6th Asia Pacific Safe & Together™ Model Conference

Speakers

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  Adam Joel - Last Drop Filmmaker, co-founder of Aggressively Compassionate production company
  

  Adam Joel - Last Drop

  Filmmaker, co-founder of Aggressively Compassionate production company

  Adam Joel is an impact-driven filmmaker and a survivor of relationship abuse. He is the Writer and Director of The Last Drop a short sci-fi film about relationship abuse inspired by the memories of real survivors. Adam is leading an international campaign using this revolutionary film to help people identify and react to the lesser known forms of abuse that tend to occur BEFORE a relationship turns violent. To make The Last Drop as impactful as possible, he consulted dozens of other survivors and an Advisory Board of experts in the fields of abuse prevention, education, and social work, including The One Love Foundation and The Safe & Together Institute, who are designing custom discussion guides to accompany the film. Adam is providing this project as a tool to help educators, advocates, and community groups lead meaningful conversations about relationship safety all across the world.

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  Ali Trewhella Director, Practice Development and Training, ACT Government
  

  Ali Trewhella

  Director, Practice Development and Training, ACT Government

  Ali holds a Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) from Monash University and has worked in a variety of roles over the past 15 years; including in hospitals, child protection and youth justice. Ali is the Director of Practice Development and Training for Child and Youth Protection Services in the ACT. Ali has a strong interest in embedding research in practice and designing best practice initiatives that develop the capability of the sector. She has a strong knowledge base of the child protection system from her experiences working directly with children, young people, and families with complex needs both in Australia and in the United Kingdom. More recently, Ali has co-developed and implemented a therapeutic trauma informed service for children in the ACT and a Foundational Program which prepares new child protection practitioners for operational work.

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  Ancy Dsouza Family Violence Intervention Officer, Desert Blue Connect
  

  Ancy Dsouza

  Family Violence Intervention Officer, Desert Blue Connect

  Ancy Dsouza is a passionate and skilled Social Work practitioner who brings a wealth of experience to the family violence sector. Ancy’s education and experience of working with victim-survivors in India has positioned her well to be aware and sensitive to complex cultural, family, community and political issues that might impact on the perpetration and experience of family violence. Since 2017 Ancy has effectively managed an increasingly high and complex case load across two different service roles in Desert Blue Connect (both Family violence Counsellor and Family Violence Intervention Officer in Barndimalgu Court). Ancy has successfully advocated for changes in the court system to have a positive impact on women and children’s safety.

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  Anne Tidyman Manager, Child & Family Services
  

  Anne Tidyman

  Manager, Child & Family Services

  Anne Tidyman has a background in nursing, public housing, community development, out-of-home care and alcohol and other drugs and family services. She has volunteered and worked in the community sector for over 20 years with a special interest in working with vulnerable families and communities. Anne has presented at many Child/Family, AOD and Family Violence-related conferences and forums in Australia and overseas about AOD, Family Violence and/or innovative practice with children/families experiencing trauma. She has publications with Dr Menka Tsantefski (Griffith University and formerly University of Melbourne) and has completed specialist training in family violence, she is an Accredited Parenting Under Pressure Therapist; Group Facilitator for Caring Dads and My Kids and Me. Anne is a certified trainer for Safe & Together. Anne manages Child and Family Services, at Odyssey House Victoria.

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  Bec Sherman DFV Practice Leader, Office of the Chief Practitioner, Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs Queensland
  

  Bec Sherman

  DFV Practice Leader, Office of the Chief Practitioner, Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs Queensland

  Bec Shearman holds a BA (Psych), and Bachelor of Social Work. Bec has worked in multiple roles across the DFV and child safety sector, in both NGO and government organisations. Bec is currently the DFV Practice Leader at the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs. Her leadership roles have encompassed worker supervision & support, service delivery program management & development, training and education, consultation & submissions, informing strategic direction & governance, oversight of internal operations and HR processes. Experience includes:
  -member of the Ministerial Advisory Council to advise on the roll-out of the Qld Strategic Plan to address DFV
  -co-convenor of the Qld DV Court Assistance Network for 5 years
  -member of the Women’s Legal Service Management Committee for 5 years
  -overseeing implementation of the HRT in both Ipswich and Brisbane.
  -oversaw implementation of the revised DFV Practice Standards, the development of the DFV Regulatory Framework, refreshed Perpetrator Intervention Program Requirements and the current state analysis phase of the DFSV Data Project.

