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News and events for BPD Collaborative
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BPD Awareness Week 2025
Wednesday 1 to Tuesday 7 October 2025.
The 2025 theme is ‘1 in 10: Uniting for Change’ – calling on clinicians, individuals, communities, services, and policy makers to unite for urgent, systemic change. For more information, visit bpdawareness.com.au
BPD Co’s 2025 lived experience planning group is creating a resource to support first responders, practitioners and carers in better understanding how individuals may present during a crisis and to guide them in providing compassionate and effective responses.
BPD Co 2025 Awareness Week 2025 — SA Events
Congratulations to the following recipients of the 2025 BPD Awareness Week Community Grants
- Bhutanese Magar Cultural Community of SA Inc.
- Centacare and Wandana Community Centre
- Connected Self
- Mission Australia
- Neami National – Urgent Mental Health Care Centre
- Riverland Mallee Coorong Local Health Network – Mental Health
- Southern Fleurieu Mental Health Service
We extend our gratitude to these services for hosting a range of BPD awareness raising activities in October and invite you to join in. Download the BPD Awareness week calendar of events.
SA Health Awards 2024
BPD Co was recognised as a finalist in the 2024 SA Health Awards, with the brief intervention Gold Card SA nominated in the ‘Improving Patient Care’ category.
Gold Card SA is the first step in the BPD Co statewide model of care supporting early intervention in the community for people who have presented to services experiencing a mental health crisis. Gold Card SA is being delivered in the Community Mental Health teams in South Australia, with implementation support and training provided by BPD Co.
Gold Card SA has, amongst other positive outcomes, demonstrated positive clinical outcomes for patients accessing the brief intervention, evidenced by a significant reduction in borderline symptoms, psychological distress, and improvements in psycho-social functioning. It has also seen a reduction in emergency department presentations and inpatient admissions, and a reduction in inpatient bed days, providing a direct cost saving for the health service. Read the full published evaluation on our research page under 2024 publications.
BPD Collaborative celebrates 5-year anniversary
BPD Co celebrated five-years since commencing operation with a showcase on 27 September 2024. The showcase was an opportunity to share progress and acknowledge the contributions of consumers, carers, clinicians, and researchers who have partnered with BPD Co to support enhanced service development, delivery and evaluation across SA over the past five years.
The showcase featured presentations on BPD Co’s implementation, research and outcomes, as well as highlighting a range of partnerships with people with lived experience, mental health service providers and academic institutions.
The event concluded with the opening of SA BPD Awareness Week 2024 campaign; Live Life Well – Recovery and BPD.
BPD Co together with Dr Lois Choi-Kain from the Gunderson Personality Disorder Institute – Boston, deliver GPM-Complex workshops in Adelaide.
In March 2024, BPD Collaborative had the pleasure of hosting Dr Lois Choi-Kain, Director of the Gunderson Personality Disorder Institute and Professor Harvard University in Adelaide.
BPD Co have been working with Dr Choi-Kain since 2020, developing a local team of trainers and supervisors in Good Psychiatric Management (GPM), an evidence-based generalist treatment for GPM. And more recently have focused on adapting GPM for people presenting with high levels of complexity.
Dr Choi-Kain’s visit to Adelaide provided on opportunity to co-lead two sold out 1-day workshops of GPM-Complex and GPM-Complex for Adolescents for mental health clinicians who had previously completed the basic 1-day training in GPM.
New research published
BPD Co. is excited to announce several new publications!
The first paper describes our coproduced peer group for people diagnosed with BPD. Participants reported experiences of growth and change, a sense of connection & feeling understood, within a safe environment grounded in mutuality. This research highlights the value of peer support in the treatment of BPD.
The second paper highlights the effectiveness of Gold Card SA, a brief crisis intervention for people who present to services with symptoms of BPD. This intervention has been implemented across metropolitan and regional areas of South Australia. In addition to demonstrating positive clinical outcomes for service users, the audit highlights a reduction in ED and inpatient service utilisation.
Finally, the third paper reports on the acceptability and feasibility of BPD Co’s short-term group, Road Maps. Based on the initial cohort of 208 adults and youth who consented to participate in the evaluation, those who completed the group reported that the sessions were useful, that they liked the group, and they would recommend it to others. The incidence rate of emergency department presentations was significantly lower in the 6 months after the group, compared to the 6 months beforehand.
See our research page for more information about projects happening at BPD Co.
19th Congress of the International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders (ISSPD) 2023
In November 2023, staff from BPD Co, presented at the ISSPD Conference in Sydney.
The ISSPD, stimulates and supports scholarship, clinical experience, international collaboration and communication of research on all aspects of personality disorders including both diagnosis, course and treatment.
BPD Co delivered 10 presentations over the three day congress, two symposia presenting evaluations of the services delivered including; Integrating lived experience within a state-wide service for people living with BPD and Stepped care for BPD: A real world example.
Two free papers were also presented which focussed on the rates of BPD symptoms in custodial settings Prevalence and self-reported symptomatology of BPD in prison: A systematic review and meta-analysis and Prevalence of BPD symptoms amongst a moderate and high risk cohort of adult offenders in SA.
Newsletters
BPD Co’s ‘Lived Experience Update’ shares our latest news, together with updates and opportunities from relevant programs and services for people living with BPD, carers, and professional supporters.