On 10 October 2024, Prof Dainius Pūras, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, will be giving a keynote address at the event “From Ticking Boxes to Transformation – A New Script for Mental Health”, taking place from 10am at The MAC Arts Centre, Exchange St West, Belfast. Follow the link for further details and how to register for this event.
Prof Dainius Pūras, the former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, and Alberto Vasquez, Co-director for the Center for Inclusive Policy, will be speaking at an upcoming conference in Oslo (in person and online) on 10 September 2024, organised by the Human Rights Foundation ReDo*.
Please see below for further details and how to register:
Topics that will be covered at the conference include –
- Human rights standards relevant for ending psychiatric coercion & reparations
- Severity of human rights violations and harm done
- Legal reforms to end psychiatric coercion
- Access to justice, effective remedies and reparations – the important role of the courts
- Strategic litigation & way forward (European Court of Human Rights & other regional human rights bodies, UN treaty bodies, regional and global perspectives)
Speakers –
Location: Litteraturhuset, Wergelandssalen, Oslo
Time: 09:00 hrs – 16:30 hrs
The conference is open for everyone and free of charge and will be held both in person and broadcast online in passive mode.
Please register here, for both in person participation and online participation
For questions about the conference please contact Hege Orefellen at hegejo@kjemi.uio.no
*The aim of the human rights foundation ReDo is to work against infringements, abuse, and coercion in the mental health system and to strengthen the human rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Work is centred on documentation of human rights violations in the mental health system and support for strategic litigation.
ReDo organizes an annual conference where a human rights award is given. This year’s conference focuses on ending psychiatric coercion and remedies and reparations needed for these human rights violations, and is co-organized by WSO – We Shall Overcome, Norway
Date: 24 April 2024
Time: 8AM (EDT)/1PM (GMT)
Chair: Lisa Cosgrove
Location: Zoom https://essex-university.zoom.us/j/96540727782
Recent decades have seen the rise of mental health speak in the general population and social media. Even though most is done with the best intentions, this cultural change poses many questions and potential dangers that have been completely marginalized. During this time awareness and anti-stigma campaigns have presented the story of mental health as the same as physical health, however there are qualitative differences that are overlooked. One aspect that must be taken into account and that influences the cultural, scientific, clinical, social and even philosophical zeitgeist is the interplay of diagnosis and identity. What happens in this diad and how it influences each and every aspect of our society, even when we are not completely aware of this, will be the topic of Dr Kostic’s talk.
Dr Kostic is a psychiatrist from Serbia, Head of the Day Hospital at the Institute of Mental Health in Belgrade. He completed his PhD in molecular medicine, with a focus on genetics and imaging in depression, but has in the meantime refocused his work on social and psychological aspects of diagnosis, overtreatment and overdiagnosis. Milutin is currently at the University of Massachusetts Boston on a Fulbright scholarship working with Prof. Cosgrove.
The talk will be followed by a Q&A session with members of the audience and proceedings will conclude by 9 am EDT/2 pm GMT.
On 11 April, Prof Dainius Pūras, the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to the highest attainable physical and mental health, joined a panel discussion at the La Trobe Law School and the Care Economy Research Institute, Australia. The panel discussed the Transformation of Mental Health Policy, Practice, and Law in Victoria and beyond. Dainius was joined on the panel by Mary O’Hagan, Executive Director Lived Experience in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Division at the Department of Health, Victoria, and Professor Lisa Brophy, Social Work and Social Policy at La Trobe University. The panel was chaired by Associate Professor Piers Gooding from the La Trobe Law School, and guests were welcomed by Professor Irene Blackberry, Director of the Care Economy Research Institute.
While in Australia, Dainius also met with contacts at Deakin University to discuss mental health and deafness and he also presented at the University of Melbourne on mental health policy.
Dainius PŪras VISITS la trobe university, australia – april 2024 Read More »
On 30 November 2023 Dainius Pūras, Professor at Vilnius University and former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, gave a keynote address at an International Seminar on ‘‘Mental Health and Legislation in Chile: Global lessons and Experiences’. The seminar took place at the University of Chile and was organised by the Ministry of Health of Chile and Inter-American Development Bank.
The convening focused on facilitating a space for discussion, reflection and learning about experiences in mental health legislative processes, together with nationally and internationally renowned experts in the field.
Welcome speeches were given by Minister of Health, Dr Ximena Aguilera and María Florencia Attademo-Hirt, IDB Representative in Chile.
Dainius’s keynote address considered the importance of comprehensive mental health legislation to improving public mental healthcare in Chile and called for the collaboration of the various stakeholders in this process, including organized civil society, experiential experts, formally trained experts, and parliamentarians to promote the progress of the legislation.
Other speakers included an address by the Undersecretary of Public Health, Andrea Albagli, Dévora Kestel of WHO and panellists from international mental health organisations and representatives from Chile’s executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.
During Dainius’s time in Chile, he also met with officials from the Ministry of Health, contacts from the School of Public Health, University of Chile and the Movement for Rights in Mental Health to discuss progress towards the introduction of mental health legislation.
Dainius pŪras Promotes mental heaLTH LEGISLATION IN CHILE – November 2023 Read More »