Manna Institute Webinar on World Mental Health Day

Each year on October 10 the World Health Organisation focuses our attention on a theme regarding mental health. This year it is ‘Mental Health at Work’ and Manna Institute is hosting a university-wide webinar to consider the topic and its relevance to UNE.
“UNE is the workplace we all come together to work in, whether that be through our employment or as students in a vibrant learning community,” said Manna Institute Director, Professor Myf Maple. “We spend most of our adult lives in workplaces, and the importance of workplaces on mental health is vital. We need a mentally healthy workplace and workforce, and in academia this consideration stretches to creating evidence to support mental health.”
Manna Institute researchers are engaged in projects aiming to build evidence for the preparation of mental health workforces, exploratory work to better understand mental health, interventions for priority populations and evaluations of interventions across the nation, as well as locally, like our evaluation of UNE Life’s Healthy Campus initiative.
This World Mental Health Day brought together UNE researchers affiliated with Manna to learn how they are contributing to the mental health evidence base and how this intersects with efforts to develop a stronger, more focused research culture at UNE. The webinar was moderated by Professor Myf Maple.
“We heard how some of UNE’s researchers are working across a diverse range of projects relating to mental health and I warmly invite all researchers from across UNE’s schools and faculties to join us to learn how they might contribute,” she said.
“The group of UNE researchers reflected on how Manna Institute and the new UNE Research Engagement and Enterprise strategy intersect, with an emphasis on building research trajectories and evidence that will ultimately improve mental health and wellbeing in regional Australia - and locally at UNE.”
Panellists described what they have gained from their affiliation with Manna, how their work is aligning with UNE’s new research strategy, and what opportunities exist for others across UNE to become involved in the institute’s research.