Dr. Sam Tsemberis serves as CEO of Pathways to Housing, an organization he founded in 1992 based on the belief that housing is a basic human right. Pathways developed the consumer driven evidence based Housing First program that provides immediate access to permanent supportive housing to individuals who are homeless and who have mental health and addiction problems.
Dr. Tsemberis is on the faculty of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center. His is currently participating in national studies of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction in the US, Canada and Europe and has published numerous articles and book chapters on these topics. He recently published (Nov. 2010) the Housing First manual by Hazelden Press.
Speaking On:
Pathways’ Housing First Model – an evidence based program for ending homelessness
The practice of Housing First models – lessons learnt
Workshops:
How to implement an evidence based Housing First model
Mike Allen is the Chief Executive of Housing NSW, Department of Family and Community Services. Housing NSW is the largest social housing provider in the Southern Hemisphere – providing housing assistance to around 430,000 people annually and with the responsibility for the management of an asset portfolio of over 145,000 properties worth over $30 billion.
Since joining Housing NSW in July 1978, Mike has accrued over 30 years experience in social housing management, asset management and client service delivery, including community and Aboriginal housing. He is also currently the acting CEO of the NSW Aboriginal Housing Office.
He manages Housing NSW relationship at a National level, leads the planning and delivery of major policy reforms and programs and oversees major redevelopment projects.
Mike has a strong commitment to the values and principles of social housing and providing high quality housing services for those most in need.
Speaking On:
Moving investment to evidence based homelessness services: Outlining the NSW Government journey
Ian is CEO of Anglicare WA, a position he has held since 1995. His career began as a Teacher and Youth Education Officer in the Education Department. Subsequently he held a number of management positions in the State Public Service.
Throughout his career he has had a passion for community capacity building and social justice and therefore as well as his salaried positions has been involved in both creating and governing a wide range of community organisations at local, national and international levels.
He has also held the positions of Deputy President of the ACCOS, President of WACOSS and President of Family Services Australia; and was also Chairman of the State Taskforce on Poverty and Chairman of the Ministerial Housing Advisory Committee. He is currently on the Board of WACOSS and is a Founding Board Member of Foyer Foundation, a nationally focused youth homeless initiative, and Deputy Chairman of the Board of Anglicare Australia.
Of note is his appointment as Chairperson of the WA State Government’s Social Housing Taskforce in 2009. He is currently a member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Homelessness and a member of the International Alliance on Homelessness, an international collaboration on research, policy, and practice to end homelessness.
Ian was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia in the General Division (AM) in 2009.
Speaking On:
Lessons from homelessness & affordable housing reforms within Australia
Andrew Hollows is the Deputy Executive Director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.
Prior to this, Andrew was at Hanover Welfare Services as General Manager, Research & Organisational Development and previously held the position of Assistant Director, Research at AHURI in 2005 and 2006.
Andrew has extensive research experience in the field of housing and homelessness. His role at Hanover included managing Hanover’s research program, media and communications, business development, and oversight of Hanover’s new employment program as a homeless specialist service. Research activities undertaken at Hanover included: an analysis of public perceptions of homelessness; the application of human rights approaches to homelessness; and the interaction of precarious housing and health.
Prior to his previous role at AHURI, Andrew worked in the field of homelessness and age care, which included the provision of high level policy advice with the Victorian Department of Human Services.
Speaking On:
Raising the bar for evidence based homelessness policy
Felicity Reynolds is CEO of the Mercy Foundation. The Mercy Foundation, a work of the North Sydney Sisters of Mercy, focuses its work and social justice activities on homelessness and the vision to help end chronic homelessness in Australia.
Felicity is a Social Worker with a background in mental health and health research. She has previously been the Executive Officer of the Mental Health Co-ordinating Council in NSW and she is currently a part-time member of the NSW Mental Health Review Tribunal.
She represents the Mercy Foundation on the Australian Common Ground Alliance and is currently Chair of that Alliance. She is also Chair of the Management Committee of the B Miles Women’s Foundation, an accommodation & housing service for women in Sydney.
Felicity also Chairs the Nepean Regional Homelessness Taskforce and is a member of the Federal Government’s Homelessness Clearinghouse Advisory Group.
