Francis ; Pulla ; Clark ; Mariscal ; Ponnuswami
Dr . Lakshmi Sankaran lives in Chennai in South India . She is a trained social worker with a PhD from NIMHANS , Bangalore ( Dept of Psychiatric Social Work ). She works as a Counsellor in a clinic and is part of a mental health team in a rural mental health centre in India . She also teaches yoga regularly at an ashram . She was a faculty in a Course on Counselling Psychology and has worked in Mental Health settings as a trainer , including running groups for families and community work related to mental health . Lakshmi has also worked as an Asso Prof , Dept . of Psychology ( Counseling ), Christ University , and Bangalore . Currently she is a Consultant ( Academic & Research ) with ‘ The Banyan ’, Rural Mental Health Project , Chennai . She is also a Trainer & Counsellor with PPC Worldwide , Bangalore for providing Employee Assistance Program for employees and their families . Lakshmi is also a Founder member & Trustee for SAMUDRA Trust , Chennai , an NGO established in 2010 to meet psycho social needs and capacity building for the underprivileged . Contact : lakshmiseaward @ hotmail . com
Dr .
Melissa Petrakis ( PhD ) has worked in clinical and community-managed public mental health service provision , management and research for 20 years , including roles in psychiatric disability rehabilitation and support services and adult inpatient acute psychiatry . For her Master of Social Work research she developed and implemented a model of applied solution-focused brief therapy ( SFBT ) for community-based crisis telephone counselling and referral . Melissa ’ s PhD established her as a practitioner-researcher in suicide relapse prevention at the emergency department-community interface . She currently combines teaching and practice-based research interests through concurrent appointments with Monash University and St Vincent ' s Hospital ( Melbourne ). At Monash she is a Lecturer with the Department of Social Work , and coordinates the health and mental health units in both the undergraduate and postgraduate social work programs . At St Vincent ' s she is the Senior Research
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