Our National Team

Srividya Iyer is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and an Associate Member in the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. She is a licensed psychologist and a Researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute. Her work focuses on youth mental health and early intervention, including for serious mental health problems such as psychosis. She seeks to ensure that more young people worldwide have timely access to appropriate, youth-friendly mental healthcare and enjoy well-being and social participation. Srividya partners closely with young people, families, and communities to influence real-world practice and policy in Canada and globally. She leads ACCESS Open Minds, a pan-Canadian network of 250+ diverse stakeholders that is transforming mental healthcare for urban, rural, Indigenous, post-secondary and homeless youths across Canada. She has been contributing to several other youth-focused services, research, and capacity-building efforts, including in India, where she was born. Srividya has received numerous awards and was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada’s College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists in 2017 and named on the inaugural list of Canadian Women leaders in Global Health. In 2021, she was elected Vice President of the International Association for Youth Mental Health.

Valérie has worked and studied in the mental health field for 16 years in several provinces across Canada and most recently in the US. She completed her graduate studies at Memorial University in Newfoundland and her post doctoral work at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

After six years in the US she returned to Canada to join ACCESS Open Minds. Her research interests include mood disorders among youth, implementation science, and the potential of technology to augment access to mental health supports for people with serious mental illness. In her current role at ACCESS Open Minds, she leads the quantitative analyses. Her long-term goals are for her work to influence policy development for improving access to mental health services for marginalized populations and those living in rural and remote communities.

Her favourite season is winter, which makes Montréal a great place for her to be.

Alyssa Frampton is based remotely in K’Jipuktuk, (Halifax). She has been part of the ACCESS Open Minds Network since its inauguration – starting as a youth council member, and now working with the central office team. Along with being a member of the ACCESS OM Network, Alyssa has worked at the intersections of community engagement, health and policy for the past 7 years in various roles, most recently as an associate with Wisdom2Action. Alyssa has led and advised many initiatives focused on youth and community based mental health, health rights, and advocacy. Alyssa holds a political science degree from Saint Mary’s University and has completed additional online courses in global adolescent health, youth mental health, harm reduction, and children’s rights. Outside of work, Alyssa is a lover of bad reality tv and swimming as much as possible.

Yvonne leads the Family Council at ACCESS Open Minds in a way that showcases the council as examples of who they are: people who show up, commit to being seen, to self-care, to growth and development. She fosters collaborative approaches that recognizes and allows each member of the council to bring their experience and passion to the forefront of their projects. As a former peer support worker at the Douglas University Health Institute, Yvonne values families and collaboration and is committed to the transformation of youth mental health services across Canada. In her spare time, she loves the arts and connecting with nature. She draws on her professional experience to explore and inform the use of bio-materials in order to elicit emotional responses from participants. Her work focuses on how to make the “unseen”, “seen”.

Cat helps the team implement knowledge translation strategies and develops materials accessible for different audiences. With a keen interest in both art and science, she is determined to make resources that are informative and engaging.

After completing her Master of Science in Behavioural Neuroscience (Memorial University), she realized her real passion revolved around making research accessible to the general public. This led her to pursue a graduate diploma in Science Communication (Laurentian University) where she was able to experiment with different mediums of communication from exhibit design to short films. Since then, she has held roles in different areas including science writing, science outreach, program evaluation and most recently, knowledge translation.

Cat is also passionate about improving youth mental health and is particularly drawn by ACCESS Open Mind’s engaging approach to improving the access and quality of youth mental health services in Canada. She feels incredibly lucky to be working in a role where she is able to bring her two passions together.

She also enjoys art-making, singing, cycling (or any other outdoor activity), and cuddling cats.

Marilena Liguori has a multidisciplinary academic background in the social sciences and extensive experience in qualitative research. She has worked on research projects carried out in diverse settings and on a wide range of topics, including the experiences of immigrants and refugees, diversity and inclusion in organizations, urban issues, the coping strategies of caregivers and patients with chronic illnesses, as well as health services and information for culturally and linguistically diverse patients. She has developed expertise in the coordination and realization of projects bringing together various researchers and partners. Her role in these projects has included developing research proposals and grant applications, writing literature reviews, conducting semi-structured interviews and focus groups, data analysis, as well as dissemination of research findings

Kindha leads the communication and media elements of ACCESS Open Minds. Throughout her 20-year career, she’s been an executive, writer, advocate, speaker, content marketer, board member, professor, and volunteer. Now, Kindha guides organizations on how to send the right messages to the right people in the right way. With a strong background in healthcare-specific communications, Kindha is applying that experience to support a better, integrated approach to youth mental health in Canada. Kindha runs a boutique communications firm, Spotlight Strategic, and is also a professor at Algonquin College.

Kathleen is pursuing her doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Srividya Iyer, examining help-seeking experiences and pathways to mental health services for youth in Canada.

After obtaining her Master’s degree in Brain Sciences from the University of Glasgow, Kathleen worked as a research assistant at the Prevention and Early Intervention Program for Psychosis (PEPP), in Montreal.

Kathleen joined ACCESS Open Minds because she is hopeful it can make a difference for youth. While growing up in a small rural community, she too often witnessed just how inaccessible our mental health services can be.

Kathleen loves road trips, which are often extended by her tendency to confuse left and right when giving directions.