Felicity is a former Churchill Fellow. Her research investigated programs that have successfully assisted vulnerable and complex chronically homeless people in the USA, Canada and the UK.
Speaking On:
Evidence on permanent supportive housing that is ending chronic homelessness
Gary has a diverse 30 year background working in the not for profit and public sectors. He is currently CEO of Homelessness NSW and has served as Director Community Services, Marrickville Council , CEO of the Council of Social Service NSW (NCOSS), Project Director, Strengthening Local Communities NSW Premiers Department , Project Director at NSW Office on Social Policy and Manager, Employment Programs in the NSW Department of Industrial Relations and Employment. Gary holds Board positions as Chair of Healthy Kids and Board Director for The Benevolent Society and the Mental Health Association. Gary holds a B Arts, a Bachelor of Social Work and a Masters in Management, He is a graduate of the Sydney Leadership Program. Gary describes himself as a lover of life, with a passion for social change, an enabling leader, and an innovative thinker
Speaking On:
Collaboration & partnering to achieve better results
Philip Fagan-Schmidt holds the position of Executive Director, Housing SA. He has worked in both academic and government spheres. He was appointed to his current role in January 2009 having served as a State Government Executive across a range of areas including health, housing, natural resource management, infrastructure and major projects.
Academic Qualifications:
Degree of Master of Public Policy
The Flinders University of South Australia (1997)
Bachelor of Arts in Social Work
South Australian Institute of Technology (1983)
Speaking On:
Homelessness or Aboriginal mobility?
Karyn Walsh is coordinator of Micah Projects, a regional not for profit in Brisbane. Micah Projects is a key agency within the specialist homelessness services system of Brisbane providing a range of services to prevent, manage and end homelessness with individuals and families. In addition Micah Projects provides services to Families, Women and children as well individual support services to residents of privately owned supported accommodation facilities, individuals with disability support packages and Forgotten Australians. As an organisation we are committed to implementation of evidence based practice learning from the people we support, our workforce and other local, national and international practioners, researchers and advocates.
Karyn has worked in the not for profit sector for 34 years as a practitioner and a manager.
Speaking On:
Effective tools to implement permanent supportive housing
The practice of Housing First models – lessons learnt
Elizabeth Crowther has been CEO of the Mental Illness Fellowship Victoria since 1995. The Mental Illness Fellowship Victoria is a not for profit, membership organization operating in the Community Managed Mental Health Sector, in both Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. The organization works with approximately 5,000 people who have mental illnesses and their families, annually delivering services directed at promoting and supporting them to establish and maintain a home in their community, gain and keep a job, and establish and maintain sustainable relationships. She is a passionate mental health advocate, who has been instrumental in developing new models of care in Victoria, which have been replicated across Australia. Prior to this appointment she was Director of Nursing, at Royal Park Hospital, in Melbourne, this appointment came after a long clinical and teaching career in Victorian mental health services.
Liz currently holds the following positions:
- Member Flagship 1 Steering Committee (National Mental Health Plan, action group advising Council of Australian Governments (COAG) on mental health policy)
- Member Ministerial Advisory Committee on Homelessness (MACH)
- Member Mental Health Council of Australia (MHCA)
- Treasurer Community Mental Health Australia (CMHA)
- President VICSERV (peak body for the Community Managed Mental Health Sector)
- Member Monash Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre (MAPrc) Advisory Board
- Member Asia-Australia Mental Health Advisory Council
- Chair Social Firm Management Group
- Senior Fellow School of Nursing, University of Melbourne
- Deputy Chair Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health (2005-2010)
Speaking On:
Doorway: Enhanced Housing First Private Rental Demonstration Project
Laura graduated as an occupational therapist in 1984 and has worked in the mental health field since then in both Hospital and community health settings, and as a lecturer in Occupational therapy at La Trobe University. Laura joined MI Fellowship Victoria in 2005 and has embedded evidence-based practice and evaluation frameworks into programs and services. Laura is currently the Project Manager for the Enhanced Housing First Demonstration project called Doorway.
