Navigating Disability

Join us for a profoundly personal and impactful conversation with Morgan Fitzpatrick—a visionary advocate, transformative leader, and unwavering champion for inclusion and early childhood development. In this episode, we move beyond theory and into the heart of lived experience.  Morgan is at the forefront of driving systemic change in how we identify, support, and empower children with developmen...

Join us today for an inspiring episode of Navigating Disability with Isaac Harvey MBE—a remarkable disability advocate, acclaimed content creator, and President of Wheels and Wheelchairs. Born with limb-pelvic hypoplasia, Isaac has mastered using his feet with incredible dexterity to edit videos, navigate the digital world, and tirelessly campaign for a more accessible future.  His life is a testa...

In this profoundly moving episode of Navigating Disability, we sit down with Clare Stewart, whose remarkable journey as a barrister, author, and former Mayor of Noosa is underpinned by a pivotal, life-shattering event.  Clare's journey with disability began with the accident that changed everything. In a moment of sheer terror, trapped and convinced she would die as both her legs were crushed...

This time, Navigating Disability sit with a leader whose life and work are woven from both profound professional expertise and deeply personal experience.  Meet Jeramy, he steers the ship as CEO of a Specialist Disability Accommodation (SDA) Alliance, lends his voice as a member of the Disability Council of NSW, and serves as a dedicated Non-Executive Director, all in pursuit of a more inclusive w...

How can personal experience create more effective public policy?  In this episode of Navigating Disability, we speak with Chloe Jesson, a passionate advocate for community mental health, a policy reformer, and the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Queensland Alliance for Mental Health.  With deep experience in the not-for-profit sector, she leads initiatives that amplify the voices of lived experi...

In this reflective episode, Navigating Disability sit down with Abdul Haseeb, a figure whose personal story has inspired a global conversation.  Known as Pakistan's first ADHD coach, Haseeb's true identity is that of a neurodiversity storyteller and mental health advocate who speaks from the heart of lived experience. Haseeb’s relationship with ADHD began at 14, with a diagnosis that cam...

What does it mean to truly see? For disability advocate Fiona Demark, vision was never a guarantee, but a diminishing resource.  Today, Navigating Disability sit with Fiona Demark, an advocate for disability. Born with approximately 40% sight due to recessive genes, a genetic legacy she shares with her sister, Fiona’s world was always one of gradual erasure. Around the ages of five or six, doctors...

What does it mean to feel different, even within the community where you're supposed to belong?  In today's episode, Navigating Disability seat with Fiona Fonti, a dedicated advocate for disability rights and accessibility. Fiona works to raise awareness about the challenges many face and the importance of inclusive spaces. From the age of three, Fiona Fonti navigated the world as a prof...

What defines a life? Is it the challenges we're born with or the choices we make in spite of them? In this powerful episode of Navigating Disability, we sit down with Kris Hammons, a man whose first memory isn't of a birthday or a holiday, but of a profound medical intervention: a chest surgery to secure his airway. He's a product manager, writer and motivational speaker. He helps d...

Trigger Warning: This episode contains discussions about medical trauma and PTSD. Please take care while listening. Need support? Call Lifeline on 13 11 14 From a challenging start as a toddler to becoming Australia's most decorated female Paralympian. Today, Navigating Disability sit with Ellie Cole. Ellie Cole's story is about quiet resilience and finding your own path. Ellie was diagn...

Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of health struggles and trauma. Please take care while listening. Need support? Call Lifeline on 13 11 14. What does it mean to build a life of purpose when your body has been fighting you since childhood? Today, Navigating Disability sit with Eliot Carroll. Before his tenth birthday, Eliot was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH). Hi...

What happens when you grow up expecting to be “fixed” and later learn that your disability isn’t something to hide, but a source of insight, purpose and power?  In this episode, Kate and Jenn sit down with Anja Christoffersen, an award-winning disability advocate, social entrepreneur, and 2025 QLD Excellence in Women’s Leadership Award winner. Anja discusses her powerful story of living with a com...

After a devastating car accident at age four, Eamon Wood's life was forever changed. But instead of letting paraplegia define him, he forged a path that redefines what resilience looks like. In this powerful episode, Eamon shares his journey from becoming New Zealand's first professional wheelchair basketball player in Europe to building a family, an engineering career, and a thriving as...

