Speakers

Tracey was born in Darwin on Larrakia Land, with family from Brunette Downs and Alexandria station on the Barkly Tablelands. Her family clan is Wombaya.

After working at the North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service (NAAFLS) as a Client Support Officer and then Legal Secretary, she was employed as the Legal Indigenous Outreach Worker at Danila Dilba Health Service to work in the Health Justice Program in 2021. She has worked in both the legal and health sectors in the Darwin and Katherine regions at Indigenous organisations such as Sunrise Health Service, North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency (NAAJA) and North Australian Aboriginal Family Legal Service (NAAFLS).

Tilé coordinates the Seniors Legal and Support Service health justice partnerships with Metro South Health and Metro North Health, and also the Multicultural Advocacy and Legal Service with World Wellness Group. Tilé has been a lawyer for a decade, dedicating his career to those going through family conflict, including family violence and elder abuse. He is also a podcaster and sits on various boards including the Pasifika Lawyers Association of Queensland.

Chris is a member of Inner Melbourne Community Legal’s consumer advisory group and IMHA’s Speaking From Experience Group at Vic Legal Aid. He also serves on various committees and is a Better Health Network consumer representative, including a term as a board member.

Michael is passionate about change in the criminal justice system. In particular, he wants to influence how prisoners are treated as they move through the justice system.

Michael is an active member of Voices for Change.

Michael is confident, friendly, understanding, empathetic and reliable. He is willing to take up any role or consultancy that is relevant to his passions about change in the criminal justice system. He is committed to giving back to the community and is a loyal friend and family man.

Caleb, a resilient stroke survivor, speaker, and Chief Vision Officer at Genyus Network, is a beacon of triumph over adversity.

With degrees from prestigious the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and the Victorian College of the Arts Film School, his narrative is a fusion of artistry and advocacy. Featured on ABC News and Cambridge University Press, Caleb’s advocacy for people with invisible disabilities echoes globally.

Before joining TACSI, Carla worked in the NFP and employment services sector dedicated to helping and supporting people achieve and sustain, both personal and career goals.

With a particularly strong focus on young people, the socially isolated and individuals with extremely complex life challenges, she believes that a combination of creative ideas and relationship building supports people in striving to create their own positive futures.

Carla approaches her work with a practice-based background of case work, coaching, collaboration, management, partnership building, project development, as well as strategic planning and delivery.

She brings an ever evolving social practice approach in order to be of service to the social innovation work of TACSI partners and friends. Carla’s philosophical approach is that by creating the right environment all individuals and organisations can participate and partner in new and improved ways to improve our social lives.

With a background in design and anthropology, lauren explores how human experience can be translated into design, and how to support people with lived experience to be co-leading the design process .

Reflective, trauma-responsive, qualitative anthropological thinking bound with an action-driven design mindset helps lauren to navigate complex problems and ambiguous projects to create the best impact. Coupled with this, lauren is committed to actively decolonising design research and practices and being led by the innovation of First Nations Peoples.

At TACSI, lauren has deepened their capability to understand what it means to design and carry out qualitative research with people and communities with lived experience of marginalisation and/or disadvantage. Continuing to understand the ethical implications of human research and how to deepen participants’ capabilities to lead their own futures is integral to lauren’s practice as a researcher and community-led practitioner.

Kelly (she/her) is FPDN’s National Stakeholder Relations and Sector Strengthening Manager. Kelly has over 25 years of experience in community collaboration and human rights across youth justice, homelessness, gendered violence, the inclusion and rights of LGBTIQA+ people and First Nations people with disability, and has a passion for highlighting and addressing the intersectional discrimination that marginalised groups experience.

Talia is the National Strategic Partnerships, Policy and Impact Manager. She is passionate about addressing intersectional discrimination at an individual, organisational and systems level. Talia joined FPDN after 20 years in government and academia working in social policy always bridging multiple sectors – community, policy, practice and research. Talia is a Jewish woman, a mum and is deeply passionate and committed to social justice and human rights and elevating the voices of those who aren’t always listened to.

Dr. John Chan is the managing director of Infinite Potential, a not-for-profit think tank focused on creating a sustainable workplace through systemic changes to structures and culture. He is an industrial / organisational psychologist with 20+ years’ experience in developing holistic people strategies that support organisational strategy and better outcomes. John’s careers in internal and external global roles has taken him from Silicon Valley start-ups to NYSE and ASX-100 companies. John publishes in academic and media publications and regularly speaks at national and international conferences.

