The number of research publications is increasing every day, in all scientific areas including mental health. This makes it increasingly more challenging for academics, health professionals and members of the public to read through all the new publications and learn about new evidence that is out there.
This is why GALENOS was founded, and today we are pleased to announce an important step forward: The Global Experiential Advisory Board – GLEAB.
“It is great to see the formation of a global and diverse team of lived experience experts embedded within the GALENOS project. Their insights will help to streamline mental health research, prioritise research questions that are the most important to them and in turn make a big impact on mental health science.” — Jamie Morgan, Kate Martin and Maisie Jenkins from Wellcome's Lived Experience Team
The GALENOS project is rooted in partnerships. Seventeen organisations are collaborating to review and catalogue the scientific literature about anxiety, depression, and psychosis to make them easier to navigate. Meaningful involvement of people with lived and living experience is an important part of this collaboration. The GLEAB will shape the project as it evolves, play an important role in overseeing these reviews and prioritising the topics for future reviews.
These reviews will be regularly updated to create a ‘living systematic review’ catalogue that is easy to access and understand.
The advisory board is made up of notable mental health activists, campaigners, and advocates from around the world and today we are pleased to announce who they are:
Nikita Ghodke
Nikita is a research assistant at New York University and Ashoka University, India where she works remotely from her home in Bangalore, India. She is an advocate for the disability community and identifies as a disabled queer academic person. Nikita will apply her lived experience as well as her experience with both, Arthritis and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) with her background in conducting research to the Global Experiential Advisory Board - GLEAB. Nikita is excited to contribute to the vibrant diverse community and advocates for better representation in such important themes.
"As someone with lived experience, I know firsthand the challenges of accessing quality healthcare. I am committed to using my experiences with my time at GALENOS to develop and design resources to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for everyone."
You can find out more about Nikita on her website here: https://www.nikitaghodke.com
Tatenda Kambeu - Vice Chair
Tatenda is the Advocacy Officer for the Ndinewe Foundation, a youth organisation promoting good mental health and wellbeing in Zimbabwe.
“My interest in becoming a GLEAB member stems from my passion for community health advocacy particularly in the mental health space. The GLEAB has provided me with an opportunity and platform where I am able to positively contribute to the improvement of mental health treatment services through addressing the gap that exists between interventions and their practicality. Additionally, this is a great opportunity to expand my understanding of the importance of integrating lived experience expertise with academic research. I am looking forward to a journey filled with learning, growth, and an impactful experience.”
You can find out more about the Ndinewe Foundation here: https://ndinewe.org/about-us
Larry White
Larry’s varied career spans three decades, during which time he has honed his skills as a leader. Working across industries in academic programme management, people management and an educational developer, Larry now works as the Canada representative and deputy lead for the Americas for the Global Mental Health Peer Network Country Executive Committee.
“I am honoured to have been asked to support the GALENOS Project. As an educator still learning to live with and learn from my depression, I recognize the importance of this work. It is near and dear to my heart to be able to support others so they may not have as traumatic an experience with their mental health as I did. My learning and teaching philosophy, refined over the years, is equally appropriate to this project because we are all helping others achieve their dreams.”
Richardson Mojica
Associate Professor Richardson teaches at the St. Dominic College of Asia in the Philippines. He has 14 years of experience teaching communication, media studies, and multimedia arts. Richardson, a passionate nation-builder, has been in the development sector for 23 years, where he uses his experience to volunteer on mental health advocacy and community development projects. He is the Programs and Campaigns Head of #MentalHealthPH, an NGO that supports mental health advocacies and policies in the Philippines.
“Mental health advocacy is still far from where we want it to be. But through the collective effort of professionals, academics, advocates, and volunteers, we can move forward every day, faster than yesterday. I am honoured to be part of the Global Experiential Advisory Board and excited to share my expertise and experience to develop research that will hopefully turn into policies and programs that will support the mental health of different communities.”
Adeola Agunbiade
Adeola has worked as a lived experience advisor for a number of different organisations including The McPin Foundation, The University of Central London, and The Mental Imagery for Suicidality in Students Trial (MISST).
“I’m interested in becoming a member of the GLEAB because the GALENOS project is interested in me, in my community, because the project will help researchers realize what matters to people with lived experience, centre their research on it, enhancing care and understanding for all.”
Kelvin Opiepie
Kelvin is an African Youth Transformation Ambassador and the founder of LEAD Community Foundation. LEAD promotes mental health literacy among communities in Nigeria and Uganda through education, awareness, and advocacy.
“I believe that joining the GLEAB team will offer me valuable opportunities to learn from and connect with other team members, benefiting from their diverse experiences in their respective countries. As someone with lived experience in mental health matters and a strong passion for promoting mental health literacy in my community, being a part of GLEAB will enable me to engage with stakeholders, experts with lived experience, and academia. Together, we can explore the best practices concerning mental health services and care.”
You can read more about the LEAD Community Foundation here: https://leadcommunityfoundation.com
Uphie Abdurrahman
Uphie is a passionate communicator and advocate for mental health and equality and inclusion. They have held a number of volunteer roles at NGOs in Indonesia raising awareness about suicide prevention and trauma.
“Throughout my undergraduate studies in art, I explored the themes of discrimination, developmental trauma, processing grief, identity reclamation... things revolving one's effort to communicate their inner suffering. In my professional work, I've built informal safe spaces for mental health discussions, often consulted as a go-to person on these topics and functioned in positions to represent intersectional inclusion. I plan to do more as I believe I can contribute more in this field by being a member of GLEAB.”
David Gilbert
David has forty years’ experience as a health activist and strategist.
His work spans service engagement in design and delivery, research, training, education, and regulation (professional, organisational, medicines) at local, national, and international levels. He is a pioneer of 'patient (lived experience) leadership' and author of ‘The Patient Revolution – how we can heal the healthcare system.’ He was the first Patient (Lived Experience) Director in the NHS and is founder-Director of InHealth Associates - a network of patient leaders and specialists in engagement.
“My work is all about supporting people who have been through hard times, such as significant health conditions, to get a second chance in life and power in the system to influence change - to be equal partners in decision-making at all levels. It won’t be straightforward, but it’s important we model that in such a significant international programme.”
