Get to know me
through my blog
Masterchef… and men’s mental health
I’m a big Masterchef fan. I love food, I love stories, I love Melissa Leong’s choice in BIG earrings – what isn’t there to love?! So it was with some trepidation that I approached the last 15 minutes of tonight’s episode. Channel 10 had been promoting an emotional...
Interviewing with a lived experience
I’m a qualitative researcher by background and doing one-on-one interviews is my research happy place. I’m currently knee-deep in interviews across a couple of projects, and I’ve been reflecting on how my lived experience as a mental health consumer helps make me a...
Stop proving me right
I had intended that my next piece of writing be from my long list of ideas, about suicidal ideation or about the Royal Commission report. Alas, the last few weeks have compelled me to write something else. I have been sexually assaulted at least twice in my life. Once...
Commission submissions
I have a list as long as my arm of blog posts I have been meaning to write of late, not least a reflection or two on the recent Royal Commission Report into the Victorian Mental Health System. Unfortunately, they are all on the backburner a bit as I focus on client...
A year
A year ago this week, I made a brave and potentially very silly decision. I felt in my gut that there was a space for me to create a career and life I was proud of by combining my lived experience, knowledge of the mental health sector, and policy and evaluation...
Evaluating telehealth
Telehealth looks set to stay, but having been implemented in the mainstream very rapidly, it's important to build in evaluation to make sure we get it right for the long-term. I co-authored this blog on evaluating telehealth with Jo Grzelinska from Larter Consulting.
Making inclusive choices
Last week, I was privileged to be invited to participate in a webinar organised by ARTD to discuss inclusive choices in evaluation, particularly in the context of Covid-19. By far the highlight for me was learning from the others on the panel - Julie Duong (Empowering...
Fostering evaluative thinking upfront
I've been doing a lot of work recently on evaluation capacity building, and supporting program designers to consider monitoring and evaluation up front. I keep coming back to an article I wrote in 2018 with Dr Caroline Tomiczek following a presentation we did at the...
Can we get off the treadmill?
Over the last couple of months, I've heard many people say that "it's OK not to be your most productive during a crisis". Yes! I completely agree. Clearly, productivity is not going to be number one priority when competing with health, homeschooling your kids and the...
What happens next?
It's reached that stage of social distancing where my mind has started to move to what happens next. I don't have a crystal ball and I have no idea when offices are going to 'return to normal'. It might never happen, and for many, the impact of Covid has already been...