About Us
Aboriginal Partnership
Our partners represent an ongoing collaborative of Aboriginal leaders and organisations, who are dedicated to creating long-term impact by bringing together their skills across community, academia, professional services, and national policy.
The active and ongoing involvement of our dedicated Aboriginal-led collaborative ensures the research is designed, implemented and translated with cultural values and integrity in best responding to the needs of our communities.
Creating Impact
Several partners will focus on the translation of research for impact. These include the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO), Gayaa Dhuwi Proud Spirit Australia (GDPSA), the Healing Foundation, and Indigenous Allied Health Australia (IAHA). Several key partner organisations have dedicated staff members focused on supporting the research and its translation. An ‘impact team’ will design and integrate a translation plan to optimise the sustainable impacts of the research. NACCHO will play a particularly key role in implementing the research in national and policy systems.
Culturally Safe Models of Mental Health Care
Other partners will work with the TIMHWB research team at UWA to establish an evidence base around culturally safe models of care. These partners include the Kimberly Aboriginal Medical Service (KAMS), Langford Aboriginal Association (LAA) in Perth, the national Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA), the national Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP), and the Looking Forward Research Project (Our Journey Our Story) at Curtin University, .
Research Support
General research support including expertise and support of community-based research will be provided by partner organisations including Ninti One, the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and the Young Lives Matter Project at UWA, and the University of Melbourne Poche Centre.
National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Oorganisation (NACCHO)
Kimberly Aboriginal Medical Service (KAMS)
Gayaa Dhuwi Proud Spirit Australia (GDPSA)
Landford Aboriginal Association (LAA)
Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP)
Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA)
The Healing Foundation (THF)
Indigenous Allied Health Australia (IAHA)
Aboriginal Health Council of Western Australia (AHCWA)
Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantatjara Yankunytjatjara Women’s Council (NYP)
Aboriginal Medical Services Alliance Northern Territory (AMSANT)
Ninti One
Looking Forward Project, Our Journey Our Story at Curtin University
Poche Centre for Indigenous Health and Young Lives Matter Project at the University of Western Australia (UWA)
Aboriginal Leadership
Professor Pat Dudgeon leads this research together with stream leaders Professor Jill Milroy and Professor Helen Milroy.
The research is supported by a team of predominantly Aboriginal leaders and mental health professionals, including Professor Tom Calma, Professor Shaun Ewen, Professor Michael Wright, Dr Graham Gee, Rob McPhee, Thomas Brideson, Michael Mitchell, Angela Ryder, Edward Wilkes, and Kevin Taylor.
Aboriginal Partner Organisations include: NACCHO, KAMS, GDPSA, LAA, AIPA, THF, IAHA, and the Curtin University Looking Forward Project.
Non-Aboriginal leadership includes: Professor Sean Hood, Professor Michael Small, Professor Jeneva Ohan, and Associate Professor Roz Walker.
Stream Leaders
Professor Pat Dudgeon
Professor - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Director - Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention
Professor Pat Dudgeon is a Bardi woman from the Kimberley, Western Australia. Pat is recognised as being among the leading world experts on social and emotional wellbeing and suicide prevention. She is a Research Fellow in the School of Indigenous Studies, Chief Investigator of TIMHWB, and the Director of the national Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention at the Poche Centre for Indigenous Health at UWA.
She specialises in Indigenous psychology, mental health, and education. She led the Centre for Aboriginal Studies at Curtin University for 19 years, later becoming a Professor at the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA. A significant researcher across psychology and Indigenous health, CI Dudgeon became a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission in 2012 to 2017 and was the Chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership Group now a director.
Among her many commitments, Pat is currently the Co-Chair of the national ministerial Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Advisory Group (since 2013), she is also a Member of International Group on Indigenous Health Measurement (IGIHM), a member of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Project Reference Group (ATSIMHSPPRG) to the National Fifth Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan, and a member of the Mental Health Research Advisory Committee for the National Medical Health Research Council (since 2017). She is a member of the Working Party for the Kimberley Suicide Prevention Trial Site and the Chair of Data group for Working Party for the Kimberley Suicide Prevention Trial Site. She is also an Expert Panel Member for the WA Children and Young People Wellbeing Survey with the WA Commission for Young People.
