SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE
DR NINA KILKKU
Chair
Dr Nina Kilkku is the President of European Psychiatric Nurses (Horatio). She works as a Principal lecturer of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Nursing in Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland. Besides her daily work she works as a private psychotherapist with families and couples. Nina has wide expertise on international, national, and regional collaboration with different mental health related organizations and NGOs, as well as on the editorial activities in international peer-reviewed publications. Her latest interest area, besides families and networks, is on the ecological viewpoints in relation to mental health. Nina has been awarded as a Fellow of the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery in Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (FFNMRCSI).
PROFESSOR FRANCISCO SAMPAIO
Member
Francisco Sampaio is an Assistant Professor at Higher School of Health Fernando Pessoa (Porto, Portugal), as well as a Doctorate Integrated Researcher at CINTESIS - Center for Health Technology and Services Research' "NursID: Innovation & Development in Nursing" research group (Porto, Portugal). Francisco Sampaio holds a Master in Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, a PhD in Nursing Sciences and a Postdoctoral Fellowship. He is a Registered Psychiatric and Mental Health Nurse, and he is currently the President of the Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing Speciality Board of the Portuguese Council of Nurses (2020-2023). He is also a member of the Northern Portugal Regional Coordination of Mental Health. Francisco Sampaio's current research interests are anxiety, psychotherapeutic intervention, nursing taxonomies, and psychiatric and mental health nursing.
PROFESSOR JOSIANNE SCERRI
Member
Professor Josianne Scerri completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Malta, graduating with First class honours. She continued her postgraduate studies obtaining a Master's in Education, and then read for her Doctorate at the School of Psychology, University of Nottingham. Her Doctoral research was a prospective study examining the illness perceptions and emotional adjustment of patients with chronic illnesses and their carers. At present Josianne is Head, Department of Mental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta. She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at Kingston University and St George's University of London. Josianne is also an Associate member of the Person-centred Practice Research International Community of Practice and a member of the European Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Research in Continuing Professional Development. She presently is also a member of the University Research and Ethics committee and an Associate Editor of the Malta Journal of Health Sciences. As a keynote speaker at both local and international conferences, she has addressed issues relating to the experiences of patients and carers, as well as means of empowerment with health professionals, patients, carers and the academic community.
PROF. DR. RER. MEDIC. ANDRÉ NIENABER,
Member
Dr. André Nienaber is Director for Nursing, Medical Therapeutic Services and Social Work and Member of the Executive Board at the University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) Basel in Switzerland since September 2021. Before that, he worked in different functions and areas of psychiatric care. Most recently, he was a professor for nursing science with a focus on psychiatric care at Münster University of Applied Sciences, Münster School of Health (MSH). His research interests are in the field of acute care, prevention of coercion and violence, peer work and recovery and further development of psychiatric nursing.
PROFESSOR MARTINA DUBOVCOVÁ
Member
Martina Dubovcová, MsC., PhD., MPH, assoc. prof.
She is a head nurse at Psychiatric Clinic Jessenius Faculty of Medicine University Hospital in Martin and lecturer in Communication and Public Health.
Assoc. professor at St. Elisabeth University of Health and Social Sciences in Bratislava - Faculty of Health and Social Work St. Ladislav, in Nové Zámky - Crisis Nursing Management, Quality Management, Safety in psychiatry,
- chair of the Section psychiatric nurses of Slovak Chamber of nurses and midwives.
Her PhD. study was focused on issues of coping strategies in families with children with mental disorders. She is supervising several bachelor and master students in nursing,
In 2021 she focused on Safewards mental health nursing care.
PROFESSOR SABINE HAHN
Member
Prof. Sabine Hahn (PhD, CNS, RN) heads the School of Nursing and the Unit of Applied Research in Nursing at Bern University of Applied Sciences.
She is the president of the Swiss Association for Nursing Science and visiting professor at Bournemouth University (UK). Sabine started her career as psychiatric nurse, working from 1985 till 1999 in direct care, changed then as lecturer and junior researcher to the field of higher education. Sabine has broad competences and a profound expertise in management, leadership, strategic development, and in promoting of young scientific talents. As project manager of national and international research projects her topics are violence, de-escalation and reduction of coercion in healthcare, staff retention as well as staff development in health care and quality development in nursing.
She is also a pioneer of collaboration with patients in research and teaching. She is board member of the European Violence in Psychiatric Research Group, Fellow of the European Association of Nursing Researchers, Sigma Teta Tau Member, and Editor of scientific and professional journals.
