Dea Morgain

Dea is the Manager of the Workplace Supports Program at Social Firms Australia. In this capacity she works with Social Firms and other workplaces to develop systems and processes to effectively support employees with mental illness.

Dea has more than 20 years experience in casework with disadvantaged people, community development and the management of nonprofits agencies. Dea has a BA in psychology and Graduate Diploma in employee relations.

Michael Newman

Mike has worked in the field of adult education for more than forty years and, amongst other things, has been, a community education worker in the sometimes mean streets of inner London, and a national trainer with the Australian Trade Union Training Authority. He retired from his post as Senior Lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney in 2001. He has written a number of books on adult education and social action, his most recent being Teaching Defiance: Stories and Strategies for Activist Educators, (Jossey Bass, San Francisco, 2006. (You can find slightly more information about Mike and his writing, and download three of his books free of charge, at http://www.michaelnewman.info/ .)

See Dr. John Tickell on ACA

See Dr. John Tickell on A Current Affair

Tracy Grimshaw's exclusive interview with television's Dr. John Tickell, who in this clip was fighting for his life after being diagnosed with brain cancer.

Donnie Maclurcan

Donnie Maclurcan is a social revolutionary. He celebrates thinking ‘big’, whilst keeping grounded with ongoing questions, projects and a spot of gardening. He is the Founder and CEO of the community development organisation Project Australia and a founding member of the Growthbusters – a global network inspiring and equipping people everywhere to make the well-being of people and the planet our most urgent priority, without relying on growth to make it happen.

His unique insights come from an unusually diverse career, having worked as an exercise physiologist and telephone counsellor, coordinator of a lobby group for Aboriginal justice and a team assisting Sydney’s homeless, a journalist from the World Social Forum in Kenya, an English and mathematics teacher in South Korea and event manager for The Great Australian Bike Ride.

Donnie’s outputs have resonated throughout Australia and the world, leading to his appointment as a Fellow of The Royal Society of the Arts. His PhD was one of the world’s first, comprehensive investigations of nanotechnology’s possible global consequences, resulting in two book contracts and over 20 translations of his work. In 2006, he co-developed an award-winning case study for Australian high schools about the drowning of 353 asylum seekers on their way to Australia. He also founded Australia’s first professional speakers’ bureau for younger people, is one of the youngest to have competed in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race and, at age 20, achieved the Guinness World Record for the fastest journey on foot across Australia, raising over $35000 for The Fred Hollows Foundation, for whom he remains an ambassador. Visit PROJECT AUSTRALIA

May Lam Social Traders

May Lam - Policy and Strategy, Social Traders
Dr. May Lam joined Social Traders in 2010. May has worked in senior policy and research roles in Australia and the UK over the last 17 years across the community, private and government sectors. She worked with Jobs Australia for 12 years and with the Brotherhood of St Laurence in social inclusion project design. She is particularly interested in citizen engagement and participation in the design of social and employment services, how social enterprises can create employment, learning and social inclusion opportunities in various communities and contexts, and how social impact and social value can be measured and reported.

Professor John Mendoza

Professor John Mendoza is a Director of ConNetica after a career that has seen him hold several executive positions including the inaugural Chair of the Australian Government’s National Advisory Council on Mental Health, CEO of the Mental Health Council of Australia and CEO of the Australian Sports Drug Agency. John’s professional appointments, including:* Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health Science, University of the Sunshine Coast* Adjunct Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney* Deputy President, Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia John has authored or co-authored dozens of reports and submissions to public inquiries on mental health and suicide in the past five years. His most recent reports include a Sector Development Strategy for the Victorian community mental health sector and a seminal report on suicide, Breaking the Silence.

John Allsop

John graduated from the University of NSW (Batchelor of Social Work) in 1990 and worked as a social worker with the Hunter Area Health Service from 1991-1997. During this time he was employed as a social worker in a surgical ward at the John Hunter Hospital for two years and then worked as a community health social worker at Port Stephens Health Services for four and a half years. John took a break from SW when his eldest daughter was born and returned to the Hunter Area Health Service in 2000 where he did a 12 month stint as the Intensive Care Social worker at the ICU at John Hunter Hospital. Following this he relocated to the Port Macquarie region where he worker as a Renal Social Worker based at Port Macquarie Community Health Centre. John joined Centrelink in 2004 and worked at both Port Macquarie and Kempsey customer Service Centres for approximately 18 months- following this he transferred to Darwin and worked there for two years where he was involved in the establishment of a remote servicing team which provided Social Work service and support to remote Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory-this role involved regular visits to remote Indigenous communities in the top end of the Northern Territory (eg. Maningrida, Tiwi Islands, Nhulunbuy). He returned to Port Macquarie Call Centre in 2008 and worked at the Port Macquarie Call Centre for two years. In mid-2010 he commenced a role with the Centrelink Rural and Community Practice SW Team which is responsible for the provision of SW service & support to disadvantaged and vulnerable Centrelink customers who reside in rural and regional areas throughout the eastern states. The Rural and Community Practice SW Team are also focussed on community engagement activities with an emphasis on developing and maintaining close collaborative relationships with a variety of Government and non Government agencies and services operating in regional and rural Australia.