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  Cathy Humphreys Professor of Social Work, University of Melbourne
  

  Cathy Humphreys

  Professor of Social Work, University of Melbourne

  Cathy Humphreys is Professor of Social Work at University of Melbourne. She specialises in applied research. Four projects in the past 5 years have worked with the Safe & Together Institute using practice-led, action research through facilitated multi-stakeholder workshops and Communities of Practice. This approach reflects a profound interest in knowledge translation to ensure the support of practice through research. Her research focuses on DFV and child abuse. She has a long-term interest in the intersection of DFV with other complexities including mental health and AOD. Professor Humphreys is a well published author of more than 140 journal articles. She worked at the University of Warwick for 12 years leading a domestic violence and child abuse research centre before returning to Australia in 2006. For 15 years she worked as a social worker.

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  Celia Conlan Senior Judicial Registrar
  

  Celia Conlan

  Senior Judicial Registrar

  Celia Conlan is a Senior Judicial Registrar in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. She has honed her expertise in Family Law over 20+ years, working as a Barrister and Independent Children’s Lawyer. Celia holds a Masters of Applied Family Law from the College of Law, as well as a Bachelor of Laws from Monash University. In her current role, Celia hears Family Court matters daily, exercising powers to make interim parenting orders, vary and set aside property orders and make location orders and recovery orders.

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  Chad Chan NHARP (Northern Healing and Recovery Program) Restoring Childhood Clinician
  

  Chad Chan

  NHARP (Northern Healing and Recovery Program) Restoring Childhood Clinician

  Chad Chan (they/she) is a Social Worker currently practicing as a Clinician with Take Two in the Northern Healing and Recovery Program. N-HARP offer a therapeutic response to infants, children, young people and caregivers with experiences of family violence, using trauma-informed modalities including Child-Parent Psychotherapy, EMDR, and narrative and play-based approaches. Chad’s previous work includes Specialist Family Violence triage and response to L17 police referrals, Specialist Family Violence case management, community development, facilitation with young people around sex, respect and consent in the primary prevention space, and caring for young people in Out of Home Care. Their practice centres the experiences of children and young people, and is informed by principles of decolonisation, transformative justice and response-based practice, honouring the many different strategies that people use to survive and resist violence and oppression.

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  Cherie Toivonen Director, CLT Byron Consulting
  

  Cherie Toivonen

  Director, CLT Byron Consulting

  Cherie Toivonen is an independent researcher working in the violence, abuse, and neglect space. Cherie has over 20 years’ experience working in research and evaluation across a range of projects including: integrated service provision; domestic violence, child protection and mental health collaborative approaches; domestic violence service evaluation and responses; and community development and social inclusion initiatives. Whilst employed at the University of Sydney she managed two complex multi-agency ARC funded research projects and was the Senior Researcher for the NSW component of three ANROWS funded multi-state research projects. At ANROWS, she led the project that developed the National Risk Assessment Principles for Domestic and Family Violence and held the role of Acting Director of the Research Program.

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  Danielle Wilson TL Kids in focus Program, Odyssey House Victoria
  

  Danielle Wilson

  TL Kids in focus Program, Odyssey House Victoria

  Daniella has a background in Child Protection and AOD Specialist Family Services and has worked in the AOD sector for the past 5 years in the KIF team and as KIF Team leader for the past year. Within the team Daniella also has responsibility for the Child Sexual Abuse secondary consults.

  Daniella has worked in the sector for 15 years and is passionate about working with families who have multiple vulnerabilities to enhance the safety and wellbeing of children.

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  Dave Kwame Arthur Senior AOD Clinician, Odyssey House Victoria
  

  Dave Kwame Arthur

  Senior AOD Clinician, Odyssey House Victoria

  David Kwame Arthur is a Ghanaian/Australian and a AOD Senior Clinician who has been working in the sector for the past 5 years. Dave’s background includes employment services, youth mentorship, sport development and administration. Dave has a special interest in men’s health specifically the intersection of positive fathering and alcohol and other drugs. Dave is an Accredited group facilitator for Caring Dads and was the first AOD co facilitator in the KODY project. Dave is a proud father of 4 and an avid fan of afro beats, soccer and comedy.

