MENTEE – Emily Blackman

Emily Blackman is a PhD candidate with the University of South Australia’s School of Nursing and Midwifery, Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Research Group.  Her PhD project evaluates the ‘Effectiveness of an educational intervention for health workers in the assessment and management of people at risk of suicide’.  She has a Master’s in Social Work from the University of South Australia, a Graduate Certificate in Public Policy and an Honours Degree in Social Planning from Flinders University.

Her research and clinical interests are in acute mental health services, suicide assessment and intervention, compassionate care and self-harm. Her career has included clinical roles in mental health triage, acute inpatient settings and community mental health. Emily is particularly interested in therapeutic approaches to people diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and trauma-informed care and has

Emily was the inaugural 2017 recipient of a full-time stipend PhD scholarship jointly funded by Open Minds – Alliance CIC (4MentalHealth) (London) and the University of South Australia and was awarded Best Academic Student / Early Career Poster at the 2018 National Suicide Prevention Conference. In addition, her contribution to evaluating the Connecting with People suicide prevention education and training program was recently recognised with a Community Partnership Award by the South Australian Department for Correctional Services. She assists the Helplines Special Interest Group (SIG) of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) share emerging research findings on the effectiveness and impact of helplines.