Professor Dawn Freshwater Professor Dawn Freshwater currently holds a professorial position within IHCS at Bournemouth University in the UK. She was also recently appointed to the Research Chair at Peel Health Campus, Western Australia. In her role as Chair in Applied Research (Mental Health) at IHCS, she directs the Centre for Excellence in Applied Research Mental Health and has been the lead for the Academic Research Centre in Practice for Mental Health and Primary Care for the last 5 years. She is also visiting Professor at the University of Greenwich to Counselling and Psychotherapy Programmes in the School of Social Science.

Professor Freshwater undertook her training as a nurse in the United Kingdom 25 years ago and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Nursing and Education with Honours from Manchester University and the Royal College of Nursing. She received her doctorate in 1998 from the University of Nottingham and also holds a Diploma in Clinical Supervision (Counselling and Mental Health) and a Diploma in Jungian Psychotherapy. Having completed her advanced psychotherapy training she has been a registered UKCP psychotherapist and supervisor for 5 years with over 15 years experience as a practitioner in the NHS and private practice, which she maintains today. Her most recent education was Senior Strategic Management/Leadership Programme with the Leadership Foundation, Hefce in the UK.

In 2002 Professor Freshwater was awarded Fellow of the Royal College of Nursing (FRCN) for her outstanding contribution to nursing through research, reflective practice, clinical supervision and practice development in mental health. In June 2004 at the 26th Annual Conference of the International Association for Human Caring Professor Freshwater was elected President of this Association. The central purpose of the IAHC is to serve as an international, scholarly forum for all interested in the advancement of the knowledge of human care and caring. Professor Freshwater is also an active member of Sigma Theta Tau having been the recipient of the Distinguished Researcher Award in 2000 and developed the recent publication on Reflective Practice along with the reflective practice taskforce. Dawn is also an executive member of The Florence Nightingale Foundation , where she sits on the research scholarship panel.

Professor Freshwater’s interest in research has resulted in an in-depth exploration of the use of qualitative research methods, particularly reflexive and narrative research methods. Since the early 1990’s Dawn has maintained an interest in the application and evaluation of transformational research, critical reflexivity, pragmatism, reflective practice and clinical supervision, and in particular its relation to evidence-based practice and the therapeutic alliance. This has led to the development and appraisal of a variety of approaches to evaluating the provision and delivery of healthcare, with particular emphasis on Mental Health. Her most recent research has led to the implementation of a Mental Health Awareness Training package for Prison Officers being adopted by Prisons throughout the United Kingdom. She currently leads the national implementation of clinical supervision across the prison estate. Professor Freshwater led the high profile Princess Diana Children’s nursing research that aimed to improve the quality of life for children with life limited illness. She is external reviewer for the Forensic Mental Health Fellowships and sits on a number of international grant review panels.

In Australia Professor Freshwater was invited to serve on the Expert Review Committee of the Australian Primary Health Care Institute. The Institute is an initiative of the Australian Government as part of its Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development Strategy. She has also been invited to disseminate her research findings to the Australian Psychological Society and has already established a number of collaborative ventures with industry partners. Funded research within Australia includes an ARC grant related to the impact of the ageing workforce in South West, WA; establishing a community intervention for suicide prevention in young men in rural Western Australia and developing a care pathway for patients diagnosed with cancer in rural and regional Western Australia.

As a writer, Dawn has authored/edited 12 books, some of which have been translated into different languages, including Italian, Hebrew and Chinese, with a further 2 due for publication in 2006. She has been a primary contributor to a number of other books and has authored over 100 peer reviewed papers and co-edited texts relating to innovative research methods, practice improvement, reflective practice and therapeutic nursing. Her research income to date exceeds ₤1million. Dawn was appointed Editor of Blackwell’s prestigious international journal Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing in 2004.

In her role as research supervisor, she has successfully supervised several Doctoral and Masters students through to completion and is committed to developing others talents through high quality teaching, research and supervision. She is delighted to have the opportunity to work in a novel and visionary joint international approach with colleagues in the Murdoch University School of Nursing , University of North Carolina and to create important links not only with clinical practitioners, but also with the community as a whole.

Keynote Presentation: Culture, understanding and narrative: Embodying psycho-social symbols of health

Through the centuries, symbols, in their infinite variety, have enriched the life of the mind. Cultures in all parts of the world have developed and built upon an understanding of symbols and symbol systems to promote spiritual, bodily and intellectual well-being. In this paper I assume that the most powerful symbols come from archetypal energy, that is aspects of the collective unconscious. Paradoxically cultures are diverse in that they see the precise relationship between the human body and spirit differently. I will briefly explore the symbolic vocabularies of mental healthcare in different cultures through the medium of myth. Myths are symbolic narratives that were once of central importance in all cultures and it was through these allegorical tales that a society could establish and explore its identity. As a culture advances, there is a tendency to regard the beliefs of previous generations as primitive or superstitious. Stripped from their context, symbols diminish in power. I argue that symbols are prerequisites of our social existence and examine how practitioners can rediscover healing symbols afresh in order to constellate a sense of culture, society and identity within mental health care today.

Streaming video (windows media format) of presentation