Mental health and the life course: details of seminar now available

Details of the first of our seminar series on mental health and the life cycle, due to take place on 26 Oct at 12noon, are now available.

According to the mental health charity Mind, 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England . However, mental health is often stigmatised and these figures may be much higher. Individual experiences of mental health issues will vary throughout a person’s life depending on the challenges and situations they face at any time, whether that be in gaining independence, parenting, midlife or later. This seminar is the first of a series of six that will look at these different stages and will discuss the broad issues and the trajectory of our mental wellbeing.

To discuss the issues we have experts who will be able to give very different perspectives.

• Dr Cara Booker is Director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research at Essex. Her research interests focus on the psychosocial determinants and risk factors of health across the life-course, the social inequalities in health-related behaviours and wellbeing among adolescents (including the role of social media), emerging inequalities and parental relationships and child wellbeing.
• Dr Dieter Declercq is Lecturer in Film and Media Studies at The University of Kent. He is also Associate Director of Aesthetics Research Centre and co-lead of the Community and Well-Being theme for the 3i University Network.  His transdisciplinary research is situated at the intersection of media studies, health humanities and philosophical aesthetics.
• Dr Laura Biggart is Associate Professor in Social Science Research in the School of Psychology at UEA. She worked in local government and the charity sector for a number of years before returning to academia,  and her research focuses on social cognition (emotion recognition, attribution) and emotional intelligence (trait and ability models), and emotional resilience, particularly in applied settings.