ASBHM Peers Connect is a group that was developed through ASBHM, where the executive committee felt it was important to support, help and guide Early Career and Postgraduate contingent that are members of ASBHM.
Aims: The main aim of ASBHM Peers Connect is to promote research opportunities, mentoring and education for students and early career members, throughout Australasia, who have an interest in behavioural health and medicine, specifically by:
- Organising subsidised workshops on topics of interest at the ASBHM annual conference.
- Organising a free mentoring session with experienced researchers at the ASBHM annual conference.
- Organising a fun social activity at the ASBHM conference, which will give all ASBHM Peers Connect members an opportunity to meet others and identify common research interests.
- Notifying members of other workshops and events (outside of the ASBHM conference) that could be of value for their career development.
- Notifying members of job opportunities for early career researchers.
If you are interested in becoming a member, please visit the membership join/renew page to join ASBHM, where you can also opt-in to join the ASBHM Peers Connect group. Additionally, Peers Connect members are invited to join our Facebook page to connect with other members, and keep up to date on exciting news and opportunities.
If you are already a current ASBHM member, you can still opt-in to join ASBHM Peers Connect by emailing Jessica or Caitlin at promise@asbhm.com
Sources of information for students and early career members:
- CREATE (Collaborative Research and Training in the EHPS) is a subdivision of the European Health Psychology Society: http://www.ehps.net/create
- American Psychological Association – Students: www.apa.org/students/
There are two ASBHM Peers Connect representatives on the ASBHM Executive Committee:
Ms Jessica Charlesworth
I am currently completing my PhD in the School of Population Health at Curtin University under the supervision of Professor Barbara Mullan and Dr Joel Howell. My PhD research is exploring the determinants and mechanisms of behaviour change for safe food-handling among consumers, and evaluating the impact of safe food-handling health related messages. While my PhD research is focussed on safe food-handling, my other areas of interest are nutrition and physical activity, particularly in relation to educational strategies for promoting and maintaining these health behaviours. Currently, I am also a Research Assistant in the School of Population Health, working on a government funded research project investigating safe food-handling among consumers in Western Australia. For the past year, I have been an Executive Committee Member for ASBHM, and recently stepped up to the Peers Connect Representative role after being a member of the Peers Connect Subcommittee. In these roles I was involved in assisting with the organisation of the ASBHM2021 Conference and Peers Connect events. As a Peers Connect Representative, I am will call upon my experiences thus far to organise, promote and facilitate workshops and events for early career researchers in the field of health and behavioural medicine.
Email: jessica.charlesworth@postgrad.curtin.edu.au
Dr Caitlin Fehily
Caitlin is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle. Her research interests include addressing the inequitable chronic disease burden experienced by people with a mental health condition. In particular, Caitlin’s research has focused on building the capacity of mental health services to provide preventive care to address their clients’ health and lifestyle factors, including tobacco smoking, nutrition, alcohol, physical inactivity and overweight/obesity. She completed her PhD in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle in 2020, which examined the translation of preventive care guidelines into community mental health service delivery. Her PhD demonstrated the effectiveness of embedding a clinician in a service with the dedicated role of providing preventive care to clients in an additional consultation. This work has led to a $1.3M MRFF project grant to further develop and test this approach (CIA Jenny Bowman). Caitlin is currently managing this large cluster-RCT with 12 government community mental health services across 3 Local Health Districts.