 | Director of the Rotary Health Research Fund, Noel Trevaskis, presents... Director of the Rotary Health Research Fund, Noel Trevaskis, presents PhD student Amy Dawson with a plaque recognising her Ian Scott Scholarship. |  | Noel Trevaskis (centre left) presents Professor Frank Deane (centre r... Noel Trevaskis (centre left) presents Professor Frank Deane (centre right), Dr Trevor Crowe (left) and Dr Peter Kelly (right) with a plaque recognising their mental health research grant. |
Rotary funds mental health research at UOW
13 Aug 2008 | Kate McIlwain
UOW researchers received a plaque today from the Australian Rotary Health Research Fund (ARHRF) acknowledging their success in securing grants from the Fund.
The Fund mainly focuses on mental health research and both research projects from UOW focus on this area.
ARHRF Director Noel Trevaskis visited the University to present the plaques. He said he had initially become involved with the Fund due to his own battle with mental illness and was pleased to see projects at UOW contributing to better mental health programs that may detect or prevent mental illness in young Australians.
A mental health research grant, worth almost $60,000, was been awarded to Professor Frank Deane and his research team. They will conduct a trial into family support programs for carers of young people with mental illness.
Family support and intervention can reduce the stress associated with caring for an ill relative and have also been found to reduce or delay a relapse of the disorder.
Most previous studies have looked at chronic mental disorders and families in conflict. Professor Deane’s study will look at 80 carers of young people who have recently experienced their first psychotic episode.
“The families involved with the trial will receive information that not only helps to manage mental illness, but focuses on the idea of leading a meaningful life outside of the illness,” Professor Deane said.
PhD student Amy Dawson received the Ian Scott PhD Scholarship. Rotary member Ian Scott founded the ARHRF in 1981 to find the cause of ‘Cot Death’ and the memorial scholarship in his name was introduced in 2000 to recognise his services to Rotary and health research.
Dawson’s PhD will look into the link between early brain development and the effects of cannabis. It is known that marijuana use can trigger mental illnesses, like schizophrenia, in some teenagers but it is not known why some people are more susceptible.
Dawson and her supervisor, Professor Xu-Feng Huang, hope that gaining a better understanding of the brain mechanisms involved in mental illness will lead to the development of more effective drugs for treatment and prevention.
The ARHRF is one of the largest independent medical research funds in Australia and has contributed more than $6 million in research over the last two years.
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