Laura has a Bachelor of Applied Science (Occupational Therapy) and Master of Applied Science (La Trobe University). Her committee memberships include:
- Victorian Ministerial Advisory Sub-committee on Workforce Participation
- Victorian Department of Health – PARC Advisory Committee
- Victorian Department of Health – Day Program Review Reference Group
- City of Darebin Health Planning Committee
Speaking On:
Doorway: Enhanced Housing First Private Rental Demonstration Project
Stephanie Brennan is the Manager – Community Services, Wentworth Community Housing (Project 40) NSW and is responsible for the development of a range of Housing First programs across the region, including the Project 40 Supportive Housing service.
She is a founding member of the Nepean Campaign Against Homelessness, helped establish the Nepean/ Blacktown Regional Taskforce on Homelessness, and has worked with homelessness services in outer western Sydney since 2007.
Previous to her current position Stephanie worked in the social services and local government sectors within the areas of management and policy. She has also had substantial experience as a human rights and trade union campaigner and negotiator, both nationally and internationally.
Speaking On:
Practical case studies which are reducing Aboriginal homelessness
Workshops:
Using evidence & research to overcome barriers with hard to reach clients
Robyn Mildon, PhD, is the Director of Knowledge Exchange and Implementation at the Parenting Research Centre, an independent, non-profit research and development organisation based in Melbourne, Australia. Robyn’s work focuses on two main areas: the use of innovative and effective knowledge translation and dissemination strategies aimed at improving the utilisation of evidence-based information and practice in parenting education, family support, and child welfare programs; and closing the gap between ‘what we know’ and ‘what we do’ by improving the science and practice of implementation in relation to the use of evidence-based practices and programs.
She is one of the Project Directors for a number of multi-year nationally funded projects which focus on improving the well-being of children and families with multiple and complex needs. Examples of recent projects include the development of tailored evidence based practice and service models along with the provision of evidence informed support for implementation of these in over 20 intensive family support service sites in urban and remote areas of the Northern Territory, Australia; Healthy Start – A national capacity building strategy for practitioners, policy makers and researchers supporting parents with learning difficulties and their children; and Parenting Young Children in Sweden – A controlled implementation trial of an parent education program for vulnerable families in three regions in Sweden.
Robyn has authored and co-authored numerous papers published in peer-reviewed journals and edited book chapters and presented at several national and international conferences including invited keynote presentations and invited training and other technical assistance.
Speaking On:
Evidence based approaches to supporting children & families who are homeless
Dr Jane Bullen has a long-term commitment to ending homelessness and has worked in homelessness services, policy and research in both government and non-government organisations. She is currently working at the Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW, and her recent research includes involvement in an evaluation of the Elizabeth St CommonGround Supportive Housing Project in Victoria, an evaluation of the NSW Mental Health Housing and Support Initiative (HASI) and the NSW Homelessness Action Plan meta-evaluation and research strategy.
Speaking On:
Issues in the evaluation of homelessness responses
Department of Families, Housing, Community Services & Indigenous Affairs
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Department of Housing and Community Services, ACT
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Department of Justice, VIC
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Sheree commenced work with adult corrections in 1983 as a Social Worker in Victorian prison facilities and subsequently as a Probation and Parole Officer in St Kilda. For the remainder of the 1980’s and for most of the 1990’s Sheree managed a number of community correctional services locations becoming the General Manager of the then North West Region and subsequently the General Manager of Strategic Operations in Community Corrections.
Sheree project managed the delivery of primary health care services to public prisons, and has occupied roles including Secretary of the Adult Parole Board and acted as the General Manager Women’s Prisons Region and Director Community Corrections, both on a number of occasions.
In more recent years Sheree assumed senior management oversight of the former Home Detention Unit, Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place, the Judy Lazarus Transition Centre and the Indigenous Policy and Services Unit and is currently responsible for Corrections Victoria’s Central Reintegration Programs Branch (comprising CV’s former Transitional Services and Housing Units).
Sheree has a Bachelor of Commerce, a postgraduate Bachelor of Social Work and is currently nearing the completion of a Masters in International and Community Development. Sheree was the recipient of the inaugural A.R.Whatmore Award for “Excellence in Adult Corrections’ by a government employee presented at the University of Melbourne in June 1994.
Speaking On:
Looking at the evidence behind prisoner re-integration programs
