Travelling to Learn, Returning to Share: Marsha McAdam’s Churchill Fellowship
- Jon Salmon
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
At the Hope Conference, Speakers Collective member Marsha McAdam shared an extraordinary and deeply personal journey.
Her talk, “Travelling to Learn, Returning to Share,” explored her Churchill Fellowship travels across Australia and the United States but more importantly, it illuminated why early intervention, compassionate support, and cultural change in mental health care are urgently needed.
For Marsha, this Fellowship wasn’t just a research project. It was an act of remembrance, advocacy, and hope.
A Personal Mission Born from Pain and Survival
Marsha spoke openly about living with a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, a term still debated; a name still argued over. But for her, the terminology is secondary. What matters is the reality that too many young people are suffering, unsupported, misunderstood, and sometimes lost to suicide.
She reflected on her own younger self, the “younger Marsha” she often grieves for who faced suicide attempts, stigma, and years of pain before finally receiving relational-based treatment in 2010 that transformed her life.
Her son, witnessed much of that pain as a child. “No kid should have to,” she said. And it’s this generational impact that drives her call for change. Her message to the room was simple, powerful, and urgent:
“Forget what you call the name. Think about how many younger Marshas are out there.”
Learning from Australia: A Model That Starts with Young People
Marsha’s Fellowship began in Melbourne at Orygen, a world-leading organisation for early intervention and youth mental health. She witnessed what a truly integrated approach looks like:
Clinicians
Researchers
Young people
Carers working together as one team
Their Helping Young People Early (HYPE) programme, supporting young people aged 15–25, showed what is possible when services evolve around young people, not the other way around.
Marsha contrasted this with the UK system, where young people must often “fit into a circle or model” rather than receive flexible, relational and developmentally-informed care.
At Orygen, research constantly informs treatment, and young people supported through the programme often go on to university, employment, and lives free from the heavy stigma of diagnoses imposed too early or too bluntly.
“I want that for young people here,” Marsha said. “We need to identify early, support early, and intervene early.”
Learning from America: Rigour and Reality
From Australia, Marsha travelled to the University of Houston, spending time with Professor Carla Sharp and her team. They specialise in early detection, assessment, and treatment for young people at risk.
In the US, the barrier is financial access; families must pay for care. Marsha observed these detailed processes firsthand, giving her insight into what careful, compassionate diagnosis can look like when done properly. Across both continents, one thing was clear:
Early intervention changes lives.Trajectory can be transformed.Meaningful futures are possible.
The Report: A Travel Diary Filled with Humanity
Marsha’s Churchill Fellowship report is not a dry policy document. It’s written as a travel diary full of the voices she met along the way:clinicians, researchers, young people, carers, and people living with the diagnosis themselves.
It shows that regardless of the model whether relational, integrative, or specialist treatment lives can and do change when support is given early and without judgement.
“If we can change someone’s life path, why are we not doing it?”
A Call to Make This Everyone’s Business
Marsha spoke candidly about the pain behind self-harm and suicide attempts describing them not as attention-seeking behaviours, but as expressions of deep hurt and the only control she felt she had.
She also highlighted the absence of support for young carers and children of parents living with this diagnosis. “Imagine being a young child with a parent who has BPD,” she said. “There is nothing for them.” Her plea is clear:
This cannot be left to individuals.This must become everyone’s business.
Finding Identity, Community, and Hope
Marsha ended by speaking about her long connection with the Speakers Collective.
From her first invitation from Jonny Benjamin MBE and Jo Emmerson to an event in Canary Wharf, to the friendships, identity, and sense of belonging she has built over the years.
The Speakers Collective has been part of her journey towards connection and purpose.
Marsha described turning 50 as something she never thought she would live to see, nor witnessing her son turn 30. Today, she continues to balance fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, reclusiveness, and the emotional cost of her work but she remains driven by hope, community, and the fierce belief that things must change.
Before closing, she asked everyone in the room to applaud themselves and their colleagues:
“You show up day in, day out and please clap for yourselves.”
A Fellowship That Will Spark Change
Marsha’s Churchill Fellowship "Can You Listen and Hear What I Say? A Tale of 3 Countries.” is more than a report it is a catalyst. A call for early detection. A call for prevention. A call for compassion. A call to save the younger Marshas who are hurting now.
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