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  David Mandel Founder and CEO, Safe & Together Institute
  

  David Mandel

  Founder and CEO, Safe & Together Institute

  With over almost 30 years’ experience in the domestic violence field, David’s international training and consulting focuses on improving systems’ responses to domestic violence when children are involved. Through years of work with child welfare systems, David has developed the Safe & Together™ Model to improve case practice and cross-system collaboration in domestic violence cases involving children. He has also identified how a perpetrator pattern-based approach can improve our ability to help families and promote the development of domestic violence-informed child welfare systems.

  David and the Safe & Together Institute’s staff and faculty have consulted to United States’ child welfare systems in a number of states including New York, Louisiana, New Jersey, Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, the District of Columbia, Vermont, Oregon and Ohio. In the last five years, their work has expanded outside the United States with research, training and consultation in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and other countries. The Safe & Together Institute works closely with domestic violence advocates, in the United States and abroad, to help them more effectively work with child protection systems and better advocate for child welfare-involved adult and child domestic violence survivors. David has written and published online courses which has launched a new Safe & Together Model Certified Trainer initiative that will increase the Institute’s ability to support sustainable implementation of domestic violence-informed practice in the US and abroad.

  David has written or co-written journal articles on batterer’s perceptions of their children’s exposure to domestic violence, domestic violence case reading tools, and the intersection of domestic violence and child welfare practice. His chapter on “Batterers and the Lives of Their Children” was published in the Praeger Series Violence Against Women in Families and Relationships.

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  Deb Nicholson Writing Assistant, Deb Nicholson Consulting
  

  Deb Nicholson

  Writing Assistant, Deb Nicholson Consulting

  Deb Nicholson has worked in the domestic violence / violence against women field in Australia and the UK for over three decades as a front line worker, leader, project manager, trainer and consultant. Qualified in social science, welfare practice, coaching and training, Deb has most recently earned a MA in Creative Writing & Wellbeing, and brings a combination of skill and experience to the work of supporting David Mandel to write his first book about the Safe & Together Model. Deb is trained in the Safe & Together CORE.

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  Dr Emma Katz Associate Professor in Sociology, Durham University
  

  Dr Emma Katz

  Associate Professor in Sociology, Durham University

  Dr Emma Katz, Ph.D., is an internationally-renowned expert in domestic abuse and coercive control, whose work has influenced legislation in the UK and overseas. Coercive control is a form of domestic abuse where perpetrators use a pattern of threats, humiliation and intimation to control and dominate their partner and children, depriving them of independence and isolating them from support. Because coercive control does not always involve physical violence, it has often been under-reported and under-recognised. It was recognised as a criminal offence in England and Wales in 2015.

  Emma’s research with mothers and children who have survived coercive control has transformed understandings of domestic abuse. Children’s experiences of coercive control were largely invisible prior to Emma’s work, which found that children were affected by many forms of abuse beyond physical violence against their mother, including imprisonment, deprivation of resources, and isolation from the outside world. Emma’s research findings on children and coercive control have been used to train professionals internationally.

  Her book, Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives (2022, Oxford University Press) is described as a ‘pioneering work’ that ‘will change how we understand and response to children’s experience of domestic abuse’ (Evan Stark, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University).

  Dr Emma Katz gained her Ph.D. from the University of Nottingham, UK and is currently a Senior Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, UK.

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  Grace Hong Centre Manager & Stephanie Phung, Family Support Worker, Barnardos Australia
  

  Grace Hong

  Centre Manager & Stephanie Phung, Family Support Worker, Barnardos Australia

  Grace Hong is a trained social worker. She has over 18 years of frontline and leadership experience in the field of child protection and early intervention. Her career as a social worker has been dedicated to child welfare and children’s rights as well as advocacy focused on systematic change in the DFV area. Currently, Grace works as a Centre Manager at the Auburn Children’s Family Centre at Barnardos Australia. Grace was part of the first 4 days core training provided through Barnardos in 2019 and has since been the S&T Champion within the organisation. Her role is to support the implementation of the S&T model as well as guiding her employees to embed the principles in everyday frontline casework.

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  Howard Choo Australian Policy and Advocacy Lead, Save the Children Australia
  

  Howard Choo

  Australian Policy and Advocacy Lead, Save the Children Australia

  Howard Choo leads Save the Children’s and 54 reasons’ policy and advocacy agenda across Australia. In this role, he leads advocacy for policy reform and system change to promote children’s rights, safety and wellbeing. This spans child protection, domestic and family violence, youth justice, child development through disasters and adversity, educational engagement, child rights governance and institutional reform, and other key child-related policy domains.
  Previously, Howard held senior leadership roles in the Victorian Department of Education and Training and the Department of Premier and Cabinet, spanning policy reform, law reform and high level governance, with a focus on strategic policy and system reforms to improve social equity and address disadvantage. Howard is also the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Victorian Student Representative Council (VicSRC), the peak body representing school-age students in Victoria and a student-led organisation supported by an adult Board and staff team.

