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?

Commission submissions

Commission submissions

by | Mar 10, 2021 | , ,

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

by | Nov 8, 2020 |

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

Evaluating telehealth

by | Jun 21, 2020 |

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.

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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.