Other relevant bodies for this grant include co-chair of the Indigenous Psychology Board Advisory Committee to the Australian Psychological Society. Board Member: Marr Mooditj Aboriginal Health Training, Western Australia since 2010. She was the inaugural Chair, Steering Committee and Founding Member of Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA) and now is the Deputy Chair, and founding member and board member of Gayaa Dhuwi Proud Spirit Australia.
Pat has many notable publications, including the National Empowerment Project (NEP), the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Project (ATSISPEP), and the Working Together: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principles and Practice text book (2014).
Professor Helen Milroy
Professor - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Professor Helen Milroy is a descendant of the Palyku people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia but was born and educated in Perth. She studied Medicine at the University of Western Australia, worked as a General Practitioner and Consultant in Childhood Sexual Abuse at Princess Margaret Hospital for children for several years before completing specialist training in Child and Adolescent psychiatry.
She holds a Fellowship with the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry, FRANZCP and a Certificate of Advanced Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, CATCAP.
Over the past 5 years she served as a Commissioner with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Professor Jill Milroy
Professor - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Professor Jill Milroy is a Palyku woman, whose country is in WA’s Pilbara. She has 30 years’ experience in Indigenous higher education developing innovative, highly successful programs for Indigenous students, particularly in professional degrees, for which she has won 2 national university teaching awards.
She was inaugural Director of UWA’s Centre for Aboriginal Programs, Dean and Head of School Indigenous Studies 2010-16, and Executive Director of the UWA’s Poche Centre for Indigenous Health, since 2014.
She was appointed Pro-Vice Chancellor Indigenous Education in 2017, the senior Indigenous leadership role at UWA, which provides cultural and academic leadership, strategic planning and high-level advice to the Vice Chancellor, Executive and the University on Indigenous matters across the full spectrum of education, research and community engagement.
She sits on key committees including Planning and Resources, Academic Council and Board; chaired the Inclusion and Diversity Committee and represents UWA on the Go8 Equity Working Group. In 2011, she was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in recognition of her services to the community through the promotion and development of Aboriginal education.
Leadership Team
Professor Tom Calma
Chancellor - University of Canberra & Chair - Poche Indigenous Health Network
Professor Calma is an Aboriginal Elder from the Kungarakan tribal group and a member of the Iwaidja tribal group whose traditional lands are south west of Darwin and on the Cobourg Peninsula in the Northern Territory, respectively.
He is the sixth chancellor of the University of Canberra, assuming office in 2014. Professor Calma has been the Federal Government appointed National Coordinator since March 2010, leading the fight against tobacco use in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. He served as the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner from 2004 to 2010 and the Race Discrimination Commissioner from 2004 until 2009 at the Australian Human Rights Commission.
For over 40 years, Professor Calma has been a prominent advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health. He has been involved in Indigenous affairs at a local, community, state, national and international level focusing on rural and remote Australia, health, education, justice reinvestment, research, reconciliation and economic development. Calma’s 2005 Social Justice Report – focusing on Indigenous health equality – was the catalyst for the Close the Gap campaign.
Rob McPhee
Chief Operating Officer - Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services (KAMS)
Rob McPhee is the Chief Operating Officer at Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services (KAMS) based in Broome WA. His people hail from Derby in the West Kimberley and the Pilbara region of Western Australia. He has held a number of roles including teaching positions at Curtin University and the University of Western Australia, and has worked as a senior adviser in community relations and Indigenous affairs to the oil and gas industry. He is passionate about social justice for Indigenous people and currently co-chairs the Commonwealth funded Kimberley Aboriginal Suicide Prevention Trial Site Working Group.