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  Jac Dwyer Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Training and Capacity Building Lead, Northern Specialist Family Violence Service, Berry Street
  

  Jac Dwyer

  Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Training and Capacity Building Lead, Northern Specialist Family Violence Service, Berry Street

  Jac Dwyer (she/her): Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Training and Capacity Building Lead, Northern Specialist Family Violence Service, Berry Street. For over 10 years Jac has worked in community services across homelessness, health, disability, forensic and specialist family violence workforces supporting both victim survivors and perpetrators of family violence. Jac is passionate about supporting best practice responses to family violence and contributing to a resilient and robust workforce and community that prioritises safety and recovery for adult and child victim survivors and keeps perpetrators in view and accountable. Alongside her role at Berry Street, Jac has a private practice offering group and individual supervision for specialist family violence and related sectors to explore accountability, solidarity and sustainability in their work.

• Jack Bulman CEO, Mibbinbah
  Jack Bulman

  CEO, Mibbinbah
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  Joanna Pettett Senior Court Child Expert/Clinical Policy and Practice Officer
  

  Joanna Pettett

  Senior Court Child Expert/Clinical Policy and Practice Officer

  Joanna Pettett is the Senior Court Child Expert for Tasmania. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work (Hons) from the University of Newcastle and a Master of Social Work (Advanced Practice) from the University of Tasmania. Joanna’s clinical experience is in working with children and families in an assessment and short term case management context; working with the Child Safety Service for over seven years and with the Court Children’s Service for the last six years. She has recently had experience in the development of policy and practice for the Court Children’s Service as Clinical Policy and Practice Officer. As her experience indicates, Joanna has a particular interest in working in government and involuntary contexts where she believes the skills and values of social workers can have a positive and meaningful impact on the experiences of service users.

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  Lani Pereira Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Practice Development Manager, Northern Specialist Family Violence Service, Berry Street
  

  Lani Pereira

  Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Practice Development Manager, Northern Specialist Family Violence Service, Berry Street

  Lani Pereira (she/her): Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Practice Development Manager, Northern Specialist Family Violence Service, Berry Street. Lani has been working in the community services sector for over 15 years with experience working with young people, homelessness services, arts health, settlement services, bush adventure therapy and specialist family violence work. Lani is committed to supporting the community services sector in their capacity to respond to family violence in a way that increases the safety to adult and child victim survivors and holds those choosing violence accountable and in view. She also is consistently learning from the experiences of front-line practitioners, many of whom are victim survivors in their own right.

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  Lauren Ellerton Case Analysis Officer
  

  Lauren Ellerton

  Case Analysis Officer

  Lauren Ellerton holds a substantiative position as a Senior Practitioner and currently works as a Case Analysis Officer for the ACT Child and Youth Protection Service (CYPS). Lauren holds a Master of Rehabilitation Counselling and a Master of Professional Psychology and has over a decade of experience in a variety of roles in the child protection field. Lauren also works as a Provisional Psychologist for a private practice in Victoria supporting victim survivors of family violence, and women and children. Lauren is passionate about trauma informed practice and therapeutic models of care.

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  Leanne Downes Principal Program Officer Walking with Dads
  

  Leanne Downes

  Principal Program Officer Walking with Dads

  Leanne Downes is a Principal Program Officer for the Walking with Dads Program with the Department of Children, Youth Justice and Multicultural Affairs. The Walking with Dad’s program was developed in response to the identified need to strengthen the engagement of fathers in child protection intervention and as an approach to implementing the Safe & Together (David Mandel) framework as best practice in understanding and responding to families living with domestic and family violence. Leanne is a Certified Trainer of Safe & Together and has worked in the child protection sector for the past 14 years. Leanne has coordinated and facilitated multiple Community of Practice Workshops supporting the application of the Safe and Together Model into practice change across organisations. Leanne holds a Bachelor of Human Services from University of the Sunshine Coast, a Post Graduate Certificate in Child Protection and has studied in the Graduate Certificate in Family Studies through University of NSW.

