The Bipolar Organisation is running its Annual conference on 27th October 2007 at King’s College London and this year’s theme is Families and Bipolar Disorder (Conference schedule and available workshops are detailed below together with speakers’ biographies).

To find out more about going to this conference (only £18) then call the Bipolar Organisation or visit their website at
“http://www.mdf.org.uk/”>http://www.mdf.org.ukContact the Bipolar Organisation for more details and membership

Jean Wit, Office Manager

Tel. 020 7793 2605, Fax: 020 7793 2639

Email: jean@mdf.org.uk, web site: http://www.mdf.org.uk/

CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

9.30 – 10.00          Registration

10.00 – 10.15        Chair’s Introduction – Helen Waygood, MDF The BiPolar Organisation

10.15 – 11.00        Keynote Presentation: ‘Mental Illness – Understanding the Genetic Dynamic’

                                Professor David Porteous, University of Edinburgh

11.00 – 11.15         Families and Bipolar Disorder: An Introduction

                               Michel Syrett, Editor, Pendulum (MDF)

11.15 – 11.45         Families and Bipolar Disorder: A Global Overview

                                William P. Ashdown, Mood Disorders Society of Canada

11.45 – 12.30      “Planning a Family: A Bipolar Perspective’

                               Dr Ian Jones, Mood Disorder Team, University of Cardiff

12.30 – 13.30            LUNCH

1.30 – 14.30               Workshops – please refer to the plan provided

14.30 – 15.00            Social Break (Tea and Coffee)

15.00 – 16.15           ‘Families and Bipolar Disorder: Personal Perspectives’

                                   –   Making a Marriage Work: Andrew and Heather Heald

                                    -  A Mother and Daughter Perspective: The Two Anns

                                    -  Discussion led by Michel Syrett

16.15 – 16.30         Closing Remarks

                                Helen Waygood, Chair, MDF The BiPolar Organisation

WORKSHOPS:  

Please note that selected workshops will be offered to attendees pre – booking preferences and that the workshops will located within the conference venue, to be advised immediately prior to lunch

1.       Families with Bipolar : “Needs and Support”

         Michel Syrett (MDF)

2.       Art as a Source of Recovery

         Lorraine Nicholson and Jackie Proctor (Perth Plus)

3.    Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: The benefits to Bipolar Disorder

       Dr Warren Mansell – Clinical Psychologist – University of Manchester

 4.    Nutrition and Good Mental Health

       Jane Asto (Eat Right)

Social Get-Together and Opportunity to Relax

Speaker Notes/ Biographies of Speakers

Helen Waygood : Chair of MDF The BiPolar Organisation since January 2007

 Helen is a an HR specialist who has steered the charity through a period of intense change, drawing on almost twenty year’s experience working for the organisation as a volunteer and more recently as a Trustee, as well as a passionate belief in its future. She continues to work as an interim HR consultant in the public and private sector

Professor David Porteous is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and a former Head of Section at the MRC Human Genetic Unit, Edinburgh.

 In 1999, he was appointed Professor of Human Molecular Genetics & Medicine at the University of Edinburgh and also Head of the Medical Genetics Section. He is the current Director of the Molecular Medicine Centre, University of Edinburgh, Director of the Genetics Core at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility Western General Hospital Campus and on the Executive Board of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine in Edinburgh, a partnership between the University of Edinburgh, The UK Medical Research Council and Cancer Research UK

Michel Syrett is a founding trustee, former chair and guarantor of MDF The BiPolar Organisation.

He is currently Editor of Pendulum the charity’s quarterly journal. He has conducted research into families and bipolar disorder for The Scottish Recovery Network and is the author of The Secret Life of Manic Depression, the booklet that accompanied last year’s BBC2 Documentary Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive. Michel is also a business writer and commentator and the author of 15 books on topics as varied as leadership, innovation and strategy execution

William Ashdown is an active lobbyist and educator, currently Vice President of the Mood Disorders Society of Canada, Founder Member of the Canadian Alliance for Mental Illness and Mental Health and Chairman of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance.

Additionally, he serves on a number of boards for organizations in both Canada and the United States. He is a founding member of the Canadian Alliance for Mental Illness and Mental Health (CAMIMH), serving for eight years. Starting with five organizations, the alliance is now made up of 18 national organizations concerned with mental illness and mental health. CAMIMH is one of the strongest voices for mental healthcare in Canada

Dr Ian Jones is Senior Lecturer in Perinatal Studies in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Cardiff. He is co-leader of the Mood Disorder Research Team which is undertaking extensive research into the triggers and provenance of bipolar disorder. Dr Jones is currently undertaking extensive research into the influence of hormones in women who suffer from bipolar disorder and was author of an article on the subject in the Summer 2007 edition of Pendulum, quarterly journal of MDF The BiPolar Organisation

Jane Aston – Jane Aston qualified as a nutritional therapist with the Institute for Optimal Nutrition which was founded by the leading nutritionist Patrick Holford. A member of the British Association for Nutritional Therapy, Jane has been working within organisations supporting people with a disability for over ten years. She wrote a summary of the issues she raises in the workshop on nutrition and mental health in the Autumn 2007 edition of quarterly journal of MDF The BiPolar Organisation.

Jackie Proctor is a Multimedia Artist, working in mediums of painting sculpture and photography. She ran her own gallery for eight years in Fife, Scotland and a ceramic and Sculpture business in Pitlochry for  seven years. She has had many solo exhibitions both at home and abroad. She has pursued her artistic career despite being diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18. This year she took on the ambitious community project One Leaf – One Link exhibited in the foyer at the Art at the Heart of Wellbeing conference in Perth, Scotland earlier this month. She will talk briefly about this project at the workshop on Art as a Source of Recovery

Lorraine Nicolson has always been an artist at heart but missed her original vocation until severe depression revealed it to her. Up until then she had been trained as a linguist at university and lived life according to others’ expectations. Having now corrected this error she is keen to explore the possibilities of the healing nature of art with other people based on her own lived experience. She has had solo exhibitions of her artwork and photography which have been seen as the visual expression of her recovery

Dr Warren Mansell works as a practising Clinical Psychologist at Salford Early Intervention Service and as a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Manchester. He completed his PhD at the University of Oxford, and his Clinical Psychology training at Kings College, London. He is a co-chair of the national conference of the British Association of Behavioural Cognitive Therapies and has authored over a dozen recent publications on CBT for bipolar disorder. His work has been covered regularly in Pendulum, the quarterly journal of MDF The BiPolar Organisation and he has been a regular contributor to the charity’s conferences and seminars.

The Two Anns, mother and daughter, are long standing members of MDF The BiPolar Organisation Cymru. They wrote a joint article on the dynamics of being a mother in a caring role and a daughter’s perspective of both family life and marriage as someone who has bipolar disorder in the Autumn edition of , the quarterly journal of MDF The BiPolar Organisation

Andrew and Heather Weald Andrew has been an active member for the Wales branch of the charity for over 14 years, more recently becoming Chair of MDF The BiPolar Organisation Cymru, and is a self management group facilitator. Married to Andrew for six years, Heather gained an MA in Literature at Cardiff University as a mature student. She is a regular contributor on the issues and challenges facing carers in mental health for Pendulum, the quarterly journal of MDF The BiPolar Organisation Cymru.