Michael Mitchell
Community Cultural Expert, Perth WA
Michael is a Yamatji man of Nyamal and Malgana descent. His country extends from the Pilbara to Shark Bay in Western Australia. The health and wellbeing of Aboriginal people is uppermost in Michael’s mind and he has been proactive throughout his career in achieving and advocating for Mental Wellbeing in his community. Michael started his working life by completing an electrical apprenticeship, and then went on to play professional Australian Rules Football for Claremont and Richmond, where he was awarded Goal and Mark of the year (1990), and was named one of the Richmond Ten Tiger Treasures of the century by winning Goal of the Century (2020). After pursuing a football career, he realised that he wanted to contribute more to his Aboriginal Community. Michael began his career in Indigenous Health and Wellbeing by working with Aboriginal Youth in his hometown, Carnarvon. Michael developed a training program for youth that equipped them with skills to access employment within the fishing industry of Carnarvon and Shark Bay. For several years, Michael managed and coordinated Aboriginal Community Controlled Services including Carnarvon Medical Service Aboriginal Corporation (CMSAC), Carnarvon Community Development Employment Program (CDEP), and the Central West Aboriginal Mental Health Program. During this time, Michael was awarded a Bachelor’s Degree in Indigenous Health, specialising in Mental Health from Curtin University. For 15 years, Michael was the Service Manager of Wungen Kartup Program (an Aboriginal mental health program), and during his tenure there was never a suicide of a client under their care. Michael is a current member of the West Australian Football Development Commission Aboriginal Advisory Committee, and because of his achievements in sport and health Michael commands much respect in many sectors of the Aboriginal and wider community. In November 2019, Michael formed Michael C Mitchell Consultancy and has recently decided to devote his time to this venture fulltime. This has afforded him the ability to work with a much broader section of the community with a focus of mental wellbeing.
Dr Graham Gee
Senior Research Fellow - Murdoch Children's Research Institute
Dr Graham Gee is an Aboriginal man, also with Celtic heritage, from Darwin. His great-grandmother was originally from the Barkly Tablelands. Graham is a clinical psychologist and Senior Research Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. He is also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne.
Graham worked as a psychologist at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service from 2008-2018. He was a founding board member of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation and currently sits on the Million Minds Mental Health Research Mission National Advisory Panel, and the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Expert Advisory Panel. His research focuses on improving models of mental health care, and investigating healing and recovery from complex trauma among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across the lifespan.
Tania Brown
Chief Executive Officer - Gayaa Dhuwi (Proud Spirit) Australia
Tania was born and raised in Canberra, Ngunawal and Ngambri country and she is a proud descendent from the Wonnarua Nation, Hunter Valley NSW.
Tania has worked within Aboriginal Affairs for over 30 years, her career started as an Aboriginal trainee within the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission and worked within various States and business arms of the organisation for 11 years.
Tania has over 18 years’ experience working within the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health sector with the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW and with Indigenous Allied Health Australia at the Executive level.
Tania’s Areas of expertise include but are not limited to policy, research, governance and risk management, primary and allied health and partnerships.
Angela Ryder
Researcher - Langford Aboriginal Association
Angela Ryder is a Wilman/Goreng Noongar woman originally from Katanning and has lived in metropolitan Perth her adult life.
Angela has worked relentlessly in the Aboriginal community for more than 30 years, with particular focus on empowering Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through the promotion of cultural, social and emotional wellbeing. Part of her work has included the delivery of the National Empowerment Project (NEP), Grief and Loss workshops, Cultural Awareness training and women’s leadership initiatives.
Ted Wilkes
Nyoongar Cultural Expert. Perth WA
Associate Professor Ted Wilkes is a Nyungar man, with connections to the metropolitan area and the South West of Western Australia.
Associate Professor Wilkes is a former Ambassador for the Commissioner for Children and Young People. He has worked in public health for much of his working life and is currently the co-Program Leader of the Indigenous Australian Research Program at the National Drug Research Institute, based at Curtin University. His current research includes projects to develop culturally appropriate resources to assist health professionals working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to address issues of alcohol and pregnancy, and culturally relevant programs to support Aboriginal parents to promote their children’s behavioural and social competence and readiness for school.
He is also the Chair of the National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee; a member of the Australian National Council on Drugs; President of the Derbarl Yerrigan Health Service; and was the former Chair of the Aboriginal Reference Group of the Department of Child Protection.