Cassie Day never expected her life to unfold this way. At 23, she was thrown into the deep end when her newborn son was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis. What followed was a rollercoaster of medical trauma, emotional resilience, and a relentless fight to give her son a chance at life. In this episode, Cassie shares the raw, unfiltered story behind founding The Carer's Place, winning South Austr...

Trigger warning: This episode discusses psychiatric hospitalization and suicidal thoughts. If you need support, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 (Australia) or your local crisis line. At 17, Dr. Azi Jankovic was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and told she’d be medicated for life. For over two decades, she lived within a system that prioritised sedation over root-cause healing. But Azi chose a dif...

In this episode of Navigating Disability , Kate and Jenn speak with Lisa Grech, living with multiple sclerosis while caring full time for her adult daughter, Hannah, who experiences a severe intellectual disability and is non-verbal. Lisa gives us raw, courageous insight into what it means to be both a person with disability and a carer, and why amplifying the voices of those who can’t be heard is...

Natalie Terry Bedwell never planned for a life filled with diagnoses, advocacy, and navigating complex care systems, but it’s the life she’s embraced with courage and clarity. In this moving episode, Natalie shares what it's like to raise seven children, four of whom live with disabilities, while also managing her own diagnoses of ADHD and autism. From unexpected grief to unexpected joy, Nata...

In this moving episode of Navigating Disability , we sit down with William Ward-Boas, an Autistic, First Nations, gay self-advocate and deputy chair of VALID. Diagnosed as non-verbal with intellectual disability and written off by professionals as a child, William's story is one of incredible resilience, transformation, and purpose. William opens up about the harsh realities of growing up in...

In this powerful episode of Navigating Disability , Kate and Jenn sit down with Aaron Fowler. He’s a senior physiotherapist, sports journalist, and vision-sports advocate living with retinitis pigmentosa (RP). Diagnosed at age five, Aaron shares the reality of his condition: tunnel vision, night blindness, and a future of unpredictable sight loss. He opens up about how he learned to navigate schoo...

Mel James is a force of lived experience, resilience, and truth-telling. In this powerful episode, she shares her journey as a mother of children with "unique needs," her advocacy within the disability and education systems, and her personal healing from complex trauma.  Mel dives deep into what it means to raise children in a world that often misunderstands difference, the grief and gra...

When 19-year-old Jonathan Sigworth fell off a 70-foot cliff in the Himalayas, his life changed forever. But what followed wasn’t just recovery, it was revolution. In this episode, Jonathan shares how a spinal cord injury transformed his path, igniting a mission to uplift and empower others living with SCI (Spinal Cord Injury) across the globe. From starting India’s first wheelchair rugby team, to...

In this raw and inspiring conversation, Zoe Simmons, award-winning journalist, author, and fierce disability advocate, shares her journey from medical gaslighting and feeling invisible to embracing her identity as autistic, chronically ill, and living with mental health challenges. Zoe unpacks how she came to call herself “disabled,” confront stigma, navigate self-image and accessibility, and real...

At just 19, Jeremy Muir’s life changed forever after a car accident left him with a spinal cord injury. But as Jeremy says, “Why not me?”, a question that became a driving force behind his journey of resilience, reflection, and radical independence. In this powerful episode, Jeremy opens up about the mental, emotional, and physical challenges of adapting to life as a quadriplegic. From his early s...

When life delivered two seismic blows, her daughter’s rare genetic diagnosis and her own cancer battle, Hayley Thiele didn’t crumble. She transformed. In this episode, Hayley shares her raw and remarkable story of parenting her daughter Pippa, who lives with Wiedemann-Steiner syndrome, while navigating her own cervical cancer diagnosis. From feeding tubes to oxygen tanks, relentless hospital admis...

Born without arms or legs, Nick Vujicic has spent his life proving that limitations don’t define us, they refine us. In this powerful episode of Navigating Disability , Kate and Jenn sit down with the world-renowned motivational speaker, author, and advocate to explore his journey from childhood bullying and deep despair to global stages and a life of hope, faith, and purpose. Nick shares raw and...