The Challenge and Opportunity to Improve Community Mental Health Services

Clarissa is a member of the International Mental Health Collaborating Network. She is a psychologist and researcher, professor of Psychology at the University of Sao Paulo (USP) – Brazil. She is the head of the Laboratory for Teaching and Research in Psychopathology, Drugs and Society (LePsis-USP). She trains psychology students to work in the Centers of Psychosocial Attention (CAPS) mental health services in Brazil. Her research concentrates on evaluate those services and proposes innovative intervention in mental health. She is an advocator of the Hearing Voice Movement in Brazil, working close with Hearing Voice Groups, helping to potentialize their actions. She also conducts research about hearing voice groups, analyzing their potential and their development in Brazil.

Jan Pfeiffer is psychiatrist, working in the mental health field more then 35 years. Having rich clinical experience with the practice of institutional as well community services. More then 25 years is involved in expert capacity to the process of transformation of institutional to community based mental health care in many countries in Europe. He was co founder of European Expert Group on deinstitucionalization, member of Council of Europe CPT committee. Currently is engaged as a guarantor of the process of mental health care reform on the Ministry in Czech Republic.

CEO International Mental Health Collaborating Network (UK)

John has worked in community mental health development for years as a clinician, manager, policy maker, change agent and educator. In the 1970’s he worked in South Wales as a manager in 3 hospitals changing the culture and services. In 1976-1988 he was the General Manager of Devon Health Authority, developing the first comprehensive mental health service in the UK resulting in the closure of 3 psychiatric institutions.

He then became a senior policy adviser in the Department of Health reviewing previous mental health policies and formulating new policies and initiatives. In 1992 he established and directed the Center for Mental Health Services Development at Kings College, London.This was established by the DoH to assist in the implementation of policy.

He was the Director of Operations and Service Development at North Birmingham Mental Health Trust that pioneered the mental health community functional teams that later became national policy and implemented throughout England.

Together with colleagues across the world he established the International Mental Health Collaborating Network(IMHCN) in 1993, an International NGO and is the current Chief Executive. He has been and is still a mental health adviser to Ministries of Health and Health Authorities in: Australia,New Zealand,India,Malaysia,Serbia,Romania,France,Italy,Ireland, Argentina.

He has been a senior consultant with WHO in Kosova, Albania and Macedonia and program manager for WHO in Palestine.

He has been a Senior Lecturer at Brunel University and Kings College in London and in others around the world over the last 40 years.

He provides consultancy and training on Whole Life-Whole Systems and Recovery/Discovery, organisational and community development, the management of change in the UK and other countries.

Rossana has a graduation in Psychology from the Federal University of Paraná (1982), Specialization in Special Education from the Federal University of Paraná (1991), Master’s in Education from the Federal University of São Carlos (1995), Ph.D in Education from the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (1995). Post doctorate in Deinstitutionalization (2002), carried out at the Dipartimento di Salute Mentale – Centro Collaboratore OMS per la Ricerca e la Formazione, Trieste-Italy (2011), under the supervision of Dr. Giuseppe D’Acqua. Assistant Professor at the Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho (UNESP). Collaborating researcher at the Dipartimento di Salute Mentale di Trieste – Italy. Experience in the field of Mental Health and Special Education. Member of the Focus-phenomenology and Daily Life Study and Research Group; Member of the Laboratory for Teaching and Research in Psychopathology, Drugs and Society (LePsis). Board Member of the International Mental Health Collaborating Network (IMHCN). She undertook a Research Internship (2018) at the Trieste Mental Health Territorial Crisis Team – Dipartimento di Salute Mentale – under the supervision of Dr. Roberto Mezzina and Dr. Serena Goljevscek. From 2019 to the present day, she has been developing the project: A model of community mental health: Intensive home treatment and support for psychiatric crisis management. In her studies, she works with the Basaglian theoretical framework. In the field of mental health, she has been studying Severe Psychotic Crisis and Deinstitutionalization, specifically working with children and youth mental health.