MPhil Protocol Presentations 2025

This annual event is a celebration of the new MPhil (Public Mental Health) students and a starting point for their public mental health research adventures. They will be presenting their study protocols on a diverse range of public mental health topics
(7 February 2025)

An investigation of resilience and associated factors in adolescents in an international school in the United Arab Emirates (UAE)
by
Ms Emily Partridge 

Relationship dynamics, and other stressors impacting substance use among pregnant individuals in the Western Cape, South Africa
by
Ms Lesley-Ann Erasmus

Exploring the experiences of women who have utilised a maternal support service during the perinatal period: Insights from the Perinatal Mental Health Project, based at a Midwives Obstetric Unit (MOU) in Cape Town, South Africa
by 
Ms Tyla Prinsloo

Evaluating the perceptions of healthcare managers and community members regarding the need, feasibility and sustainability of a task-sharing approach/model for improving access to mental healthcare in rural areas
by
Dr Nkanyiso Madlala

Assessment of Mental Health Needs of Persons Living with Sickle Cell Disease in Africa
by
Dr Nchangwi Syntia Munung

Exploring challenges and support needs of bereaved adolescents’ primary caregivers in Johannesburg 
by
Ms Ntombizodwa Nyoni

Integrating Traditional and Western healing methods: exploring whether screening tools for common mental disorders (CMD) screen for cultural concepts of mental illness for isiXhosa speaking Black Africans in Cape Town
by
Mr Aluta Ngantweni

Patterns of rehospitalization among male psychiatric mental health care users at a regional hospital in Sedibeng District
by
Dr Mojalefa Makgata

An exploration of the psychological, cultural and social needs of Black African family caregivers of people living with dementia (PLWD) in Soweto and Alexandra townships
by
Mr Lebohang Molete

The lived experiences of structural and interpersonal racism of black women in
Southern Africa in relation to mental well-being. A qualitative exploration on racism
as a determinant of mental health
by
Ms Nicola Nkhoma

View the presentation below

Alan J Flisher Memorial Lecture 2024

The Alan J Flisher Memorial Lecture is held annually in memory of Prof Flisher who was a pioneer in the field of public mental health in South Africa and a world-renowned scientist, academic, mentor and mental health professional. This year, Prof Leslie Swartz delivered the lecture.

“All over the place: an undisciplined look at global mental health”
by Prof Leslie Swartz

(5 November 2024)

Leslie Swartz is a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology at Stellenbosch University.  He and Alan Flisher were undergraduates together at UCT, where they both studied psychology and mathematics in their first degrees.  Leslie is editor-in-chief of South African Journal of Science and of Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research.  Much of his current work is focused on supporting emerging researchers. His largest current research project focusses on addressing language barriers to mental health care, and he is working on a book reflecting on the academic landscape in South Africa through a lens of care ethics, and dealing, amongst other things, with the politics of epistemic exclusion.

The establishment of the Alan J Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health in 2010, shortly after Alan’s death, marked an important milestone.  Not only were we putting a new, and hybrid, discipline on the map in Africa, but we were also breaking boundaries across institutions and disciplines.  Some of the impetus for the work came from the unruly impulses of scholars like Alan; it is at the edge and the margin, often, that interesting new things grow.  In this talk I do my best to honour Alan’s vision not by trying to emulate him but to reflect on global mental health from what may be seen as the margins – chiefly, the world of disability rights and access, the struggles around language and access to mental health care, and the inevitable reproduction, through boundary-breaking work, of the very problems we seek to solve.

View the presentation below or download pdf (2.6 MB)