Rob Hulls is the Director of the Centre for Innovative Justice at RMIT University. Rob served as the Attorney-General and Deputy Premier of Victoria Government from 1999 to 2010. As Attorney-General, Rob instigated significant and lasting changes to Victoria’s legal system. This included establishing Australia’s first Charter of Human Rights for Victoria, and setting up specialist courts including for Victoria’s indigenous community, for people with mental health issues, for people with drug addiction and for victims of family violence, as well as the country’s first and only Neighbourhood Justice Centre.  In October 2012, Rob returned to his alma mater to set up the Centre for Innovative Justice as a place to develop, drive, and expand the capacity of the justice system to meet and adapt to the needs of its diverse users.

Stan Winford is the Associate Director of Research, Innovation and Reform at the Centre for Innovative Justice. 

Stan is a legal and justice system expert with experience in innovation and reform, including user centred design and applications for restorative and therapeutic justice in criminal and civil law. Stan’s work has included projects to better respond to the needs of victims of crime, improve justice responses to mental health, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury and cognitive impairment, and more effective approaches to reducing future offending. 

Dorothy Armstrong is an advisor, lived experience consultant and peer mentor. She works extensively across the disability and criminal justice sectors and provides advice on a range of issues relating to people with acquired brain injury involved in the criminal justice system. Dorothy is an experienced public speaker and has developed a strong reputation for representing a lived experience perspective in high level policy and practice discussions. Dorothy is well known for her work in disability advocacy and for telling difficult stories with enormous impact. In 2018 Dorothy received a Victorian Disability Award for her advocacy work for people with acquired brain injury involved in the criminal justice system.  

Warwick Padgham is a Taungurung man and is the Manager Indigenous Student Programs at the Melbourne Poche Centre for Indigenous Health. In this role, Warwick is responsible for the recruitment and support of Indigenous PhD students within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at The University of Melbourne, including engagement with community and external organisations. Prior to this, Warwick was Program Manager of the Indigenous Law and Justice Hub at the Melbourne Law School. In his career at the University, Warwick has worked across many departments and areas, providing advice regarding Indigenous graduate development, as well as working on projects and activities specific to Indigenous doctoral advancement nationally and globally.

Claire Thurstans is the Managing Lawyer – Elder Abuse at Eastern Community Legal Centre in Melbourne. She leads two multidisciplinary teams (including one Health Justice Partnership with Eastern Health) that provide wrap-around holistic support to people experiencing elder abuse. Claire previously worked in private law firms, mainly in administrative law and on Royal Commissions, and was a columnist for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Nicole has worked extensively in public health and government in executive and non-executive roles for over 20 years and has been Chief Executive at cohealth since 2019 having served in a range of leadership roles in community health since 2006.
Nicole is passionate about community health and committed to the mission of improving health in partnership with individuals and the community. Social justice and health equity are the core principles of her decision-making and key drivers of her advocacy priorities. She feels privileged to have led an organisation that has consistently delivered outstanding services for communities who experience disadvantage.
In 2022, cohealth was named the Premier’s Health Service (Primary) of the Year and in the same year also won the LGBTQIA+ Service Provider of the Year award at the inaugural Australian Pride in Health + Wellbeing Awards.
Nicole has extensive governance experience, having served in a number of non-executive Board roles across the healthcare sector. She is currently serving as Non-Executive Director and Deputy Board Chair of Dental Health Services Victoria and Non-Executive Board Director for the Victorian Healthcare Association. Nicole has previously held non-executive Board roles with Western Health and the Macedon Ranges North Western Metropolitan Medicare Local.
With her clinical background, governance experience and expertise in primary care and the acute sector, Nicole is uniquely positioned to understand the Australian healthcare landscape, navigate change and lead system reform. Nicole’s commitment to address the social determinants of health has led her to pursue policy change beyond health system reform, as Co-Chair of the Australian Health, Housing and Homelessness Network.
Nicole has a Masters of Business Administration and, outside of work, she loves spending time with family and friends, travelling, cooking and keeping fit.

