Professor Michael Perlin
Michael is a professor of law at New York Law School, where he is Director of
the International Mental Disability Law Reform Project (in the law school’s
Justice Action Center), and Director of the Online Mental Disability Law
Program. The Online Program now consists of 13 courses, a Masters degree program
(in Mental Disability Law studies) and an Advanced certificate program in that
area of the law. He has taught and done advocacy work on every continent, and
has consulted with the American Bar Association’s Rule of Law-Asia China Office
to help that office create an online, distance learning program – modeled after
the one at NYLS – to allow experienced criminal defense lawyers to train
inexperienced ones in remote provinces of China. His current primary pro bono
project is the creation of a Disability Rights Tribunal for Asia and the
Pacific. He is the author of 20 books and over 200 articles on all aspects of
mental disability law (many of which deal with international human rights issues
and with criminal procedure issues), and is currently working on a 7 volume,
third edition, of his treatise, Mental Disability Law: Civil and Criminal. His
most recent book is International Human Rights and Mental Disability Law: A
Voice for the Voiceless (to be published by Oxford University Press in 2011). He
also regularly posts his reviews of Bob Dylan concerts on
www.boblinks.com.
Professor Perlin will be giving a public address entitled 'Promoting social
change in Asia and the Pacific: The movement to create a Disability Rights
Tribunal' on Wednesday 18th May, 5.30-7.00pm at the School of Engineering, The
University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland.
The presentation will be preceded by drinks and nibbles and Professor Perlin
will be introduced by Ron Paterson, Former Health and Disability Commissioner
and Professor of Health Law and Policy at the Faculty of Law, The University of
Auckland.
Associate Professor Brian McKenna
Brian is the Director of the Centre for Mental Health Research at the University
of Auckland and also holds a senior clinical and academic position as Nurse
Consultant for the Auckland Regional Forensic Psychiatry Services, Waitemata
District Health Board. With experience in both quantitative and qualitative
methods, Brian has been involved at a senior level in a number of significant
projects. These canvassed areas such as problem gambling in prisons; the
relationship between mental illness and homicide; media depictions of homicide
perpetrated by people who were mentally ill; statutory roles under mental health
legislation; and reviewing assessment of violence guidelines. He is currently
principal investigator of a Health Research Council funded project that will
evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of a ‘best practice’ service delivery
model to address the high rate of serious mental illness of the prison
population in New Zealand.
Gareth Edwards, Positive Thinking
Gareth is the Director of Positive Thinking; a service user focused research and
development company, and has been a Consumer Advisor with the Centre for Mental
Health Research since 2007. Gareth has an academic background (BSc Psychology
and MSc Artificial Intelligence) and applied research experience in quantitative
and qualitative methods, across public, primary and secondary mental health and
addictions sectors. Gareth has personal experience of mental illness and
recovery and has worked for and with his peers in designing, delivering and
evaluating mental health, addictions and homeless services. He is currently
leading service development in the e-therapy domain in New Zealand and Australia
alongside evaluation of innovative DHB services.
Associate Professor Kate Diesfeld
Kate was a Court Investigator for the Probate Court for the State of Alaska
before obtaining her Juris Doctorate from the University of San Diego. At
Protection and Advocacy, Inc. in Los Angeles, she represented people with
developmental disabilities as a staff attorney. She was a legal academic and the
Legal Supervisor of the Kent Law Clinic (Mental Health and Learning Disability)
at Kent Law School in Canterbury, England. Also, she represented patients before
the Mental Health Review Tribunal. In New Zealand, she was Director of the
National Centre for Health Law and Ethics at AUT University. With Philip
Patston, she co-chaired Auckland Disability Law, a community law centre devoted
to people with disabilities. Her role at Te Piringa - Faculty of Law is
Associate Professor of Social Justice. Her research interests include disability
and medical law, legal education for non-lawyers and professional regulation.
Professor Sunny Collings
Sunny is Dean of the University of Otago Wellington, directs the Social
Psychiatry & Population Mental Health Research Unit at the University of Otago
Wellington and is Consultant Psychiatrist at the Regional Personality Disorders
Service at Capital & Coast DHB. Her clinical work is with people at very high
risk of deliberate self-harm and suicide and she has postgraduate qualifications
in both Psychiatry and Public Health. Sunny’s research focuses on the relevance
of context in mental health and illness, and she has published on suicide,
primary care mental health and informal care in mental illness as well as mental
health and illness from a public health perspective. Current research projects
include media influences on people under 25 who self-harm, better provision of
mental health services in primary care, a multilevel intervention for suicide
prevention and a study of informal coercion in community mental health care.
