16 August 2024
All it takes is one discovery. That’s what keeps Lou Wardlaw motivated in her work as co-founder and chair of One in Five, a fundraising group that supports medical research into mental illness.
Just one discovery could ultimately improve the lives of millions of people worldwide.
“But the important add-on is that donating to research is also about providing hope for people living with mental illness. This is why we’re saying: ‘You matter, we’re supporting this, and there will be discoveries!”
This has been the focus for Wardlaw and her family for more than 20 years. Together with friends, they established their not-for-profit registered charity in the wake of her brother Matt’s suicide. Matt had been struggling with anxiety and depression for some time before taking his life on New Year’s Day, 2001. “Back in early 2003, we all gathered around the kitchen table at Mum and Dad’s, and the organisation was born,” Wardlaw says. And with Matt being one of five siblings, and the statistic at the time being that one in five people lived with mental illness every 12 months, they quickly found their name.
New partnership
In their first year, One in Five provided funding to Prahran Mission, which helped build a cafe that employed people living with mental illness. It was a tangible, rewarding way to get involved, but Wardlaw says they quickly realised that there was a severe lack of funding for mental health research. They started working with organisations in this space, and by 2015, had forged a partnership with Monash University. As a leading global research-intensive university, Monash was delivering research excellence across the field of mental health. The partnership with Monash has been integral to developing a range of critical projects, such as the introduction of a three-year research fellow at the HER Centre’s Li Transformative Hub for Research in Eating Disorders (THRED).
The program involves clinical trials using developments in neuroscience and brain research to generate an evidence based approach into new treatments. They are also funding research into the mental health effects of menopause, the impact of Covid, PhD scholarships and other work. In August, at the inaugural One in Five fundraising lunch for men’s mental health, they also announced a three-year research fellowship into depression and suicide prevention.
One man who has been key to One in Five’s commitment to Monash is Professor Suresh Sundram, Head of the Department of Psychiatry, and Director of Research of the Mental Health Program at Monash Health. Suresh is really impressive, extremely intelligent and a very powerful speaker, which was important for us – someone our audiences could connect with,” Wardlaw says. They also work closely with award-winning Professor Jayashri Kulkarni AM, a leading expert in women’s mental health and founder and director of the HER Centre Australia and the Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc). “Jayashri is an absolute gun and trailblazer. She’s very savvy and doing incredible things.”
Providing hope
While Matt will always be the inspiration for Wardlaw and her family – her parents are still hands-on in the organisation – it’s become about so much more. Much of that is due to Wardlaw’s first-hand experiences. Since establishing One in Five, Wardlaw has lost another brother – this time to cancer – who she was extremely close to, as were her two girls. Both daughters have faced their own mental health challenges, including eating disorders. And several years ago, Wardlaw was diagnosed with breast cancer, taking a year’s leave to devote to her recovery.
Wardlaw is now safely on the other side of that diagnosis, but the experience has only made her more determined in her work at One in Five. “If I was diagnosed with breast cancer 20 years earlier, I would’ve had a 20 per cent chance of surviving. Now I have more than 80 per cent chance of survival after five years,” Wardlaw says. “That’s all because of research, so we need to provide the same hope to people living with mental illness.”
New momentum
Still, it’s clear there are frustrations – suicide rates have continued to rise, while a lack of investment into research remains. “It’s going to be slower for us to have those discoveries, but that’s what continues to motivate me. I also find statistics very motivating: mental illness is estimated to cost the Australian economy $220 billion a year!”
With Wardlaw now working solely on One in Five, the team have momentum. To date, they’ve raised more than $4 million, but there is plenty more to come. “There have been a few significant learnings through this work, but we’re yet to realise our dream and mission around developing better treatments and finding cures for mental illness,” says Wardlaw.
If you don’t invest in research, nothing will change. In fact, if we don’t do this, and others don’t continue to invest in it, things won’t just not change – they’ll get worse.
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