Practice Manager Family Led Decision Making Sarah is a proud Torres Strait Islander woman living and working on Kaurna country. Being able to grow up strong in culture, Sarah is able to see the benefits of connecting back to culture for healing families from the adverse effects of colonisation and racism. As Practice Manager - Family Led Decision Making across the whole of Relationships Australia SA (RASA), she provides cultural information and guidance to the mainstream, culturally diverse and Aboriginal staff. Sarah’s work for the last 5 years as a therapeutic practitioner focused on attachment has led to Sarah creating an early intervention service working with families with infants aged under two years, who are involved with the child protection system. With the changes in SA laws on child protection, Sarah is influencing the way statutory services and community based, mainstream services including family led decision making practices into their work to reduce the number of Aboriginal infants and children entering out of home care. Sarah has designed and developed a professional training program called ‘Working Better with Nunga Kids' and a Family Group conferencing restorative relationships training session that is delivered to community service organisations across the state, and she is the NAPCAN State Award winner for her work. Sarah’s heartfelt and powerful presentations at national and international conferences inspire pride in culture and describe how Aboriginal ‘old ways’ can be reclaimed, for the benefit of the whole of Australia.

Pat Dudgeon is from the Bardi people in Western Australia. She is a psychologist and professor at the Poche Centre for Aboriginal Health and the School of Indigenous Studies at UWA. Her area of research includes Indigenous social and emotional wellbeing and suicide prevention. She is the director of the Centre of Best Practice in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention at UWA. She is also the lead chief investigator of a national research project, Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing that aims to develop approaches to Indigenous mental health services that promote cultural values and strengths as well as empowering users. She has many publications in Indigenous mental health, in particular, the Working Together Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Wellbeing Principals and Practice 2014.

I am an Indigenous Australian of the Bigambul people. My extended family moved to Brisbane around 1950. While the community where we lived was of a low social-economic position, we still found ourselves, as outsiders. I was born in 1958 and suffered from the ravages of a broken indigenous family, transgenerational trauma and dyslexia. Thus finding a place of acceptance became a futile search for the Holy Grail. First I worked as a Chef before studying to become a pastor. After 25 years I was elected as the National Superintendent of the Australian Wesleyan Methodist Church becoming the first indigenous Australian to serve as the head of a major denomination. I have spoken and been involved with Indigenous communities around Australia, such as in NSW, WA, Cherburg, Woorabinda, Darwin & East Arnhem land. My doctoral thesis topic is social Cohesion through the eyes of an indigenous Australian Elder.

Dr Lynne Russell works as a Senior Research Fellow - Maori Health with the Health Services Research Centre (HSRC) at Victoria University of Wellington. Much of Lynne's professional and academic work has centred around the Indigenous knowledge and healing practices used in recovery from trauma associated with mental distress, suicide loss and self-harm. She describes herself as a writer, activist and public speaker stirred by cultural resilience, social justice, Indigenous and LGBTI rights, and the amplification of voices more readily silenced in society.