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  Margaret Kertesz Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne
  

  Margaret Kertesz

  Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne

  Dr Margaret Kertesz is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne, with two decades experience in the areas of domestic and family violence, child protection and out-of-home care. Her specific research interests include the impact on children of domestic violence, approaches that promote recovery post-violence, with a focus on evaluation, applied research and knowledge translation, in close collaboration with service providers, to promote good practice and the systems that support it. She has experience of two research projects which have involve the Safe & Together Institute (STACY for Children & The ESTIE project).

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  Michelle Robinson Director Evidence to Action, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWs)
  

  Michelle Robinson

  Director Evidence to Action, Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWs)

  Michele Robinson has extensive experience in building knowledge partnerships and developing strategies for the translation, application and exchange of research evidence to reduce domestic, family and sexual violence. Michele has provided strategic advice to Australian and international governments and peak bodies on legal, policy and practice initiatives to prevent and respond to domestic, family and sexual violence.

  For the last five years in her role as the inaugural Director of Evidence to Action at ANROWS, Michele has led a multidisciplinary team who have had considerable impact on policy and legislative reform in the areas of coercive control, improving police responses to domestic and family violence, and at the intersections between child protection and domestic and family violence services.

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  Peta Nicol Practice Development Manager, 54 Reasons (Save the Children Group)
  

  Peta Nicol

  Practice Development Manager, 54 Reasons (Save the Children Group)

  Peta Nichol is a Practice Development Manager (Family Functioning and Healthy Relationships) within the Practice and Impact Measurement team at 54 reasons. In 2020, she completed the Trainer Certification program for Safe &Together, in 2022 completed an additional supervisor certification, and has been influential in 54 reasons adoption of the framework nationally.
  Peta holds qualifications in Psychology and Creative Therapies and has 30 years’ experience working in the Community Services sector in practitioner and leadership roles within family support, youth work, and domestic and family violence fields across urban, regional, and remote locations (including Aboriginal communities). She is focused on building meaningful connections between research and practice and supporting teams to develop strategies that give the best chance of enable respectful engagement leading to positive outcomes with vulnerable children and their families.

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  Peter Thorpe Walking with Dad’s Program Officer
  

  Peter Thorpe

  Walking with Dad’s Program Officer

  Peter has worked in Child Protection for 10 years, with the last 5 years in the Walking with Dads program. The motivation to begin, and continue this work, came from 2 questions. Historically, Child Protection have had limited engaged with fathers and father figures 1. why is this? And 2 how can we do this work safely and effectively? If fathers/father figures making parenting choices to use violence and abuse were the problem, then why do we not work with them? To up upskill his engagement with fathers, Peter became a Caring Dads Facilitator, then completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Domestic and Family Violence with Central Queensland University. Peter’s passion is working on projects with the Walking with Dads Team centred on centred on Integrated Service Responses, perpetrators visibility and being led by victim survivors (mother and children’s voices) to support engagement with fathers/father figures.

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  Priscilla Thorpe DFV System Coordinator, Integrated Family and Youth Services
  

  Priscilla Thorpe

  DFV System Coordinator, Integrated Family and Youth Services

  In her position with IFYS Ltd, Priscilla Thorpe coordinates the Sunshine Coast DFV Service System. She has held this position for the past 3 years, prior to which she spent 14 years with community corrections, supervising clients in the community. She is passionate about safer communities through effective perpetrator accountability, partnering with adult and child survivors and strengthening practitioner skills and confidence with the aim of systems to be more responsive in meeting the needs of service users. Priscilla is committed to inclusive, trauma informed and domestic violence informed practice, and maintains a focus on innovation centred on the voices of First Nations people, and those with lived experiences. Through co-location, meaningful partnerships and collaboration with the Sunshine Coast DFV Sector, across Government and Non-Government services, Priscilla believes that real and lasting positive change is possible.

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  Raelene Lesniowska Caring Dads Clinical Leader, Kids First Australia
  

  Raelene Lesniowska

  Caring Dads Clinical Leader, Kids First Australia

  Rae Lesniowska has been with KidsFirst Australia for over four years, as a Clinical Facilitator and more recently Clinical Leader of the Caring Dads/KODY (therapeutic family violence) program(s). Rae’s background is in clinical psychology and running trauma-informed parenting programs and projects for six years at the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service, following 13 years working in public health policy for the Victorian government. She has undertaken research regarding maternal parenting and fatigue, and Koori parenting and fathering in the context of intergenerational trauma, culminating in two published papers and community resources for Koori parents. Rae is passionate about parenting and supporting child and family wellbeing and safety by assisting fathers to work on their change goals and child-centred parenting, via the Caring Dads program, which is closely aligned with the principles and practices of the Safe & Together model.