Associate Professor Michael Wright
Senior Research Fellow - Curtin University
Michael Wright is a Yuat Nyoongar man from the Moora and New Norcia area of Western Australia, north of Perth, and Associate Professor at Curtin University in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
He has worked as a hospital-based social worker and mental health service manager. In 2010, Dr Wright graduated with a PhD that investigated issues of access to services by Aboriginal families whose lives are affected by mental illness. Through several large research projects, he has worked in partnership with Nyoongar (Aboriginal) Elders, community members (including young people) and service staff to address the disconnect between Nyoongar peoples and mental health services in the Metropolitan Perth.
Associate Professor Wright also held positions as the Head of Aboriginal Health Research at KARDU, Telethon Kids Institute, and was a member of the Mental Health Advisory Council Member (Ministerial appointment). His experience, understandings, and expertise are highly regarded, and recognised in the Aboriginal community, with Government and non-Government agencies, and policy-makers.
Associate Professor Jeneva Ohan
Research Fellow - School of Psychological Science, University of Western Australia
Jeneva Ohan was born in Canada and raised by a Canadian mother and Palestinian father. She has been living and working on Whadjuk Noongar land since 2012. She is a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor at UWA, where she is also Director of the Clinical Psychology Program and of the Postgraduate Education in the School of Psychological Science.
Through some of her work in the School of Psychological Science at UWA, Jeneva has chaired working groups with the goal of achieving better engagement with and outcomes for Aboriginal students who pursue psychology studies, such as by establishing a mentor program. Jeneva’s research specialises in child and parenting mental health and wellbeing, with a focal interest in understanding why some children and parents come to services to support their mental health and wellbeing, whereas others do not or drop out of services early on. She hopes to use this information to better access to programs for children and families who need them, and to contribute towards health policy development that will benefit children and young family wellbeing.
Jeneva is especially keen to work towards better wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal families and communities, and is excited to be working on this project.
Associate Professor Mathew Coleman
Clinical Director of the Great Southern Mental Health Service
Associate Professor Mathew Coleman is a Sydney born, WA and NSW-trained Psychiatrist whose work and travels have taken him all over the world but it was a pull to a regional way of life and drive to help rural communities with mental health issues that led him to reside in Albany. Mathew is a highly experienced Psychiatrist having worked in the Northern Territory, NSW, WA, the United Kingdom and in Germany. He graduated in medicine from Flinders University of South Australia in 1998 before moving to Darwin to start his medical career. During his travels, he was able to complete a Psychology Degree in addition to post graduate Health Management qualifications before returning to Australia to undertake further training in Psychiatry. He eventually completed sub-specialty qualifications in Addiction Psychiatry, in addition to Child and Adolescent Psychiatry in Sydney. Mathew is the inaugural chair of Rural and Remote Mental Health Practice with the University of Western Australia, chair of the Rural Section of Psychiatry for the RANZCP and Commissioner with the National Mental Health commission.
Professor Michael Small
CSIRO-UWA Chair of Complex Engineering Systems - Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Science, University of Western Australia
Professor Michael Small completed his PhD in applied mathematics using nonlinear time series methods to quantify and describe children’s breathing patterns. Professor Small worked closely with Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, researching sudden infant death syndrome and measuring infant respiration while babies slept.
He went on to complete a postdoctoral research fellowship at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, where he researched cardiac dynamics on patients in the Coronary Care Unit at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Later he lived and worked in Hong Kong during the SARS outbreak in 2003, where he used his mathematical expertise at Hong Kong Polytechnic University to work with the Hong Kong Health department to research ways to contain the disease. In 2012 he received an ARC Future Fellowship and returned to UWA. Through the Young Lives Matter Foundation Professor Small is currently working on developing a mathematical understanding of the causes and risks of suicide among young people.
Professor Small is also an Adjunct Professor at Curtin University and Deputy Editor in Chief of the journal Chaos.
Professor Sean Hood
Associate Dean (Community & Engagement) & Head of Division of Psychiatry - Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Western Australia
Professor Sean Hood is Head of the UWA Division of Psychiatry in the Medical School, and Associate Dean (Community and Engagement) with the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences.
Professor Hood’s primary research focus is in clinical psychopharmacology of anxiety disorders, which involves the investigation of medication effects and mechanisms in populations with clinical anxiety disorders.
Professor Hood undertook his undergraduate medical degree at UWA before completing formal postgraduate training in psychiatry in Perth and Bristol in the United Kingdom.
