Eating Disorders: All Together Now Panel

All Together Now Panel - Eating Disorders as a specialisation or generalist responsibility. With Deborah Mitchison, Laura Hart, AJ Williams-Tchen, Tracey Wade & Phillippa Hay. This plenary will provide an update on eating disorders epidemiology and burden, and an examination of the historical deprioritisation of these illnesses in mental health treatment, research and funding. A panel of four speakers and a Chair will take questions from the audience with the aim to discuss how eating disorders can be integrated into the field of mental health and become everybody’s responsibility. Deb Mitchison is an NHMRC Early Career Research Fellow at the Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, and a clinical psychologist specialising in the treatment of eating disorders. Her research focuses on eating disorder epidemiology, risk, prevalence, distribution, burden and treatment-seeking and she has published > 90 highly cited papers. Dr. Laura Hart is a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Mental Health at the University of Melbourne, and a Director of the not-for-profit health promotion organisation Body Confident Collective. Laura’s research focuses on developing and evaluating programs for the public to improve prevention, awareness and help-seeking for mental illness, with a special focus on eating disorders prevention. She has published 50 peer reviewed papers and three books. AJ is of Wiradjuri / Wotjobulak Aboriginal background. He is Founder, Director & Lead Consultant of Girraway Ganyi Consultancy since 2007. AJ holds qualifications in Social Work (BSW & MSW), Education (Med), Nursing (specialising in maternal health & mental health), Youth Work (Indigenous adolescence & mental health), Aboriginal Health Work, Community Development, Leadership & Management & Aboriginal Leadership. He is a Principal Master MHFA Instructor, who has provided over 600 Mental Health First Aid courses nationally. AJ has over 30-years experience in the health & community service sector, Aboriginal orga