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  Shelly Napoletano Flynn Trainer Certification Program Manager, Safe & Together Institute
  

  Shelly Napoletano Flynn

  Trainer Certification Program Manager, Safe & Together Institute

  Shelly Napoletano Flynn, MSW began at Safe & Together Institute in July 2018 as the Trainer Certification Program Manager overseeing the Institute’s Certified Trainer Expansion. Shelly’s professional career includes over twenty years of experience in the field of child welfare with a dual focus on direct practice with children and families and systems-level social work practice. With the focus on children birth through age eight and their families, her career included direct service, case management and administration which included intersections with statutory child protection, juvenile and family courts, mental health, substance abuse, domestic violence, and local crisis response teams.

  Shelly’s experience in systems-level practice involved projects such as the evaluation and development of a community’s local capacity to holistically serve its at-risk population of children and families. Additionally, she evaluated and reported on the state-wide supervision practices of Connecticut Certified School Social Workers. As a result of this research, Shelly served on the State of Connecticut Department of Education’s Task Force to develop and implement properly aligned and discipline-specific evaluation standards for school-based social workers in the State of Connecticut. Additionally, her work in systems practice led to the honor of being invited to present on local capacity development of a Birth through Age Eight Children and Family Initiative to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in Washington DC.

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  Sue Hermans Safe & Together Certified Trainer; Clinical Team Leader, Take Two and Restoring Childhood, Berry Street
  

  Sue Hermans

  Safe & Together Certified Trainer; Clinical Team Leader, Take Two and Restoring Childhood, Berry Street

  Sue Hermans (she/her): Safe and Together Certified Trainer; Clinical Team Leader, Take Two and Restoring Childhood, Berry Street. Sue is a social worker and family therapist. She has been working with children, families and support systems effected by trauma and violence for 30 years providing therapeutic interventions. Sue has been with Take Two since 2010 assisted DFFH to establish the Child Protection Principal Practitioner role in the Mallee in 2017 before returning to Take Two in a leadership role for the Mallee. Sue lecturers in Family and Systemic Therapy Masters program and has a passion for integrating theories of practice.

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  Tara Less Operations Manager, Desert Blue Connect
  

  Tara Less

  Operations Manager, Desert Blue Connect

  Tara Lees is Operations Manager at Desert Blue Connect; a non-government agency situated in the Midwest region of Western Australia.
  Tara is a social worker with over 20 years’ experience working in various contexts of welfare rights, health, palliative care and with families and children.
  Among Tara’s social work interests are how social policy influences non-government operating contexts, as well as intersections between the socio-political environment and counselling therapies.

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  Taran Dhillon Programs Coordinator
  

  Taran Dhillon

  Programs Coordinator

  Taran Dhillon works at Odyssey House Victoria as the Program Coordinator in the North West Catchment. She has 22 years of experience working across community AOD treatment agencies, addiction medicine departments, family services, schools and prisons. Taran’s current work includes working with parents with AOD issues who are working towards reunification with their children and forensic AOD group work. Her current interest lies in working at the intersection of AOD and family violence.

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  Val Carter Chief Executive, Home and Family (NZ)
  

  Val Carter

  Chief Executive, Home and Family (NZ)

  Val Carter is the Chief Executive at Home & Family, a child focused not-for-profit based in Christchurch New Zealand. Val attended the 2020 conference in Melbourne before undertaking virtual training and making the decision to implement the model throughout Home & Family. Val co-delivered a workshop at the 2022 Asia Pacific conference and is now focussing on supporting other agencies to adopt the model.

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  Zara Robinson Family Harm Practitioner
  

  Zara Robinson

  Family Harm Practitioner

  Zara Robson is Team Leader for Home & Family’s Whānau Safety team and a Family Harm Practitioner. Zara has been at Home & Family for 4 years and has been instrumental in developing child-focussed responses to family violence for the agency. Zara has also helped lead the incorporation of Safe & Together model as a way of working at Home & Family and has recently completed the Train the Trainer programme. This year, Zara will become training lead within the agency and wider Integrated Safety Response (ISR) collaboration.