PROFESSOR BRIAN KEOGH
Member
Dr Brian Keogh is an Associate Professor in Mental Health Nursing at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Trinity College Dublin where he teaches across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. His research interests include mental health recovery, suicide and self-harm and working with older people. He has a particular interest in grounded theory and other qualitative/interpretative research approaches. In addition, he has experience of qualitative and integrative systematic review research methodologies.
PROFESSOR LENE LAUGE BERRING
Member
Lene Lauge Berring, RN, Ph.D. Associated professor, and research leader in University og Southern Denmark and Psychiatric Research Unit Region Zealand, Denmark. She is an expert in mental health nursing in general. In specific her research focus is related to trauma informed care, violence prevention, de-escalation practices, Safewards and all aspects of creating a healing and recovering environment in mental health. She is a skilled project leader and her research methods is inspired by action research, in specific the method of co-operative inquiry. She is primarily a qualitative researcher and her current research projects is: ‘proactive, positive violence prevention’, ‘Elderly bereaved by suicide’, ‘de-escalation at general hospitals’ and ‘developing interventions to people who self-harm’. All projects involve service users as co-researchers. Moreover, she is supervising several Ph.D. students and master students.
DR TOMÁŠ PETR
Member
Dr Tomas Petr has completed his Ph.D. from Charles University of Prague. Throughout his career he worked over 8 years in Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital. Currently he works as ahead nurse of psychiatric department of Military University Hospital in Prague and chief of Community mental health centre. Tomas worked in a private psychiatric hospital St. Lukes Hospital Group in the UK for two years and attended training in Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, UK and Norway. Tomas is a chairman of the Psychiatric Section of Czech National Nurses Association and also a board member of Horatio – European Psychiatric Nurses Association. He has published several works on mental health nursing.
DR PAULANN GRECH
Member
Paulann Grech is a senior lecturer with the Department of Mental Health, University of Malta. Prior to focusing on lecturing, Dr.Grech used to work as a practitioner within the state community mental health services in Malta. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Nursing followed by an M.Sc., finished her PhD studies at the University of Sheffield in 2014 and completed a Masters programme in Psychiatry with Cardiff University. In addition to lecturing, she is involved in research projects related to critical psychiatry, service user involvement and approaches to understanding and managing mental distress. Dr.Grech is the chairperson of the NGO Hearing Voices Malta, which is the Maltese branch of the Hearing Voices Network. She is also sits on the board of directors of the European Centre of Excellence (CoE) for Research in Continuing Professional Development. Dr.Grech is a mental health activist and is a co-organiser of ongoing campaigns. In this role, she regularly co-organises awareness events and participates in others as an invited speaker, focusing on different mental health aspects. As a writer, Dr.Grech is particularly interested in observing and blogging about life from a mental health perspective. She has published a book called Coping with Coronus: Self-help notes for a Pandemic.
DR MARCIA GAFA
Member
Marcia Gafa’ is a Senior Lecturer teaching nursing and health at the Institute of Applied Science, Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST). After qualifying as a psychiatric nurse 2000, she continued to profess both professionally and academically and has received her PhD in Education with the focus on continuous professional development and lifelong learning following qualification. Marcia has been an active member within the psychiatric and mental health community as a board member on the Maltese Association for Psychiatric Nursing and has sat as a board member for Horatio: European Psychiatric Nursing association. Her current recent interests are in professional development, curriculum development, the application of mental health nursing within the wider context of health, mental health nursing with a particular focus on acute care and nursing theories.
DR MICHAEL GALEA
Member
After finishing his undergraduate studies, Dr Galea took a missionary experience in Lamu District and Nairobi, Kenya, East Africa. Later he read for an M.Th. from Heythrop College, University of London, U.K. Furthermore, Michael studied at the University of Loyola, MD, USA, where he read for an M.Sc. in pastoral psychology. He received his doctorate in Psychology in 2003 from the same university, focusing his dissertation on the complex impact of childhood trauma among Maltese students. As part of his doctoral studies, Dr. Galea pursued supervised clinical internships at: Taylor Manor Psychiatric Hospital, in Ellicott City, MD; Frederick Ozanam Shelter for the Homeless, Baltimore City, MD; and at Lighthouse Family Services Centre, located in Catonsville, MD, USA.
Michael joined the Department of Mental Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Malta, in 2010.