Subsequently, he returned to Perth and set up a Clinical Psychopharmacology laboratory as a clinical academic with UWA’s Division of Psychiatry.
Professor Hood is past Chair of the Australian Pristiq Advisory Board and a member of the Australian Cymbalta, Vortioxetine and Lurasidone Advisory Boards. He is the Australian Board member for the European Masters in Affective Neuroscience degree and Summer Course on Mood, Aggression & Attraction, run jointly by the Universities of Florence and Maastricht. He is also a Director of the Young Lives Matter Foundation, a large-scale interdisciplinary research initiative at UWA focused on combating the issue of youth suicide.
He is a psychiatrist in public and private practice, and his public practice includes Headship of the SCGH MHU Treatment Resistant Anxiety and Mood Disorder Unit (TRAMD).
Professor Hood maintains an active engagement in medical student education, chairing the Systems’ Committee of the new UWA Doctor of Medicine program prior to implementation in 2014.
Professor Ian Ring
Senior Research Advisor - Tropical Health & Medicine, James Cook University
Professor Ring AO, Division of Tropical Health & Medicine, James Cook University, was previously Principal Medical Epidemiologist and Executive Director, Health Information Branch, at Queensland Health, Head of the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University, and Foundation Director of the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute at the Australian National University. He has been a Member of the Board of the Australian Institute of Health, Member of the Council of the Public Health Association and the Australian Epidemiological Association. He was the Elkington Orator for the Qld Branch of PHA in 1992 and was awarded the Sidney Sax medal by JCU in 2001.
He is a Honorary Professorial Fellow at Wollongong University and Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales. He is an Expert Advisor to the Close the Gap Steering Committee and is a member of the International Indigenous Health Measurement Group, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Demographic Statistics Expert Advisory Group, Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet Advisory Board, AMA Taskforce on Indigenous Health, and previously. RACP Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Expert Advisory Group, and the National Advisory Group on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Information and Data.
Carolyn Mascall
Researcher - Langford Aboriginal Association
Carolyn has been working with Aboriginal people for many years in metropolitan Perth.
She has a Bachelor of Science in Health Promotion, a Graduate Diploma in Policy Studies and a Post Grad Diploma in Secondary Education.
Carolyn joined Pat’s team at UWA in 2013, working on the development, implementation and evaluation of the National Empowerment Project – Cultural, Social and Emotional Wellbeing program and has since worked with Angela on the delivery of the program in Perth.
Research Team
Dr Kate Derry
Research Associate - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Kate was born, lives, and works on Noongar Country in Perth, Western Australia. Her father is a descendant of the Shan people of Myanmar and migrated to Australia in 1963 during the (first) Burmese coup d’état. Her mother was born in Round Hill (Moora) and raised on Gnaraloo Station, north of Carnarvon. She is engaged to Frank Mitchell, a proud Wadjuk Noongar man, and lives with him in Coolbellup with their son Xavier and two gorgeous sausage dogs.
Kate is a postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA. She received her PhD from the UWA School of Psychological Science and is trained as a social and developmental research psychologist. Her doctoral research investigates the development of self and personality in children, adolescents, and adults. Using her understanding of self-concept, personality, emotions, and psychometrics, Kate has worked in the areas of organisational psychology, education, and suicide prevention. Her research has been published in several peer-review journals and she has been invited to present to diverse audiences in Australia and internationally.
Kate started working with Professor Dudgeon in late 2019, and is excited to use evidence-based approaches. practice-based evidence, and strengths-focused solutions to empower Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, and other Indigenous peoples.
Dr Shraddha Kashyap
Research Associate - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Shraddha was born in Kenya, she has Indian heritage, and migrated to Australia with her family in 2002.
Her professional background is in Clinical Psychology, and she completed her Masters and PhD at UWA. Her PhD investigated self-harm and suicide risk among a psychiatric inpatient population. In 2016, she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research with survivors of torture and trauma at the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture in New York City. Following this, she worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Refugee Trauma and Recovery Program at the University of New South Wales, Sydney (2017 to 2020).
Shraddha is experienced in community participatory based research and is passionate about working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples to help build an evidence base to promote culturally safe mental health care services. She also currently works as a Clinical Psychology Registrar at a private mental health care practice on beautiful Noongar land.
