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Presentation 1: Psychosocial disability, epistemological pluralism, and the lived effects of policy categories 

Presenter: Dr Terri Warner has over a decade’s experience working as a lived experience advocate, educator and researcher, mostly in the area of mental health. Her lifelong experiences of disability, mental distress, and mental health and social care service use inform all of her work. Her Masters thesis articulated a critical analysis of mental health and disability policy in Australia from deinstitutionalisation to the introduction of the NDIS. She is presently undertaking her PhD, and is an NDIS participant in the primary psychosocial disability group. 

Abstract: The term ‘psychosocial disability’ was not commonly used in Australia before the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Its usage has expanded in the last decade, but it is not consistently defined, either as a policy category or a category of identity. This has led to confusion and debate over who has a psychosocial disability, and what it means to have one. Within the NDIS context, being placed in the primary psychosocial disability group is also proving to have a particular set of unanticipated consequences with respect to the type and amount of support a participant might receive. Outside of the NDIS, this confusion has led to service gaps and service voids for people seeking non-mainstream supports for ongoing mental health challenges. 

One reason for the inconsistency and confusion is that understanding of the term has developed within multiple sources of knowledge, such that it means different things in different contexts, and to different groups. In this presentation I will discuss a qualitative research project, grounded in epistemological pluralism, that explores how understandings of psychosocial disability have been shaped by different knowledges, and the various effects this has produced. 

Presentation 2:  Some of my experiences evaluating health systems and health projects for the EU

Presenter: Dr Andrew Mathieson is a senior lecturer within the School of Medicine and Psychology. Andrew began his professional career in Scotland (1984) entering academic as a senior lecturer in 1997 (University of the West of England, Bristol). He emigrated to Australia in 2013 to take up a temporary position within CoSM teaching on the MPH. Andrew has also worked at Menzies (Darwin), Victoria University and University of Tasmania before returning to ANU in 2020. He has worked as a consultant in Public Health and Environmental Health, specialising in health system evaluation using the EU designed ROM (Results-Orientated Monitoring) framework. He has advised at government and inter-governmental level on health (WASH, SPS, DRR), health systems (review, evaluation, and capacity building) and climate mitigation in the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kenya, Malawi, Vanuatu, Lebanon, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea.  

Abstract: This is a short presentation evidencing some of the challenges I have faced as a consultant evaluating health systems in austere environments.   

• working with the Taliban in Afghanistan 

• supporting funding to hezbollah in Lebanon against the wishes of some funders 

• reviewing past WASH failures in Papua New Guinea (PNG) 

• SDGs as part of a new evaluation tool in  PNG  

• what can Australia/DFAT learn from the lessons of EU