Graham Martin

Professor Graham Martin OAM, MD, FRANZCP, DPM works as a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist with skills in individual and family therapy. His research interests have been in Early Intervention and Promotion of Mental Health with special reference to prevention of suicide in young people and non-suicidal self-injury.

Professor Martin was Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of Queensland, and Clinical Director of RCH Health Service District Child and Youth Mental Health Service (CYMHS) (2001-2014). He now works part time in private practice, but continues to supervise students and publish regarding his research interests.

From 1986 to 2001 he was Clinical Director of Southern Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) in Adelaide, and is a clinician, researcher, writer and commentator. Thirty years of clinical immersion in direct clinician work, supervision, systemic practice, and child psychiatry and family therapy teaching, underpins development of preventive programs in mental illness, and programs for promotion of mental health in families, communities, schools, the defence force cadets and other systems.

Graham has been dedicated to suicide prevention since 1987, and is a member of the International Association for Suicide Prevention and the International Association for Suicide Research. He was a member of the Advisory Council Australian National Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy and Evaluation Working Group (1994-99), the writing team for the Australian Suicide Prevention Strategy (2000, 2007), the National Advisory Council for Suicide Prevention (2003-8), and was a National Advisor on Suicide Prevention to the Australian Government (2009-2012). Graham is Director of the Centre for Suicide Prevention Studies in Young People at UQ (http://www.suicidepreventionstudies.org/index.html).

Graham was Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA) chairman (1995-2001), convening 6 national suicide prevention conferences, led the team developing the first Media and Suicide Resource Kit (‘Achieving the Balance’, 1998), became a Life Member of SPA (2004), was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia (2006), a ‘Jackstar’ award for 10 years contribution to Inspire Foundation’s ‘ReachOut’ program (2007), the 2008 SPA ‘Lifetime Contribution to Suicide Prevention Research’ award, and the Rowe-Zonta International Prize 2010. Graham was Catholic Education Queensland Travelling Scholar (2008-9). In 2014, Professor Martin was awarded the SPA ‘Lifetime Contribution to Suicide Prevention’ award, and in 2015 was awarded a Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Citation for his contributions to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Graham was an originator of the Australian Network for Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention program (Auseinet, 1997-2009), and Director until 2001. He is Editor in Chief for the online journal AMH (Advances in Mental Health, 2009 to date), formerly the Australian eJournal for the Advancement of Mental Health (1999-2009). Graham chaired the Queensland Mental Health Promotion, Prevention and Early Intervention committee, and was a board member for Mates in Construction, an industry leader in suicide prevention for the construction industry.

Graham is one of the editors of “Mental Health Promotion and Young People: Concepts and Challenges” (2001, McGraw Hill, Sydney), published in English, Italian and Korean. He is the author of "Taking Charge: A journey of recovery" (2013); "Sensual Haiku" a book of poetry for lovers (2013), and "Essays on Prevention in Mental Health" (2014), and is currently writing a biopic: "The Making of a Child Psychiatrist" (in draft, 2015).

The main focus of Graham’s work is the area of self-injury in young people, with clinical, community, therapy and research programs. His team has recently completed the largest ever, national survey of self-injury for the Department of Health and Ageing (The Australian National Epidemiological Survey of Self-Injury).

In his spare time he trained for 20 years in Karate, and was a Nidan black belt, and Sensei, with Hoshindo Karate International (from 2003-2009).