Dr Joanna Alexi
Research Associate - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Joanna was born in Darwin on Larrakia Country. Her mother and father migrated from Cyprus to Australia in the early 1970s and 1980s, respectively. Joanna lived in Darwin for most of her childhood, before moving to Perth, Whadjuk Country, with her family, as a young teenager.
Joanna completed her PhD in psychology at the University of Western Australia in 2020. Her thesis was in the area of body image disturbances, perception and eating disorders.
She has also gained experience in Indigenous health and is passionate about promoting health and wellbeing outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, through collaboration, teamwork, and culturally responsive research.
Ms Belle Selkirk
Research Fellow - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Belle is a Noongar woman from the South-West of Western Australia. She is connected to her culture through her grandmother, Lyla Hume, who has been a strong role model in her life. She grew up on Wadandi Boodja (country) as a child, then relocated to Whadjuk Boodja (Perth) as a young adult to study psychology.
Belle completed her Master of Psychology (Clinical) at the end of 2008 and her thesis examined the outcomes of a school-based resilience program for Indigenous primary school students. She was also the inaugural recipient of the APS Bendi Lango Bursary. Belle now has over 12 years’ experience working in the mental health field in a variety of roles including Clinical Psychologist, group therapist, mentor, and researcher.
She has worked in both Indigenous and non-Indigenous programs in Australia and in Canada (unceded Coast Salish Territory, Vancouver). In Canada, she was part of a team of Indigenous women researchers who set out to empower the voices of First Nation women in health care policy and planning within Vancouver Coastal Health Authority. She has extensive experience in providing both short- and long-term psychotherapy, with a particular focus on social and emotional wellbeing, complex trauma, anxiety, depression, suicide prevention and suicide bereavement.
Belle juggles her time between her family, being a mother, private psychology practice, and research fellow with the TIMHWB project.
Dr Rama Agung-Igusti
RESEARCH ASSOCIATE - SCHOOL OF INDIGENOUS STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Rama was born in Melbourne on Wurundjeri Country, his father migrated from Bali in the 1980s and his mother was also born on Wurundjeri country and has Scottish and Austrian ancestry. Rama moved to Perth on Whadjuk Noongar Country in 2021 to live with his partner.
Rama completed his PhD in 2022 at Victoria University in the discipline of Community Psychology. His community-engaged research has sought to support and document the efforts of racially marginalised communities to respond to structural and cultural exclusion through the creation of self-determined community arts settings. Rama joined the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA in 2022 as a research associate where he hopes to support Indigenous-led approaches to community empowerment and strengthening social and emotional wellbeing. His interests also include participatory and qualitative approaches to research.
Rama is also a member of the Community, Identity and Displacement Research Network and the Society for Community Research and Action.
Emma Carlin
Senior Research Officer - Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Service (KAMS)
Emma works for KAMS managing a small, vibrant, interdisciplinary research team with a focus on improving primary health and social and emotional wellbeing for Aboriginal people across the region. She has held this role alongside being a Research Fellow with University of Western Australia for four years and has resided in Kimberley for nine years.
Emma is experienced in participatory action and yarning based methodologies alongside more traditional mixed methods approaches. Emma is motivated to work alongside Aboriginal communities and Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services to improve outcomes in healthcare equity and access. Emma sees this as one means of supporting community empowerment, resilience and flourishing.
Zac Cox
Research Officer - Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Service (KAMS)
Zaccariah Cox is a Broome boy with connections to Nimanburru people from the Eastern Dampier Peninsula and Kija people from the central Kimberley. He grew up in Broome and spent most of his life there. He loves spending time with his friends and family, especially his 8 year old daughter, camping, hunting, fishing, and watching and playing sport.
Zac has been involved with Kimberley Aboriginal Medical Services (KAMS) in the social and emotional wellbeing space for some time now, going on close to five years. Over the years he noticed the increasing need for SEWB services and programs within the Kimberley.
Zac believes this research program can provide the opportunity to explore new ways of doing SEWB through the Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Services in the Kimberley. Zac acknowledges that it is important to make sure this corresponds to what the community identify as their needs in regards to SEWB.
