This supervisor has been approved to provide supervision under the ACCESS TO SUPERVISION PROJECT.

I’m a mad, disabled, neurodivergent and queer interdisciplinary theatre and voice artist, writer, podcaster and arts access academic, allowing my own lived experiences of systemic failures to inform all aspects of my professional life and approach to peer worker supervision. An introverted hermit who loves reading, writing, music, swimming and big questions, I am keen to support your own journey as a peer worker.

This supervisor has been approved to provide supervision under the ACCESS TO SUPERVISION PROJECT. If you are a supervisee who has received an approval email/letter from the CMHL you may contact this supervisor for supervision for this project, then follow the stated processes for supervision payment.

I started out my peer work experience as a volunteer with Helping Hands in Nowra and then on placement in my Cert IV in Mental Health at the Lighthouse Clubhouse and Berkeley Neighbourhood Centre almost a decade ago, at a time when Certificate IV Peer Work was only just beginning to be introduced into the NSW TAFE curriculum. Even though my trainers knew about my lived experience they did not think to tell me about that option, but I was extremely grateful to have excellent emerging peer work leaders in my community of practice, including the wonderful Tim Heffernan. Because I am as much of an experiential learner as a book learner, this active informal mentorship taught me much about peer work in ways that I might have otherwise missed in the early delivery of the Cert IV.

Across the past 5 years, I have worked with a range of organisations in peer work practice and supervision Wellways, NSW Western Health Local District, Far West Local Health District. As a consumer advocate and policy officer I have worked with the National Mental Health Consumer Carer Forum, Lived Experience Australia, the National Commisison on Safety and Quality in Health Care and was fortunate to learn the nuances of co-design by working alongside Inside Out Associates. As an access and inclusion consultant in the disability arts sector I have worked most recently with, Sydney World Pride, Accessible Arts, APRA AMCOS, Rebus Theatre, Canberra Theatre Centre and You Are Here Canberra.

I am an early-career writer, musician, theatre artist, podcaster and creative producer. I specialise in multi-disciplinary explorations of the arts, health, philosophy, behavioural and social sciences, to mediate authentic expressions of story and voice. I am also an independent access, inclusion, equity and diversity consultant and an arts peer worker, using peer work practice and leadership praxis to support re-emerging artists with lived experience of mental health challenges, disability and other experiences of marginalisation. In my spare time I'm also a speaker, peer workforce supervisor, and postgraduate student s-l-o-w-l-y preparing for PhD candidature.

I hold a Cert IV in Mental Health, Diploma in Arts and a Diploma of Counselling (and I do acknowledge the clincial lens of this approach but actively work in my day-to-day peer supervision practice to strip away the power-over ideology that this model can embed). I hold more than a Bachelor's degree of cross-disciplinary undergraduate studies that is unable to be formally acknowledged because of my years caught in the psychiatric system. It is true however that no learning is ever wasted, and in tandem with my role as a research support officer at the lived experience research unit at the Australian National University in 2021, it has at least opened up a pathway for me to be currently undertaking a Graduate Certificate of Writing and Literature at Deakin University. I also am trained in the Humane Clinic's Suicide Narratives approach, have training in Active Listening and have learned from years of on-the-job peer work praxis and excellent supervision.

As a supervisor, I encourage you to set the agenda. Just like peer work practice itself, I am not the expert in you or how you experience your work with consumers or your colleagues in the workplace. I hold the space for you to bring whatever you need to into each supervision session and then ask you to tell me whether you want to just vent, to problem solve or something else entirely. I will encourage you to reflect on which peer principles are at play in what you're exploring and support you to create the resolution or professional development pathways that are right for you.