Pebble in the Pond

With a Masters in International Development, a Bachelor of Social Work and a Bachelor of Social Science (Psychology) Louise is an inclusion engagement specialist with a background in facilitation, training and youth community development. Today we chat around empowered youth work, and what meaningful inclusive engagement with young people looks like. Louise shares five tips around truly engaging a...

Ashley is the Executive Director at NSW Aboriginal Safe Gambling Services.  An Aboriginal Australian from the western-New South Wales community of Brewarrina and a descendent of the Gamilaroi and Ngemba people, Ashley has dedicated much of his life and career to not only addressing the fundamental gap in services available to Aboriginal communities but also to dismantling the stigma associated wit...

On today’s episode we speak with Commissioner Dominic Morgan. With over 30 years of ambulance experience across a broad range of roles in the areas of operations, clinical practice and leadership within Ambulance Services and the Financial Sector, Commissioner Morgan has an incredible amount of experience and insight. We chat about the recent ramifications of the pandemic on paramedics and what th...

Abi Cooper is a Youth Mental Health Consultant and Lived Experience Coordinator at batyr. Only 22, Abi has been working in the mental health sector for the last five years. By sharing her experience in help seeking and having a few missteps along the way, Abi is passionate about advocating for young people within the community who are looking for services. Today we chat around Abi’s personal story...

Content warning. This episode does talk about child sexual abuse and child sexual abuse material. Dr Michael Salter is the Scientia Associate Professor of Criminology at the School of Social Sciences at UNSW and an expert in child sexual exploitation and gendered violence.     Michael applies critical and feminist theory to the study of complex trauma, with a focus on intersections with technology...

Rod Jeffries is Wakenyahten (Turtle Clan) of the Kanyen’keha:ka Niwakitaro:ten (Mohawk) residing at home on the Kenhte:ke Nitewake:non (Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, Ontario, Canada.)     For the past 36 years, he has worked in the fields of substance abuse, healing, wellness and treatment as manager, workshop trainer/facilitator, program developer and evaluator.   In the past three decades, his ef...

From starting in the sector as a psychiatric nurse, Ed is now Senior Vice President and Chief Program Officer at the Mental Health Commission of Canada.  Ed helps to guide and advise on best and emerging practices.  We talk about the changes he’s seen over a long career in mental health, how stigma manifests within the sector, within mental health policy and within in the community. We chat around...

Dr Julie Rowse is the Owner of Healthy Mind And Soul & a Mental Health Occupational Therapist.  Growing up in Ballarat with a very strong work ethic which didn’t cover mental health, Dr Julie Rowse came to her current practice after a burn out moment saw her questioning her career path and searching for answers when she had some unexplained health issues.   A passionate advocate for a holistic...

Michelle is the Partnerships and Engagement Partner at Ngunya Jarjum Aboriginal Child And Family Network.   Ngunya Jarjum  was established in 1995 by Bundjalung Elders and community members to address the crisis and need for more Aboriginal kinship and foster carers. Based on the idea to keep the children on Country, within family and immersed in culture.   We talk all things from cultural identit...

Reverend Dr Rex Rigby is an Indigenous Australian – from the Bigambul clan in central southwest Queensland.  Rex is the first Indigenous national head of a denomination in Australia.  He has served for eleven years as the National Superintendent of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Australia, fourteen years as a District Superintendent, and over 17 years as a local church pastor.  Today we talk abo...

Dr Mark Deady is a UNSW Senior Research Fellow at the Black Dog Institute and the research lead within the Workplace Mental Health Research Program. He has over twelve years research experience in the field of mental health and substance use disorders. In this time he has worked on a range of projects at a coronial, epidemiological, and clinical level, completing his PhD at UNSW in 2015.  With ext...

From being raised on a farm to living overseas and back to Australia to working in corporate - “growing” has always been a part of Simon’s life. When he partnered with friends Matt and Paul, the innovative and now, award winning raised garden bed company: Vegepod was born.   Simon is passionate about therapeutic horticulture and through his own story with mental ill-health, he is a big believer in...

