Policymaker and evaluator

Focused on improving health and wellbeing, particularly for those who experience mental illness and complex disadvantage.

About Me

Consulting Services

Strong focus on designing and driving systemic change, supporting the development of a health and social services system that puts people at the centre.

Learn more about my work
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Evaluation design and delivery

Evaluation capacity building

Facilitation and stakeholder engagement

Keynote speaking

Mental health subject matter expertise

Organisational strategy

Program and system design

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Policy writing and advocacy

Quantitative research

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Qualitative research

About Jo Farmer

Consultant

I use my skills to design and drive systemic change, supporting the development of a health and social services system that puts people at the centre.
 
My experience includes strategic planning, evaluation and service design in not for profits, government and service delivery agencies. I am extremely passionate mental health. Partly this stems from my own experiences – positive and negative – of the mental health system.
 
The community and those with lived experience are at the heart of my work. As someone who combines lived and professional experience in my own work, I recognise the value of genuine engagement and collaborative design that balances evidence with the needs of consumers and those of delivery agents to deliver long-term, meaningful change.
 
Long before I started my own consulting business, I started this website as a blog about my personal experiences with my mental health conditions and the system that aims to support me. You can still read my blog posts here
Read my blog

What’s new?

Masterchef… and men’s mental health

Masterchef… and men’s mental health

by | Jun 13, 2021 | , ,

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

Interviewing with a lived experience

by | May 24, 2021 | ,

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

Stop proving me right

by | Mar 15, 2021 | ,

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...

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Acknowledgement of country

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation. I pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded and I look forward to a day when the voice of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples is heard so Australia faces up to the pain inflicted by ongoing colonisation and the strengths of its Aboriginal past, present and future.