Prof Bryanne Barnett AM

Professor Barnett holds a conjoint professorial appointment with the School of Psychiatry at UNSW, where she previously held a full academic position as the first Chair of Perinatal and Infant Psychiatry.

She works as the Perinatal and Infant Psychiatrist at St John of God Health Care’s first Raphael Centre in NSW – at Blacktown and also at Karitane, Fairfield. She also works with beyondblue on their National Perinatal National Action Plan and their National Perinatal Depression Initiative.

She is a child and family psychiatrist with a particular interest in the field of perinatal and early childhood mental health. Her doctoral thesis (UNSW) concerned anxiety and its effects on mothers and their infants, and she has published extensively on anxiety and depressive disorders and their effects on parenting. Subsequent clinical and research work has focused on supporting women and their families during pregnancy and postpartum and she has set up a number of services to address these early intervention and prevention issues in the general population as well as diverse cultural communities and indigenous peoples.

Several current research collaborations, including with Sydney Children’s Hospital; Westmead Children’s Hospital; UNSW School of Psychiatry; Sydney University; UWS, and others.

Bryanne was Chairman of the Board of Karitane (Early Parenting Services) till November 2008, when she resigned in order to work for that organisation as a clinician. She is a foundation member and Past President of the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health, the Australian Society for Psychosocial Obstetrics and Gynaecology, and both the International and the Australasian Marce Societies.