Key people
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Brad Morgan
DirectorBrad is the Director of the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health. He is responsible for bringing together the partner organisations for this exciting initiative, creating a knowledge bank and national commitment to supporting infant and child mental health. He is leading the establishment of the Centre and directing the development and delivery of the program. Brad, while Director of Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) national initiative, made a significant contribution both nationally and internationally to improving mental health outcomes for infants, children, adolescents and their families. His relationships contributed to the evidence flow between international and Australian research and practice. He brings his background in Occupational Therapy, rural health, early childhood development and mental health promotion, prevention and early intervention to the fore by leading systems change and workforce development strategies that build the knowledge, skills and capacity across systems and workforces. His contextual awareness and understanding of rural nuances drives his commitment to ensure learning and development is relevant and available to practitioners across Australia especially in rural and remote Australia. -
Helen Francis
Manager, Partnerships and ImplementationHelen is responsible for leading the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health's national to local strategy. She has a vast knowledge of Health/Human/Community Services with a combination of over 30 years management experience, identifying service gaps, developing community partnerships advocating for ‘joined up solutions to local issues’. With extensive experience in child and family mental health, training and development, action research, community consultation, community development and capacity building initiatives, and ‘lived experience’ engagement in the process of co-design. -
Dan Moss
Manager, Workforce DevelopmentDan Moss has been Manager, Workforce Development at Emerging Minds since 2017. Previously he worked as Assistant Director, Performance, Reporting and Evaluation at the Department for Child Protection. In this role, he worked closely with the Early Intervention Research Directorate to explore the social determinants of child disadvantage and child protection involvement. Dan worked for Uniting Communities for fifteen years, as a practitioner, supervisor and senior manager in a range of services with children, parents and families dealing with the effects of family violence, child sexual abuse, mental health conditions and drug and alcohol use. As a practitioner, Dan had a strong interest in narrative engagement strategies with children, parents and families. Dan’s PhD thesis included research on approaches to men’s behaviour change programs and a creative writing component. -
Ben Rogers
Manager, Families and EducationBen is responsible for leading the development of resources and tools for parents and families on infant and child mental health. A strong focus of his role is to improve communication and partnerships between families, educators and health service providers. A qualified Occupational Therapist, he has held positions in a variety of mental health and child and family services across Australia and the United Kingdom. This clinical experience has seen him focus on supporting rural and remote families as part of a telehealth assessment, therapy and capacity building service. Ben also has extensive experience leading projects of a complex nature, including: leading the design and delivery of national mental health promotion projects and activities that seek to improve child mental health literacy in families; development and delivery of an education focused workforce development framework and training package for staff as part of the Be You bushfire response program; large scale Telehealth projects which supported Royal Far West’s clinical work in rural and remote areas of Australia; and the redesign of an NSW Health funded complex developmental assessment service, known as the Paediatric Developmental Program (PDP). Ben is also a trained facilitator of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program and enjoys facilitating this program in his local community. -
Jocelyn Marsland
Manager, Communications and MarketingJocelyn is responsible for leading the development and implementation of the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health’s communications and marketing strategy. Her knowledge, skills and insight will ensure its relevance to stakeholders across a range of sectors and a broad national audience. Her passion, drive and commitment to strategies that can make a real difference is scaffolded on over 10 years’ international experience in value driven not-for-profit organisations. She brings a wealth of experience and initiative ideas from her work in the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), the Graeme Dingle Foundation (GDF) and most recently the Children of Parents with a Mental Illness (COPMI) national initiative. Her commitment to clear communication that is respectful to the diversity of populations and their experiences underpins her work. -
Dr Melinda Goodyear
MANAGER – RESEARCH, EVALUATION AND DESIGNDr Goodyear leads development and implementation of the National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health's research and evaluation strategy, and the Research and Evaluation team. She specialises in codesign and capacity building of research and evaluation methodologies to support the translation of evidence into practice. Melinda has a background in psychology, family resilience and neuroscience, and 20+ years experience working as an implementation scientist and researcher of intergenerational vulnerability in families. A Senior Research Fellow at Monash University, she is particularly interested in understanding how to support and promote mental health and wellbeing among family members. Dr Goodyear has an established academic track record and demonstrated ability to conduct complex quantitative, qualitative and mixed method studies with highly vulnerable and marginalised people, including children. With 75+ peer reviewed publications (including 60+ journals), she has been awarded >$6 million dollars in competitive research funding to explore the needs of families where there is a mental illness, including workforce development initiatives with mental health and social services to address those needs. Melinda’s broad work covers: supporting organisations and workforces in understanding the program theory behind key outcomes they want to achieve; understanding the evidence base from academic literature, practitioners and families; practice design and implementation of evidence based interventions; knowledge translation and organisational change approaches, including the building of self-determination in practitioners and families; and evaluation design and quality improvement approaches. -
Julie Block
Manager, Human ResourcesJulie is responsible for leading and managing the Human Resource and Occupational Health and Safety Management functions at Emerging Minds. Julie brings a wealth of Human Resource expertise to Emerging Minds, with over 30 years of experience, having previously held the positions of Manager, Human Resources, and Workforce Director, at the Women’s & Children’s Health Network; Manager, Employee Relations at Flinders Medical Centre; and Manager, Human Resources and Occupational Health & Safety at EPAS, SA Health. Julie was also a member of the Women’s & Children’s Health Network and EPAS executive groups, which were tasked with overseeing the implementation of organisational goals, including workforce planning, organisational development, business planning and financial management.