Introduction

Dr. Gallus Bischof, AFINet chair and conference organizers

Keynote 1: Physical and mental health of people living with drug users in Brazil

Chair: Richard Velleman
Prof. Helena Maria Tannhauser Barros (Brazil)

Helena Maria Tannhauser Barros, MD, MSc, PhD, is Professor of Pharmacology at the Universidade Federal de Ciências da Saúde de Porto Alegre (UFCSPA), Brazil, where she has developed a longstanding career in translational pharmacology, neuroscience, and psychopharmacology. Her research integrates experimental and clinical approaches to substance use, mental health, and neurobiological mechanisms of drug dependence. A distinctive component of her career has been the development and evaluation of teleconsultation and telehealth approaches for people who use drugs and their families. Through the Serviço de Informações sobre Drogas and related initiatives, she has investigated remote consultation as a strategy for providing accessible, confidential, and evidence-based information and support to drug users, relatives, and caregivers. Her work contributed to the development of telemedicine methodologies for the assessment of drug-related problems and family experiences, generating research and extension activities with direct relevance to public health and mental health care in Brazil.

The Effectiveness of Concerned Significant Other Interventions in the Treatment of Problem Gambling: A Systematic Review

Dr. Ruaridh Gill (UK)

Dr Ruaridh Gill is a clinical psychologist working in addiction psychology in the west coast of Scotland with NHS Lanarkshire. Through completing my doctorate at the University of Glasgow I have become very interested in Gambling disorder, its treatment and research relating to its impacts on Concerned Significant Others.

Something new for your toolbox: Working alongside an invisible and voiceless group in the Iceberg project, Italy. New tools designed to raise awareness among professionals and communities regarding gamblers’ Affected Family Members

Alessandra Bassi (Italy)

Alessandra Bassi is a Professional systemic-relational counsellor; Accredited Practitioner and Assessor for the 5-Step Method, supporting the family members of those with an addiction. I have been raising awareness about gambling and addiction for almost 20 years, and have been working with the families of problem gamblers for 15 years. I work on the Iceberg project, run by the social cooperative L’Arco and the La Ricerca Foundation in Piacenza (in collaboration with the SerDP, the National Health Service).

Experiences and perspectives of American Indian affected family members impacted by a relative’s substance use

Fiona Grubin (USA)

Fiona Grubin (pronounced groo-bin) is a public health researcher in the United States with more than six years of experience collaborating with Indigenous communities on mental health research. She currently works as a project coordinator for the Montana Office of Rural Health and is also a PhD Candidate in Montana State University’s Indigenous and Rural Health program.

“I Needed a Father”: Well-being, Challenges, and Needs of Innu Youth Close to Someone Returning to the Matimekush-Lac John Community After Addiction Treatment

Prof. Mathilde Garneau (Canada)

Mathilde Garneau is an adjunct professor in psychoeducation at the Université de Sherbrooke. Non-Indigenous herself, she has always been interested in Indigenous cultures and realities, especially since an internship in psychoeducation in an Innu school in Unamen Shipu in 2011-2012. Since then, she has been involved in diverse research projects concerning the mental health and substance use of Indigenous youth and adults, in the fields of clinical assessment, prevention and intervention. Those projects, including her own PhD thesis, concern best practices and the development and/or validation of intervention programs and assessment tools among Indigenous youth and families. Concurrently, she has been involved for several years as a psychosocial intervener in a community family centre, in Sherbrooke, with families from diverse cultural backgrounds. Her involvement continues to date as a member of their administrative council. She also teaches measurement and assessment in psychoeducation, among other classes, at Université de Sherbrooke.

Compassionate Care: How to Stay Well While Helping Others

Shawn Fisk (Canada)

Shawn Fisk is Senior Manager of Strategic Partnerships at CAPSA Canada and a nationally recognized leader in Compassionate Care and Stigma-and-Discrimination-Informed Practices. With over 20 years navigating substance use health and mental health systems himself, he blends lived and living experience, peer leadership, and clinical expertise. His mission is simple: build systems where dignity is the starting point for equitable, effective care.

