Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience

SUMMARY At 25, Jeff Parker was a weightlifter in country New South Wales. A week later, he was paralysed from the waist down by a tumour in his spinal cord no doctor had seen coming. In this episode of Golden Threads, host Daniel Dougherty sits down with Jeff — now 61, blind, an NDIS advocate, YouTube creator and self-described "advocate, activist, or troublemaker" — for an unflinching conversatio...

SUMMARY A diving accident on a Boxing Day cricket trip changed everything — for an 18-year-old named Jason, and for Ian Harvey, the young rugby coach standing beside him. In this episode of Golden Threads, host Daniel Dougherty sits down with Ian — National Foundation Manager for the WhatAbility Foundation in Perth — to trace a 20-year journey from fitness manager to one of Australia's most quietl...

For almost two years after his brain injury, Paul Jamieson could not eat or drink anything. When his speech pathologist finally decided he was ready to try, she asked him what he wanted. He said mangoes. He still remembers exactly what it tasted like. Nearly nine years ago, Paul was wakeboarding on a lake in Victoria when a fall headfirst into the water caused a severe brain bleed. He was helicopt...

Two years before Julie Fisher fell pregnant with her third child, the universe set her up. She'd just become friends with a woman named Tina, whose daughter Amy had Down syndrome. Julie had never met anyone with Down syndrome before. She watched Amy in the playground. She asked questions. And one of the answers — about how hard a postnatal diagnosis can be when nobody warned you — quietly rewrote...

Leanne Watson sees her life in three acts — and the third one started the day a freshly minted GP finally took her seriously. For nearly a decade, doctors fobbed her off. Lose weight. Build glutes. You've had three kids. One specialist had her parade in her bra and undies and said she "looked fine." She was 42 when she was finally diagnosed with limb girdle muscular dystrophy (LGMD) — a rare, prog...

Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience Golden Threads is a Kintsugi Heroes podcast hosted by Daniel Dougherty, sharing honest, lived-experience conversations with people navigating disability, identity, and inclusion. This series explores what it really means to adapt, persevere, and live fully in a world still learning what accessibility and inclusion look like in practice. Each e...