About Me

Manjula is a psychiatrist and an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She Chairs the Family Violence Working Group of Royal Australian NZ College of Psychiatrist, Victorian Branch. Manjula is an Honorary Senior Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Department of Psychiatry.

Her private psychiatric practice focusses on migrant mental health, women’s mental health, parenting issues, domestic violence and treatment of emotional traumas.

She has published and delivered academic papers in domestic violence, suicidal behaviour in immigrant victims of domestic violence, psycho-pharmacology, fish oil and depression.

Dr O’Connor is renowned within her field of Psychiatry as a Fellow of the Royal Australian NZ College of Psychiatrists. As a psychiatrist, she has worked in women’s mental health for 30 years and received the VMC Award of Excellence in Service delivery in 2013. As a ‘change agent’, she has lifted the visibility of mental health impacts of family violence among psychiatrists. In 2014, Dr O’Connor founded the first Family Violence Working Group in the Royal Australian NZ College of Psychiatrists, Victorian Branch.

Manjula believes in community engagement and community participatory action research as a way to find solutions to community issues . She is a co-Founding Director of community based Australasian Centre for Human Rights and Health- a south Asian think tank. Under her leadership, the Centre has raised awareness about family violence in migrant communities. The Australasian Centre for Human Rights and Health has led the campaign against dowry related violence in Victoria since 2012, commenced a petition against dowry demands in 2013, received extensive media coverage and successfully achieved a Royal Commission recommendation that dowry demands be classified as statutory example of family violence.

Under Manjula’s leadership the Australasian Centre designed and evaluated an Australian culture sensitisation program termed Mutual cultural respect to support migrants in their settlement process. This program is part of training on gender equality for leadership of diverse communities in Victoria.

Mutual cultural respect also tackles issues that young people of migrant communities may face making them susceptible to a cultural gap between their parents’ and their own values, a sense of alienation and dislocation, high unemployment, and anti-social behaviours.

Manjula has received Indian Sun Community person of the year award 2016, and the Victorian Government’s award of Excellence in Service Delivery in Women’s Mental Health, 2012.

To find out more about Manjula’s work at The Australasian Centre for Human Rights and Health you can visit www.achrh.org or find the ACHRH on FaceBook.