Richard Wyatt Award

2023 Award Recipient: Mark van der Gaag

Mark van der Gaag PhD is a clinical psychologist and has been Head of psychosis research of the Parnassia Psychiatric Institute and Professor of Clinical Psychology at the Vrije Universiteit at Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He is now in the process of retiring. His research was in CBT for psychosis, PTSD treatment in people with florid psychosis, Virtual Reality treatment of persistent paranoia, and the last two decades on the prevention of first episode of psychosis in help-seeking people with an at risk mental state. He published just under 300 peer-reviewed papers in the field of psychosisand clinical high risk. He is involved in the implementation of early detection and intervention teams in mental health and about fifty teams are now operating in Dutch mental health services. He has been awarded a honorary membership of the Dutch Association of Cognitive and Behavioral therapy as a recognition of his effort to develop and implement CBT for psychosis in the Netherlands. He won the Dutch Pearl award for the best research of the year with the Early Detection and Intervention study, and the EMDRIA award for outstanding research in EMDR and at his retirement of clinical services he was knighted in the Order of the Dutch Lion.

Angelo Cocchi Award

2023 Award Recipient: Dr Amal Abdel-Baki, MD, FRCPC, M.Sc.

Head of Youth Mental Health Service- Early intervention for psychosis program Clinique JAP- Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM)
Researcher, CHUM Research Centre
Full Professor, University of Montreal

After a fellowship in early intervention for psychosis (Orygen, 2001-2002), she dedicated her career to supporting and studyingthe implementation of high-quality early intervention services for psychosis (EIS) at a provincial, national and international levels   She co-founded and serves on the boards of:

• • • • • • • • • • • • Association Québécoise des programmes pour premiers épisodes psychotiques
                      • Canadian Consortium for Early Intervention for Psychosis
                      • IEPA Francophone branch

Since 2002, she leads Clinique JAP, an exemplar of EIS best practices. Along with following patients as a psychiatrist, she supervises its large inter-disciplinary team and oversees the implementation of evidence-based interventions and novel strategies. In 2012, she created an EIS for homeless youth with psychosis+SUD.

She co-led EIS fidelity and implementation studies of essential components and associated factors across Quebec and Canada..Since 2019, she co-leads SARPEP, one of the world’s first rapid learning health systems for EIS, working with patients, families, clinicians, researchers and policymakers. She co-leads efforts to create a Pan-Canadian EIS learning health system.

She has trained >55 future clinicians and leaders from around the world and disseminated her research through > 110 scientific publications and >300 conferences. Her work presented to policymakers, influenced the Quebec ministry’s Plan d’action en santé mentale and EIS guidelines. She co-edited a special edition of Santé mentale au Québec (2021), a standalone French-language reference on EIS implementation. Partnering with lived experience experts, she supported the creation of wide-reaching short-films to disseminate knowledge.

As a recognized EIS implementation leader and policy advocate across and beyond Canada, she aims to pursue her implementation work, and help  IEPA make further inroads into the francophonie.

Larry Seidman Award

2023 Award Recipient:  Annette Thorup

Annette is a specialist in child and adolescent psychiatry,  working as a professor with focus on prevention and early intervention at the Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Science, University of Copenhagen.

She defended her PhD  thesis  in 2005 from the OPUS project called  ‘Gender differences, negative symptoms and social network in patients with first-episode schizophrenia spectrum disorders randomized to standard treatment or integrated treatment in the OPUS trial’ Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

Since 2012 Annette has been a member of the PI group behind and the daily head of ‘The Danish High Risk and Resilience Study- VIA 7’ –  a cohort study of 522 7 year old children born of parents diagnosed with either schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or neither of these two mental disorders. The Via 7 cohort is being followed up over time, first time at age 11, called the VIA 11-study and second time at age 15, the VIA 15 study, and VIA 19 is being planned.

Further, a randomized intervention study, The VIA Family Study, providing a specialized and cross-sectional intervention for children and parents in high risk families, has been conducted a long with register studies in the same field. Soon, the Research Center for Family Based Interventions will be established as the base for all kinds of activities in the field of family mental health.

Annette’s special areas of interests are developmental psychopathology and early environmental risk factors like attachment, childhood trauma, family environment, social relations and social cognition, and early intervention and prevention.