Mental Health and Telehealth
Organizations and Professional Events
V to VZZ

• Promotion of advanced technical training, such as through the Annual Convention
• Advocacy for public policy
• Assurance of a suitable professional working conditions
• Liaison with related professional organizations

All services are based on the assumption that we, as human beings, have the capacity to make choices. As a consequence we can take personal responsibility for effecting lifestyle changes. Freedom, from the VLES point of view, is about making choices in order to give life the direction we want it to have, despite the limitations or hardships we may encounter. Health is about establishing a life direction that is good for us. VLES defines health as "Doing the best you can with what you have." At VLES we believe that people who are interested in making lifestyle changes will benefit from close examination of how they live and the alternatives available to them. VLES will run workshops at various locations on request.

The VTPU is recognised within Australia as one of the leading research units investigating immigration, ethnicity and mental illness. Much of its work involves primary data gathering through surveys and interviews, although it also undertakes secondary analysis of national and state data sets. Extensively published in peer-reviewed academic journals and extensively cited, the unit also publishes its own books. The unit also serves in an advisory capacity for those undertaking research in the field of transcultural mental health.

VTPU staff currently lecture to nurses, medical students and psychiatric trainees. In addition, the VTPU runs a post-graduate diploma in Transcultural Mental Health through the University of Melbourne. The VTPU contributes to the in-service education of state psychiatric inpatient units, community mental health centres, non-Government organisations and ethno-specific community groups and agencies.

Formed in 1989, its aims have been:

• To defend human rights of persons with mental disability
• To unite Lithuanian families of people with mental disability, their carers and supporters, helping them to get integrated into the society
• To promote and support social, medical and environmental prevention and early detection of mental disability and to ensure proper treatment, education, social rehabilitation and integration for the mentally disabled people
• To lobby governmental structures and institutions and seek participation in the decision making on all levels of power, to ensure proper opportunities for personal development, education, employment, care, living and recreation for the mentally disabled
• To enable and encourage people with mental disability to participate in decisions affecting any area of their lives
• To raise public awareness about people with mental disability
• To educate member families about different aspects of disability
• To seek and maintain co-operation with disability-related organisations and institutions both in Lithuania and abroad.
• To co-operate with educational institutions training specialists for work with mentally disabled people

• Provides training and mentoring opporutniies for prychiatry residents and fellows
• Conducts state-of-the-art research on children with disabilities and their families
• Publishes research findings through international journals and books
• Sponsors the annual international Virginia Beach Conference on Children and Adolescents with Emotional, Behavioral, and Developmental Disorders
• Sponsors a professional continuing education series including workshops and forums
• Provides training and technical assistance to agencies and communities across the state to develop innovative, individualized programs through consultation and group training
• Conducts program evaluations of public and private agencies assists investigators from various agencies in planning and conducting original research
• Conducts the latest drug therapy research in the Pediatric Psychopharmacology Unit