Mat is a rural psychiatrist with specialist qualifications in addiction psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry. He is the Clinical Director of a rural region, the Great Southern, and remote region, The Midwest, in Western Australia. Mat is the inaugural chair of rural and remote mental health practice with The Rural Clinical School of WA (UWA) and has served two terms as a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. As a part time sheep farmer, he makes as a better rural psychiatrist.

John is the Lead Mental Health Commissioner within South Australia and joins his fellow commissioners Heather Nowak and David Kelly, focusing upon the vison to strengthen the mental health and wellbeing of all South Australians. John Mannion is also the inaugural Executive Director of Breakthrough Mental Health Research Foundation – Australia’s only foundation dedicated solely to investing into mental health research, within the areas of youth mental health, depression, indigenous mental health and eating disorders. John’s career in mental health has spanned more than 30 years including as a practitioner as well as leading mental health services across the state. He has a passion for community connectivity, suicide prevention and evidence-based interventions.

Dr Brian McKenny has been the Clinical Director of the Rural and Remote Mental Health Service of South Australia since 2010. He has held senior leadership positions in public and private psychiatry in South Australia. He currently leads a clinical service which covers a million square kilometres with a population of 500,000. The telepsychiatry service pioneered videoconferencing in 1996 and conducts over 3000 assessments per year.

Heather holds a passion for using her lived experience to inform future planning, design and delivery of services, to ensure that the journey for current and future consumers and their carers is made as smooth as possible, to enable optimal recovery outcomes and ultimately reduce suicide. Having been a consumer of mental health services during the past 35 years, Heather has experienced many of the difficulties faced by consumers residing in both metropolitan and particularly regional areas, having lived in the Southeast of SA for 17 years. Working as a Peer Worker in the Personal Helpers and Mentors (PHaMs) program, both in metropolitan Adelaide and regionally in the Southeast, Heather has gained extensive experience in the peer role and valuable knowledge around many of the issues and challenges faced by Peer Workers. Heather participated in the development of the National Qualification for Peer Workers and assisted in co-designing the resources for Certificate IV Mental Health Peer Work. As one of the National Peer Champions, Heather was fortunate to gain the qualification and work with the SA Mental Health Coalition to bring the qualification to SA. Heather has trained the certificate in NSW with the Mental Health Coordinating Council and established/delivered the qualification through TAFE SA from 2016 to 2021. Heather is Co-founder of ‘Mental Health Peer Work Solutions’ who provide a range of services and training opportunities to support the peer work sector throughout Australia. Heather is a member of the National Consumer and Carer Forum and was an inaugural member of the National Consumer and Carer Register. Heather was the senior Peer Consultant for the Community of Peers Project and also provides consumer representation on the Australian Commission on National Safety and Quality in Health Care Mental Health Reference Group, the General Practice Mental Health Standards Collaboration and the National Mental Health Commission Peer Workforce Development Guidelines Steering Committee, National Initial Assessment and Referral (IAR) for Mental Health Care Project Expert Advisory Group and the Review of Better Access Stakeholder Engagement Group Heather is also a member of the Beyond Blue Speakers Bureau and Blue Voices. In 2011, Heather’s dedication and relentless hard work was recognised when she was awarded the Dr Margaret Tobin Award, for outstanding contribution to improvements for people with, or at risk of developing, a mental illness.