The Fifth World Conference on th

on

the Promotion of Mental Health and Prevention of

Mental and Behavioral Disorders

was the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth),

headed by Chief Executive Officer Todd Harper. The partner

organizations presenting the conference in Melbourne together with

VicHealth were the World Federation for Mental Health, the Carter

Center (Atlanta, USA) and the Clifford Beers Foundation (UK).

Professor Rob Moodie from the Nossal Institute at the University of

Melbourne and

Professor Helen Herrman of ORYGEN Research Centre headed the

International

Program Committee. Within VicHealth’s Mental Health and Wellbeing

Unit headed by

Lyn Walker, Senior Program Officer Irene Walker headed a very able

conferences held in the USA (2000), United Kingdom (2002), New

Zealand (2004) and Norway (2006) the program followed established

themes of research, policy-making, evidence-based programs,

dissemination, and development of training and expertise. For the

Melbourne conference the International Program Committee added

social and community engagement, discrimination, violence in various

forms including violence against women, and access to economic

Rights

The theme of violence was supplemented by a notable emphasis on

human rights

throughout the plenary program. Kate Gilmore, deputy director of

Amnesty

International, gave a passionate address on human rights abuses

which started and ended with the genocide in Rwanda. Rob Moodie,

co-chair of the International Program

Committee, began his presentation with a condemnation of the way

that asylum seekers, who have already experienced trauma, are placed

in circumstances during the asylum process that can cause or worsen

mental illness. Mohammed Diaaeldin Omer, UNICEFSudan, described the

high prevalence of common mental disorders among women living in

camps in West Darfur (75.8%), and the low attention paid to it.

Harry Minas of the University of Melbourne described the Pinel 21

Project that is investigating the physical restraint and confinement

of people with mental illness in Aceh and Sumatra (Indonesia). Paris

Aristotle, Director of Foundation House, discussed refugee and

resettlement issues, including the strategies that governments use

to put up barriers for people with mental illness. During the

conference VicHealth’s CEO, Todd Harper, launched his organization’s

new program to combat violence against women by providing grants to

way, too, VicHealth drew attention to human rights close to home.

The closing item of the conference was a performance by the Choir of

Hard Knocks, which has become well known in Australia through a

prize-winning documentary and its two platinum CDs. The choir

features more than 30 people in Melbourne, many of them

homeless, who have experienced extreme disadvantage in life. The

group’s intensely

moving performance drew the audience into consideration of basic

themes explored by

the program—social participation, discrimination and economic

rights theme, two plenary speakers spoke about the newly released

report of the WHO Commission on the Social Determinants of Health

(www.who.int/social_determinants/en/).

Prof. Fran Baum, a member of the Commission,

noted the influence of the former Surgeon General of the United

States, David Satcher, in seeing that mental health issues were

incorporated in the report. Prof. Carles Muntaner presented research

on labor issues, showing how the way the modern work place is

Strategy

The conference incorporated a youth engagement strategy exploring

ways to reach out to young people. On the first morning the State of

Victoria’s Minister for Mental Health,

the Hon. Lisa Neville, MP, spoke about the need to build up a

“mental health platform”

in early childhood services and in schools to address perceived

needs and help young

people reach their potential. Elsewhere the conference planners

pointed towards ways to reach young people outside conventional

settings, through social activities and

people’s issues was incorporated in many sessions and youth was in

evidence to an unusual degree throughout, from the dancers of the

Indigenous Hip Hop Project to the “Reach Out!” program’s

ambassadors. Two young ambassadors from the program, Doug Millen and

Ehon Chan, addressed a plenary session and gave the (much

older) audience an insight into ways to reach young people, while

also showing the

importance of taking their opinions into account. The Inspire

Foundation

(www.inspire.org.au 

and Oxfam Australia’s Youth Engagement Program

(www.reachout.com.au) were

represented, and VicHealth arranged for young people to

participate in online forums before the conference. Film-makers from

the Student Youth

Network (www.syn.org.au) shot a

witty video giving their view of the conference and

presented it at the closing session. The video and other materials

produced during the

Health

There were several presentations on how to measure mental health, a

particular interest of VicHealth through the work of its McCaughey

Centre

(www.mccaugheycentre.unimelb.edu.au

, which has produced a set of community

wellbeing indicators for the State of Victoria (www.communityindicators.net.au).

A

presentation on Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness Index attracted

considerable

attention. Karma Tshiteem, Secretary of that country’s Gross

National Happiness

Commission, proposed that measuring GNH is about a balanced and

holistic approach to

development using alternative definitions of wellbeing. A nationwide

survey of one

thousand people, using 300 questions, was used to derive 31 GNH

indicators from which

a single GNH Index will be derived. Apichai Mongkol from the Thai

Ministry of Public

Health spoke about the development of a similar index. The Thai

Happiness Index has

66 items, and looks at areas such as spirituality, health and family

support. As these

indicators were discussed, it was observed that when mental health

is mentioned in

Bhutan and Thailand people think of relative degrees of happiness,

while when it is

Happiness Commission, Bhutan, addressing the

database development was also reviewed. Norway’s large project to

develop a database for evidence-based interventions in prevention

and health promotion was described by Willy-Tore M?rch, of the

to the Conference

As at previous conferences, various activities were attached before

and after the meeting. These included the biennial meeting of the

Global Consortium for the Advancement of Mental Health Promotion and

Prevention in Mental Health (GCAPP); a day-long preconference on

school mental health arranged by the International Alliance for

Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Schools (Intercamhs); and a

meeting of the International Network of Health Promotion

Throughout the conference VicHealth showcased its belief that the

arts have an important role to play in promoting community mental

health (and fun). Sixteen arts projects were presented, sometimes at

unexpected moments, thanks to special support from Arts Victoria.

Highlights included the vocalists of Black Armband who provided

contemporary indigenous music at the opening, and the closing

ceremony which included the rock music of the BiPolar Bears as well

Charter

Well before the conference began, consultation was under way on the

drafting of a

preliminary format for the outcome document, a Charter outlining the

principles of

mental health promotion and the prevention of disorders. The

drafting group received

input from the abstracts sent in by those who presented at

concurrent sessions, and from the general audience. Special

arrangements were made to get advance contributions from youth

groups. The Charter will be finalized and edited in the coming

months, then circulated internationally. It will be offered for

review and updating at the Sixth World Conference on the Promotion