.com. Her latest book, Stress in the City, shares her personal journey, discusses some fun ways to cope with depression, and suggests how adults and parents can be playful.

Jackee Schess is the Founder and CEO of Generation Mental Health. She is a lived experience advocate and mental health researcher, currently pursuing a PhD in economics at Georgetown University. She has conducted mental health research at Sangath Community NGO in India and Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research in Australia. Jackee takes her passion for empowering youth with lived experience to her role setting strategy and implementing programs at Generation Mental Health.

Tarik Endale: PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University and MSc in Global Mental Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; experience working in Sierra Leone's mental health system and in the US for the Kovler Child Center Trauma Program in Chicago. Tarik is interested in the adaptation, evaluation, and implementation of mental health programs and interventions for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers specifically and in under-resourced settings broadly. https://www.tarikendale.com/

Pavel Reppo is passionate about fostering opportunities for sustainable positive change.

He is a proud founder and previous CEO of The Wayfaring Band, an organization that creates travel opportunities for adults experiencing intellectual disabilities, and leadership fellows, facilitating an inclusive culture built on the principle of mutual aid. Pavel is a native of Belarus and an avid traveler who has worked directly with orphaned youth and children living in slums in Uganda.

Currently, he is the Founder and Executive Director of Finemind, an initiative in northern Uganda that lifts up communities by providing mental health services that nurture hope and belonging. When not working to affect change, Pavel likes to both make and eat omelettes.

Brodie Lobb (he/him/his) is a mental health professional practicing therapy in a private practice in Southfield, Michigan. In his private practice career, he has supported dozens of LGB+, transgender, and nonbinary clients navigate their transitions as well as address childhood trauma and improve their relationships with family and friends. Brodie uses an eclectic therapeutic approach that includes elements of DBT, CBT, IFS, ACT, and motivational interviewing, as well as other trauma-informed approaches and modalities. In addition to ongoing therapy services, Brodie provides short-term assessments for those seeking letters of support to access gender-affirming surgeries and to begin gender-affirming hormone therapy with their primary care physicians.

Brodie is a 2020 MSW graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work in Mental Health. He received his Bachelor's of Social Work in May 2019 from Adrian College in Adrian, Michigan with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. A newer social work professional, Brodie has lived experience navigating the legal, medical, and social pathways that one could experience as a transgender person. Through his undergraduate career, Brodie has advocated for LGBT+ individuals on his campus by supporting the development of gender-inclusive policies and programming, as well as being the founding student member of Adrian College's Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. He continues to support LGBT+ young people through his work at Ozone House in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and is passionate about providing gender-affirming therapy services to those in his community.

Brodie currently lives in Madison Heights, Michigan with his roommate and 1 year old puppy named Rue. In his free time, Brodie enjoys playing guitar, completing DIY projects, spending time with friends, and exploring nature.