Dr Cathy Franklin
Program Leader
Dr Cathy Franklin is a psychiatrist who specialises in intellectual and developmental disability in adults.
Cathy has worked in this area since 2004, and her career has largely focussed on clinical work and education until 2015, when she commenced a part-time research appointment.
Cathy is the inaugural Director of the Mater Intellectual Disability and Autism Service (MIDAS), a state-wide clinical service established in 2018 that works to improve the health and mental health of adults with intellectual or developmental disability (including autism). The service includes psychiatrists, a psychiatry trainee, general practitioner, nurse, psychologist, program manager and administrative officer.
MIDAS has recently delivered an 18-month project commissioned by the Queensland Health Mental Health Alcohol and Other Drugs Service, working to support mental health service clients who have intellectual and developmental disability, including support to access NDIS.
Cathy has also recently become Director of QCIDD, the Queensland Centre for Intellectual and Developmental Disability, a centre established in 1997 by Professor Nick Lennox and best known for its many contributions to health of people with intellectual disability, including the CHAP health assessment tool and the AbleX massive open-online course that Cathy contributed to.
Research interests
Cathy's research interests include the areas of health services research and the biological underpinnings of conditions occurring in this population.
She is Chief Investigator on several projects, including the ICARDS (Investigation of Catatonia and Acute Regression in Down Syndrome) Study, funded by the BICARE grant ($120,000) and also the EASY-Health (Enhancing Access to Services for Your Health) Project, funded by the Australian Government NDIS ($2.3 million 2020-2023).
Cathy has presented at several different national and international conferences and meetings including numerous times at the Bi-National RANZCP Congress. She has served on the committee of the RANZCP Section of Psychiatry of Intellectual Disability for over 10 years, is chair of the Qld Branch of the Section and also serves as Vice-President of the Australian Association of Developmental Disability Medicine (AADDM).
In 2020 she was awarded the Mater Research Sister Regis Dunne award for Outstanding Contribution to research relative to opportunity.
