Policymaker and evaluator

Focused on improving the health and wellbeing of all people in Australia, particularly those who experience mental illness and complex disadvantage.

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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.

Services include:

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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

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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
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What’s new?

Making inclusive choices

Making inclusive choices

by | Jun 9, 2020 | , ,

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

Fostering evaluative thinking upfront

by | May 27, 2020 |

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?

Can we get off the treadmill?

by | May 3, 2020 |

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...

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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 its colonial history and the strengths of its Aboriginal past, present and future.