Education
University of New South Wales.
Chief Executive Officer mental health educator
University of New South Wales.
She is also a mental health consumer advocate, having experienced recurrent major depression. She has held academic appointments at the Australian National University and the University of Melbourne. She is currently Chief Executive Officer of Mental Health First Aid Australia.
She holds an honorary Adjunct Professorship at Deakin University.
This program spread across Australia and by 2011 over 170,000 Australian adults had received the training (1% of the country’s adult population). By 2015, this had reached 350,000.
The training has been adapted to various cultural groups in Australia, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, Vietnamese Australians and Chinese Australians. The training program has spread to many other countries, including Canada, China, Denmark, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Malta, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, the United States, and Wales.
By 2015, 1.2 million persons had been trained in Mental Health First Aid globally.
Betty Kitchener has received many awards and honours for her work on Mental Health First Aid, including:.
Betty Kitchener has received many awards and honours for her work on Mental Health First Aid, including: Australasian Society for Psychiatric Research Consumer Researcher Award, 2004. Order of Australia Medal (OAM), 2008. Excellence in Mental Health Education, National Council of Behavioral Healthcare, United States of America, 2008. Exceptional Contribution to Mental Health Services Award, TheMHS, 2009. Australian Rotary Health Knowledge Dissemination Award, 2010. Induction to the Victorian Honour Roll of Women, 2011. Addressed Parliamentary Breakfast for Canadian Parliamentarians, Ottawa, 5 June 2012. Finalist, Victorian Senior Australian of the Year, 2014. Australia"s 100 Women of Influence Award, 2014. Member of the Order of Australia (Department of Administration and Management), 2015, for significant service to the community through mental health support, research and education programs. Australia Day Ambassador, Victoria, 2015, 2016 Chancellor"s Alumni Award, University of Canberra, 2015.
Mental Health First Aid is a 12-hour face-to-face training program for members of the public to learn how to provide initial assistance to someone developing a mental health problem or in a mental health crisis (eg they are suicidal).