Dr Jemma Collova
Research Associate - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Jemma was born and raised on Whadjuk Noongar Country in Perth. Her grandparents were born in Italy, and migrated to Noongar land in the 1950s, before starting their own families.
Jemma is a postdoctoral Research Associate at the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA. She completed her PhD in Psychology at UWA, followed by a postdoctoral position in the School of Psychology. During this time, she investigated social biases and prejudices towards children based on their appearance, and her doctoral research received an Honourable mention on the Dean’s List.
Jemma is passionate about research translation, and bridging the gap between academic research and practice. She has worked at the intersection between academic research and Government, including working for the Federal Department of Innovation, Industry and Science (Ngunnawal Country, Canberra), and for the Western Australia Police. Jemma is passionate about collaborative and culturally responsive research, which supports and empowers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
Toby Price
Research Officer - Albany
Toby was born and grew up in Perth, Western Australia, on Whadjuk Noongar Country. He completed a Bachelor of Science (Hons) and Doctor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia. He is a psychiatry service registrar working at WACHS Albany and has previously worked in the South Metropolitan Health Service in Perth.
Through the course of his studies and work as a doctor, Toby has had ongoing involvement in research and clinical audit. He completed a laboratory-based honours project, has been involved in numerous hospital-based audits, and has continuing involvement in data collection for a project assessing opioid reduction in chronic pain patients prescribed medicinal cannabinoids, including impact on mental health.
Toby is passionate about research and the impact it has improving clinical practice. He is excited to be involved in Indigenous-led research with a view to improving cultural safety for Indigenous mental health service users.
Samantha Lilley
Project Officer - The National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (NACCHO)
Mishelle Tarling
PROJECT OFFICER - SCHOOL OF INDIGENOUS STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Dr Ee Pin Chang
Research Associate - School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia
Ee Pin and her grandparents were born and raised in Singapore. Her parents migrated from China to Singapore in the early 1930s.
Ee Pin obtained a Bachelor of Accountancy Degree at the National University of Singapore and worked in the finance industry in Singapore and Hong Kong. She moved to Perth in 2010 to fulfill her childhood dream of studying psychology and completed her PhD in psychology at The University of Western Australia (UWA) in 2019. Her thesis is at the intersection of cognition and emotion, exploring memory updating in depressive rumination.
She has also gained experience in the area of suicide prediction, exploring the interpersonal risk factors of suicide in her honours thesis, and the biological risk factors of suicide as a Postdoc with the School of Psychological Science at UWA before joining the School of Indigenous Studies.
Ee Pin is passionate about justice and equity, and promoting health and wellbeing outcomes in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, with a focus on suicide prevention efforts.
Lyndal Alchin
SENIOR ADVISOR- THE NATIONAL ABORIGINAL COMMUNITY CONTROLLED HEALTH ORGANISATION (NACCHO)
Governance Committee
Watch this space...
Governance Committee
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Advisory Committee
Watch this space...
Advisory Committee
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Name of Person
Title - Affiliate
Artwork Acknowledgement
The Artwork used in the TIMHWB website has been drawn from a larger work. Following is the story and acknowledgment:
Beautiful Healing in Wildflower Banksia Country describes a story about the life-affirming inter-connections between people, land, oceans, waterways, sky and all living things. The painting began in the Sister Kate’s Home Kid’s Aboriginal Corporation Healing (SKHKAC) Hub, at the second National and World Indigenous Suicide Prevention Conference held in Perth, Western Australia in 2018.
During the conference participants came together in the Healing Hub to collaborate on the triptych which was then respectfully completed by the SKHKAC team. The Sister Kate’s Childrens Home began in 1934 and closed in 1975, and was an institution for Aboriginal children who are now known as the Stolen Generations – where the Home Kids of SKHKAC are planning to build an all accessible Place of Healing on the Bush Block adjacent to the old Home, and will run Back to Country Bush Camps and other cultural healing activities.
Wau-jin Bura-Quopp Mun’jyte Boodjah © Joint Copyright: Sister Kate’s Home Kids Aboroginal Corporation and the School of Indigenous Studies, University of Western Australia 2018
