APP to speak at international perinatal mental health conference
Members of the Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP) team, including staff, trustees and ambassadors, will be speaking to a global audience of expert researchers later this month as part of the International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health Conference.
The conference takes place between Monday 19th and Friday 23rd September and will welcome leading experts in perinatal mental health from institutions and organisations around the world. The Society is led by a board of experts including APP’s very own trustee, Professor Ian Jones, who also serves as the conference’s co-chair.
Having the opportunity to speak at such an event will enable us to share best practice and stimulate conversation specifically around postpartum psychosis (PP), raising awareness of the illness, as well as our campaign asks, amongst a much wider pool of academics and health professionals. The more researchers and professionals we get talking about postpartum psychosis, the more collective power we have to build knowledge, effect change, challenge stigma and improve services for women and families affected.
The two sessions APP will be involved with or leading are:
What do women and families need from perinatal mental health services?
This session will be chaired by Dr Clare Dolman (APP trustee and Vice Chair for the Maternal Mental Health Alliance) and feature our brilliant ambassador Laura Dockrill, who will be sharing her personal experience of PP, as well as our National NHS Contracts Coordinator, Hannah Bissett, who will be speaking about the value of peer support in perinatal services. They will be joined by Dr Henry Fay – a former GP with experience of PP as a partner, and current trustee with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance.
Postpartum psychosis: strategies and collaborations to increase knowledge, address stigma and improve care globally
This session will be chaired by our CEO Dr Jess Heron and will feature discussion from Hannah Bissett as well as Dr Sally Wilson, APP’s National Training and Research Coordinator. The APP team will present evaluations of some of APP’s projects including: APP’s health professional training in PP; peer support services; and the ongoing campaign for Mother & Baby Units. The discussion will focus on exploring the ingredients for lasting impact, lessons learned, and how this learning might be used to influence care for women and families affected by PP globally.
About the International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health
The International Marcé Society for Perinatal Mental Health was formed at an international conference in 1980. The purpose of that conference was to bring together different strands of research in puerperal mental disorders. It was recognised that there needed to be a forum to discuss puerperal mental illness in its broadest sense, and as such the Society was formed. The Society was named after Louis Victor Marcé, a French psychiatrist who wrote the first treatise entirely devoted to puerperal mental illness, published in 1858.
Other notable sessions at this year’s conference include Postpartum Psychosis: Cross-cultural conceptualisation in Malawi, India and the UK; Advances in the Pharmacology of Mood Disorders during Pregnancy; Offspring of parents with Psychosis: Pre-postnatal indicators of risk and resilience; Consensus and Controversies in the classification of Postpartum Psychosis in DSM-V; as well as a session focused on fathers’ mental health: Fathers’ Perinatal Experiences, Mental Health and Impact on Family Health.
One of the key aims of this year’s conference is to highlight the UK’s best practice in lived experience involvement, and encourage this trend internationally. The conference events will take place both in London and virtually.
Find out more about the conference here
The conference itself is no longer taking delegate bookings, however, we’ll be sharing some of the key highlights and things we’ve learned, so watch this space for more info.
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If you’re attending the conference, please do join in the discussion on social media by using the hashtag #Marce22 and tagging us @ActiononPP