I am someone who is driven by connection and feeling valued.

My life experience seems to always have had some form of speaking up for those who are still on their journey to use their own voices in different ways.

Before being in a designated lived experience role, I have worked owning my own businesses and, in the printing, and retail industries.

I am a community volunteer and have been most of my life in various places like, schools, toy libraries, a netball club as a coach, umpire and President, Community centres and currently I am the President of the Board of Management at my local community centre which I have held for the last 5 years.

These roles have always worked around where my family has been at and fitted within my working life.

I also currently practice as a Certified Alternative Therapist.

I love having a laugh, being in nature, live music, my family -including the four legged members and discussing ways we can "fix the world in one afternoon"

I have worked in the Lived experience family/carer space since 2017, in an advisory position with a National Organisation. Then is 2021 I added to my work and became an inpatient peer worker in a large public hospital, then in 2023 I stepped into the leadership role I currently hold. When I started on the inpatient, it was one that had never held a lived experience worker in that particular space. It was a big learning curve for everyone involved.

Currently in the community mental health space as the team lead, which oversees family/carer peer workers in various teams across the rather large catchment we operate from. It extends from child/youth to adult. I also work very closely with the consumer counterpart and the Inpatient family/carer team lead. This is a flexible working arrangement.

I feel like I am a "jill of all trades" master of none :) Learning through connection.

I class myself as a 'forever learner', I do like to always be undergoing some form of study. Some of my qualifications relevant in this space are - obviously IPS, as well as VHA coaching and mentoring, Mind Peer Work program, Carer Perspective Supervision Training, DBT, NBT, family therapies foundation, SSF, safe storytelling, Acknowledge this!, Meditation, Holistic counselling, motivational interviewing, Diploma of Mental Health naming way more than a few. There is so much more, however I am also a believer that it is connection that is the most important and even if I have done all the training that could be done, if there is no connection it's not helpful at all.

It's about you, your needs/wants/hopes.

I myself tend to think outside the box and gently nudge (well sometimes not so gentle) to flip the script a little bit.

A strength I hold is humour, which I try to utilise alongside my "no fluff, let's get real and into the crux of it"

I lead with compassion and kindness and have been labelled as a 'velvet sledgehammer'