Amanda Morgan is a Yorta Yorta woman living on Darug country. Amanda is a child sexual abuse, domestic and family violence, secondary homelessness and modern slavery survivor advocate, activist, speaker and writer.

Amanda is the founder of Make A Seat Australia and a 2022 Churchill recipient who will travel to the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and New Zealand to investigate trauma-Informed Approaches to Legal processes for historically underserved survivors.

Amanda is an advisor to the National strategy advisory group for the National Office for Child Safety, the policy and advocacy advisory group at the National Women’s Safety Alliance, a member of the adult survivor college at the National Centre for Action on Child Sexual Abuse, and a Board Director at March4Justice (Australia). Amanda has written for the Sydney Morning Herald and Refinery29 Australia, and has been featured by BBC UK, Primer Magazine, Its Time We Talked, The Law Society of NSW Journal, the All About Women Festival at the Opera House and Australia’s Biggest Child Safety Lesson (2023) with the Daniel Morcombe Foundation.

Amanda holds a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Psychology. She will begin her PhD in law in 2024.

Yvette Cehtel is the CEO of the Women’s Legal Service Tasmania. Yvette’s background is as a lawyer of 23 years standing. This includes having worked as a Judges Associate, in private practice, as Legal Adviser to the Tasmanian Attorney General (working on the Family Violence Act 2004 (Tas) as the legal adviser in the Attorney General’s office, which introduced the offences of economic and emotional abuse), as counsel with Crown Law in New Zealand, as a Barrister in New Zealand, and with the Aboriginal Legal Service in Tasmania.

Yvette also managed the Counselling and Support team in Early Intervention Services in the north and north west for Relationships Australia, Tasmania.

Yvette has a Bachelor of Laws (UTAS), Master of Law (Human Rights) Monash and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Yvette is a member of the National Women’s Safety Alliance, Policy & Advocacy Advisory Committee established by the Commonwealth Government and a member of Women’s Legal Services Australia, (the peak national organisation for Women’s Legal Services Australia).

She has been contributing to not for profit community sector and government boards for over 30 years, including three appointments to the Tasmanians Legal Aid Commission as a Commissioner.

Her passion is for social justice and in particular the rights of Aborigines, women and children. She is committed to systems reform to improve the rights of those who experience structural barriers to achieving equality. This includes access to justice.

Sara is driven towards social justice and dismantling the current destructive systemic and social structures which oppress and destroy lives. These systems continue to perpetuate further harm to individuals and communities due to the system’s punitive commitment to exert power and control to those most vulnerable within our society. Sara acknowledges and understands firsthand the harms and trauma exacerbated by our broken systems and society. Sara has recently completed a Bachelors in Social Science, majoring in Criminology. Sara currently works in advocacy and lived experience leadership across sectors and shares her personal lived expertise and knowledge of the system to support and contribute to collective change.

Charlotte Lynch (They/Them/She/Her) is a Social Worker and Community Development worker at South East Monash Legal Service. They work with clients through various health justice partnerships including with maternal and child health centres and SECASA. In their spare time Charlotte works as an after hours Sexual Assault Crisis Counsellor at WestCASA. Through these roles Charlotte has developed an understanding of the important role that health justice partnerships play in the delivery of trauma informed services for victim/survivors of gendered violence.

Lidia Di Lembo commenced working as a Practice Manager with Neami National, Head to Health Centre in Darwin NT in September 2023. Lidia worked as an Executive for the NT Department of Health for nearly 8 years and Correctional Services for 3 years. Previously she worked for the Federal Government for 28 years.  Lidia has a lived experience of suicide loss, is the Co Founder and Chairperson of a local charity dedicated to suicide prevention and postvention, and is involved in range of local and national committees dedicated to suicide prevention.

Marina, an occupational therapist (OT) with a passion for mental health, embarked on her journey with Neami National four years ago as the Clinical Lead in Mackay, Queensland. Transitioning to Darwin, she assumed the role of Clinical Lead at the Head to Health Centre. With a rich background in the disability sector, prior to working for Neami Marina devoted most of her career to OT mental health private practice.

Marina begun at the Head to Health centre during its co-design phase and has welcomed and supported a dynamic approach to her work to ensure the centre meets both community need whilst also supports both the clinical and lived experience staff within the team.