Heather is a Mental Health Commissioner in South Australia and over a dedicated career, has participated in the development of the National Qualification for Peer workers.   She’s also assisted in co-designing the resources for the Certificate IV Mental Health Peer Work and worked with the SA Mental Health Coalition to bring the qualification to SA.    Heather is a strong advocate for consumers li...

Cameron is the Founder and Managing Director of Hemisphere East, a strategic counsel and government relations consultancy that helps clients in the tech and cyber fields engage with government and industry.  After serving fourteen years in the Australian Federal Police, most of this time in leadership roles, and as an AFP advisor to the federal government.   Sharn runs pre and post-natal yoga clas...

Dean is a proud Kamilaroi man and is the CEO of Healing Works Australia which is an Indigenous led and operating as a private social enterprise corporation that provides an array of suicide prevention services.  Through his own journey of emotional wellbeing, Dean’s personal and professional experiences have placed him in a unique position to provide culturally competent, sensitive, and safe envir...

Lucas Finch is the Global Head of Wellbeing at Xero - a cloud-based accounting software platform. He has won the Australian Psychological Societies Workplace Excellence Award for the development of an evidence-based Workplace Wellbeing Program.  In this episode we talk through Lucas’s life changing silent meditation retreat, our modern obsession with busy-ness and achievement, and how Lucas jumped...

As a Griefologist, Rosemary is a specialist.  She is a qualified educator & assessor, program designer and facilitator, loss & grief counselor, public speaker and a published author.      The foundation to these abilities derives from her lived experiences of grieving through her personal loss and grief from 1987-1992.  During her personal grieving journey she set up the Sacred Site Within...

Currently a Manager at Success Works, Eleni helps transform the lives of women effected by the criminal justice system. With a history of undiagnosed anxiety and depression, and an intense people pleasing personality, Eleni lived with anorexia in her late teens. After the breakdown of her twenty-one year marriage, a return of depression and some bad decisions, Eleni was incarcerated for 11 months....

Dom Barry is a proud Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara man from the remote community of Kaltjiti (Fregon) in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands, and a former professional AFL player, playing for the Melbourne Football Club and the Port Adelaide Football Club. Dom shares his story about moving from Alice Springs to Melbourne as a teenager, boarding at Ballarat and starting his profe...

On today’s episode we talk with Dr Ben Hamer, one of the leading voices on the future of work. Ben is Doctor of Public Administration, which included time spent as a Visiting Scholar at Yale University, and is an Adjunct Fellow for Swinburne University’s Centre for the New Workforce. Ben leads the future of work market for PwC Australia and is on the Board of the Australian HR Institute (AHRI). We...

Geraldine is a professional consultant and victim-survivor of family violence. Geraldine was appointed as the Deputy Chair of the Victim Survivors Advisory Council in May 2020 and she sits across a number of consulting and advisory boards including the Mornington Peninsula Primary Prevention Collaboration and White Ribbon National Advisory Council. On today’s episode Geraldine shares details on he...

Taimi is the Tumu Whakarae (Director) at Ember Innovations and is a board member of Te Hiringa Mahara Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission of Aotearoa New Zealand. Starting her career as an air hostess with Ansett and Qantas, Taimi has become one of the leading minds in the mental health sector. With over 17 years experience in mental health and addiction services, e-Health, Suicide prevent...

On today’s episode we talk with Jack Buckskin, a proud Kaurna and Narrunga man. Jack tells the story of his family’s background and how after grasping the Kaurna language, he’s continued to become a teacher and leading authority on this traditional South Australian language. During our episode, we talk about Jack’s passion for the language and how dedicated he is to lifting the profile of cultural...

Karen is a seasoned director in transformation, stakeholder engagement, human centred design, communications, and business strategy. She’s also the Partnerships Director at Today, which is a strategic design agency focused on purpose-based, problem solving projects. In this episode, Karen talks about the process and facilitation of Co-Design, the resources needed and the roles and responsibilities...

Dr Angela Martin is the founder and Principal Consultant of Pracademia. Angela holds current part-time and honorary Professorial appointments with the Menzies Institute for Medical Research and the College of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania. On today’s episode we look back at the last 20 years Angela has spent working in the workplace mental health sector, how employers and employee...