News & Events

Things are going very well for the foundation as we approach this year’s annual event on the 10th of August, when Glenn Stevens, governor of the Reserve Bank will make his final speech for the foundation as governor. It will be interesting and a historical moment not to miss. There will also be announcements about the future of some interest to financial market participants.

Please note that the date for the function is Wednesday 10 August, 2016. The venue is The Westin Sydney on Martin Place. Registration opens from 12 noon for lunch at 12:30 pm. The function concludes at 2:00. Tables for the lunch, of TEN guests each, are priced at $2250. The booking site is now live. Individual bookings are also possible. To register and pay online, the link is:

https://register.eventarc.com/34935/anika-foundation-2016

Please bear in mind that no GST applies to these payments as they are regarded as tax deductible donations. Booking and card transaction fees will be added.

Following our first PhD graduate, Mona Taouk (her thesis was entitled: "The Development of a New Screening Instrument for Adolescent Depression")

The Anika Foundation-Macquarie Foundation Scholarship in Adolescent Depression and Suicide has now been awarded to Karl Andriessen. His thesis topic is concerned with how adolescents deal with bereavement vis-a-vis suicide of friends and physical health issues. Professor Phillip Mitchell of UNSW is the supervisor. Karl has one publication already, one currently under review and another in the pipeline.

As the corpus of funds built up we were able to launch a second (concurrent) PhD scholarship with the Black Dog Institute (not yet fully funded). Nicole Cockayne (Head of Research Portfolio at Black Dog is the supervisor, and the first winner of this scholarship is Ms. Ally Nicolopoulos. Ally is focusing on depression and suicide in high risk groups—including indigenous people. She has had first-hand experience in Walgett (93% indigenous) in rural NSW. One area of interest in the study is the effect of the role of police and others in involuntary interventions, and practical problems where "shame" is a factor.

With regard to the school teacher scholarships, 2 new NSW scholarships will be announced this August. We are also pleased to announce that the latest Western Australian school scholarship winner (which is more focused on remote education and indigenous issues in the area of youth depression and suicide), has just finished her study travels. She says:

I would like to express my deep gratitude to the Anika Foundation, the Institute for Professional Learning, and my leaders in the School Psychology Service, and the School of Special Educational Needs: Behaviour and Engagement, for the opportunity to undertake this research, and to share it with schools. I look forward to continuing to share what I have learnt with school staff, for the benefit of all students in WA schools.

With regard to the PhD scholarships, once the current batch are completed, the future focus will still be on indigenous youth depression and suicide issues. Encouragement will be given to candidates, for example, who may wish to do a quantitative study on regional factors that help to explain the extraordinarily high incidence of suicide within the indigenous communities (healthcare density, medical usage data, homelessness, school truancy, mental health issues and the like). This would help to improve policy making in this area.