Scaling and Sustaining Peer Support Groups for Substance-Affected Families: A Feasibility and Acceptability Study in British Columbia

Jennifer Hawkins et al. (Canada)

Dr. Amy Salmon is a public health researcher whose work focuses on substance use, health equity, and community-engaged approaches to supporting people affected by structural and social inequities. She is currently Director of the Centre for Advancing Health Outcomes, Clinical Associate Professor and Director of Clinical Faculty Affairs at the University of British Columbia.

Jennifer Hawkins is a public health researcher with the Centre for Advancing Health Outcomes who focuses on community-engaged research.

Frances Kenny is the mother of two sons, 48 and 50, the youngest now celebrating 23 years of sobriety. She is the founder and facilitator of Parents Forever, a 25 year program providing support to affected families.

Brenna Ayliff has over two decades of experience in public health and community development. Her personal journey supporting a loved one in addiction inspired her current PhD research on factors influencing youth substance use trajectories.

Developing an intervention to support family members asked to supervise contact

Liam Knowles (UK)

Liam Knowles after almost 20 years of personal addiction, I have spent the past 15 years working in a variety of Addiction Services in the UK. Over the past couple of years I have held a management role at a specialist Family and Carers Support Service. I am currently studying for my PhD at Teesside University.

What We Heard: Reframing Support for Youth Affected by Parental Substance Use Through the Voices of friends, family, and professionals support youth

Agnes Chen (Canada)

Agnes Chen is a Registered Nurse, a trauma informed consultant, and the Founder and CEO of Starlings Community, a non-profit leading a movement that is reshaping how society, systems, and communities support youth navigating the stress and stigma of parental substance use. Deeply rooted in health equity frameworks and community organizing, Agnes brings extensive expertise in building peer leaders, training frontline workers, leading trauma-informed collectives, and walking alongside youth and their families through systemic barriers to ensure their needs are met without fear or shame.

From storybook to classroom: co-production and early piloting of a preventive intervention for children affected by parental substance use in UK primary schools

Dr. Nicola Aldridge (UK)

Nicola Aldridge is a Research Associate based at Newcastle University currently working on a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Three Research Schools Prevention Research Programme funded research project looking at developing an early preventative universal school based intervention for young children to mitigate the negative impact of parental substance use and promote wellbeing.

Boxing for young adult children of parents with mental illness and addiction

Dr. Dorine van Namen (Netherlands)

Dorine Van Namen is a senior researcher at Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands. She completed her PhD last year with a longitudinal study on the impact of addiction on young adult family members. In her research, she also examined the support these young adults did or did not receive, as well as their support needs. The project she will be discussing this evening is a logical follow-up to this doctoral research and aims to broaden the range of support available to young adult relatives.

Also present is team leader Willemijn Langkamp. She is a movement scientist and researcher at In holland University of Applied Sciences.

Introduction to day 2

Dr. Gallus Bischof, AFINet chair and conference organizers

Keynote 2: “Who Pays for the Drink?” Alcohol Use and Family Harm in India

Chair: Gallus Bischof
Prof. Abhijit Nadkarni, India, UK

Abhijit Nadkarni is Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine London (UK) & Sangath, Goa (India), NIHR Professor of Global Research (LSHTM) and psychiatrist & global mental health researcher whose work focuses on alcohol use disorders, mental health, & scalable psychosocial interventions in low-resource settings. He is a co-editor of the essential handbook Families Affected by Addiction. Abhijit is a leading voice in culturally adapting the 5-Step Method to support families worldwide, particularly in low- and middle-income settings. The session will explore the public health, social, & policy implications of addressing alcohol use as a family and societal issue—not merely an individual choice.

