Lindsay Oades
Lindsay G. Oades is an Australian wellbeing public policy strategist, author, researcher and academic. He is the Director of the Centre for Wellbeing Science and a Professor at the University of Melbourne. He is also a non-executive Director of Action for Happiness Australia, and the Positive Education Schools Association. He is a former co-editor of the "International Journal of Wellbeing". Oades' major contribution has been in well-being and mental health recovery. He developed a mental health recovery model – the Collaborative Recovery Model – which is a positive psychology coaching model, used to assist people with mental  illness. He is the author of five books, and over 150 journal articles and book chapters. Oades was awarded the Australian Government citation in 2013 for outstanding contribution to student learning. Oades currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and two sons. Early life and education. Oades was born in Adelaide, South Australia where he spent his entire childhood years. He attended Heathfield High School and the University of Adelaide and lived at St. Mark's College (University of Adelaide). Oades received a B.A. with Honours in Psychology in 1993 from University of Adelaide. He then joined University of  Wollongong in 1994, where he received a PhD in Clinical Psychology in 1999, supported by an NH&MRC Dora Lush priority scholarship. Career. In 1996, Oades joined Lakeview House, Illawarra Area Health Service, as a Clinical Psychologist and then as a research manager, where he developed expertise in psychiatric rehabilitation which ultimately led to his contribution in mental health recovery. He was instrumental helping to set up the Illawarra Institute for Mental Health. In 2000, he left Illawarra Area Health Service and joined the School of Psychology at University of Wollongong as a lecturer, becoming Senior Lecturer in 2002. In 2004 , he received an MBA from University of Wollongong. In 2010, he moved from the School of Psychology to the School of Business at University of Wollongong, teaching management, workplace wellbeing and mental health. The same year, he was appointed as the Director of The Australian Institute of Business Wellbeing at the business school. He held this position until 2015, when he left University of Wollongong to join University of Melbourne as an Associate Professor of Positive Psychology. He was appointed as the Director of Centre for Positive Psychology, Melbourne Graduate School of Education at University of Melbourne in 2016. During  this time he was also Director of the Masters of Applied Positive Psychology program. He was promoted to full Professor in 2018. Oades was co-editor of the "International Journal of Wellbeing". In 2021 Oades was a coordinating lead author on a chapter with UNESCO, exploring the relationship between education and human flourishing. In 2022 Oades was appointed to Associate Dean International, Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Research and work. Oades' initial work dealt with school-based adolescents and social constructs. Some of his work during this time also dealt with schizophrenia. In the early 2000s, Oades began working on  recovery models for psychological illnesses. In 2003, he wrote "The experience of recovery from schizophrenia: towards an empirically validated stage model" with his doctoral student Andresen, which became one of his most cited papers. It was translated into eight languages, led to a new model in Positive Psychology – the Stages of Recovery model; and then converted into a book length contribution. His work in this area on Psychological Recovery and the Collaborative Recovery Model has had international and domestic reach and application. The Collaborative Recovery Model, which is a positive psychology coaching model for people with mental illness, is used  in Canada and Australia. This work included several Australian Research Council grants and one NH&MRC grant. Another line of research Oades has focused on since early 2000s is wellbeing. His research is based on the idea that wellbeing is not just the absence of illness and that everyone can improve their wellbeing with personalized plans. Much of his work is focused on increasing literacy of well-being. In the early 2010s, his research began focusing on education with a mission to have every student develop a personalised wellbeing plan. He has developed a process called the "My Wellbeing Planner", which  can help an individual in creating a personalized wellbeing plan. In 2017, he wrote the book "Wellbeing, Recovery and Mental Health" in which he used a systems science lens to argue that to achieve wellbeing for the whole population key leverage points in society such as workplaces and schools should be targeted. In 2018, he presented Thriveability Theory, which is a new theory combining psychological approaches to wellbeing and economic approaches to capability. In 2019, he published a research methods text “Coaching and mentoring research: A practical guide” based on his experience of supervising 17 doctoral students to completion. In  2021 he co-published a book "Building better schools with evidence-based policy: Adaptable policy for teachers and school leaders".