Beyond the Symptom: Families of Adults with Eating Disorders in an Addiction Treatment Setting

Sylvie Koutsouki (Greece)

Slyvie Koutsouki is a Health Psychologist and Cognitive Behavioural Therapist with over 25 years of experience across mental health, prevention and addiction treatment. She has worked extensively in public mental health and addiction services, including the Addiction Treatment Unit of the Psychiatric Hospital of Attica, where she worked as a Psychologist and served as Scientific Lead of the Family Department, providing individual and group psychotherapy to people affected by addiction and their families. She currently works in the Family and Parenting Support Programme for prisoners and people released from prison in Attica, within therapeutic correctional facilities. Her clinical work focuses on the complex interplay between addiction and family life, with particular emphasis on family interventions, motivation for change, and supporting affected family members throughout treatment and recovery.

Impact of drug-related intimidation on families in Ireland: findings from national monitoring data

Janet Robinson (Ireland)

Janet Robinson is the DRIVE Data Research and Evaluation Coordinator with the Health Research Board, working on the National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS), Ireland’s national addiction database. Her work focuses on the collection, analysis, and reporting of addiction treatment data, with a particular focus on drug-related intimidation. Janet’s expertise spans research and monitoring systems, and the use of evidence to inform policy, service development, and improved outcomes for individuals, families, and communities affected by substance use.

Evaluating the feasibility of the 5-Step Method within Secondary Care Mental Health Services

Dr. Isaac Akande (UK)

Dr Isaac Akande is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and clinical lead for the Co-occurring Mental Health and Addictions Rehabilitation Team (COMHART), a specialist service providing assessment, intervention and consultation for patients on psychiatric rehabilitation wards in South London with co-occurring mental health and substance use difficulties.

Online Community Reinforcement and Family Training for concerned significant others in rural Australia: A qualitative study

Heidi Gray (Australia)

Heidi Gray is a PhD candidate at the Rural Health Research Institute, Charles Sturt University, with her mixed-methods research focusing on carers of individuals who use substances. Heidi holds an honours degree in psychology and is also a trained teacher.

Child Protection Responses to Alcohol-Related Domestic Violence in Lithuania: Assessing Children’s Safety and Support Needs

Profl Ilona Tamutienè (Lithuania)

Professor Ilona Tamutienė is a researcher at Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania. Her research focuses on alcohol policies, alcohol-related harm to others, violence against children, with particular interest in how institutional responses and policies shape child safety.

Addiction – It’s a Family Matter. Who Cares? Using autobiographical writing to raise awareness of a neglected and stigmatised subject

Chair: Richard Velleman

Prof. Jim Orford & Christine Hollywood, UK

Jim Orford is Emeritus Professor of Clinical and Community Psychology at the University of Birmingham, England. He originally trained as a clinical psychologist, later playing a role in promoting community psychology in the UK and in Europe, and more recently focusing his attention on topics in the area of political psychology, notably in trying to understand support for war, and acceptance of high levels of economic inequality.

But Jim’s longest-standing career role has been as a researcher and writer on addiction and its effects on the family. In 2010 Jim was awarded the internationally prestigious Jellinek Memorial Award for his work on addiction. He was a co-founder of AFINet and served as an AFINet Trustee for several years.

Jim has long had an interest in the use of autobiographical writing for raising public and professional awareness about addiction and the family. Among his many book and article publications, of particular relevance for this presentation was his book Addiction Dilemmas: Family Experiences in Literature and Research, published in 2012.

Christine Hollywood is a published poet. Her poetry collection, Fragile Islands, was published in 2024. It was joint winner of the Indigo Dreams First Collection Competition.

Christine trained as a teacher. She began writing poetry while studying creative writing and its links to personal development and health. She went on to create a writing groupwork practice which has taken personal and expressive writing into primary and secondary schools, health and wellbeing charities, and community settings in both London and the southeast of the UK.

From 2013- 2015 she was Chair of the writing for wellbeing organisation Lapidus International, and coordinator of its London branch.

Her interests include looking at the hidden issues affecting the lives of many of us in subtle and often unspoken ways. In particular those which affect families, women and children. Some of her poems address these issues.

She is currently working with Emeritus Professor Jim Orford, to draw attention to the subject of addiction and its impact on the family, using literature and poetry. They collaborated with other poets, and actors on their presentation Addiction – It’s a Family Matter. Who Cares? at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2026.