ASPAC members
Australian Suicide Prevention Advisory Council (ASPAC) - Members
ASPAC member bios
Professor Ian Webster AO (Chair)
Professor Webster AO is a physician and Emeritus Professor of Public Health and Community Medicine of the University of New South Wales and Patron of the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia. He has held senior appointments in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of New South Wales and appointments at Monash, Sheffield and Sydney Universities. He was Chair of the former National Advisory Council on Suicide Prevention and presently is Chair of the NSW Expert Advisory Group on Drugs and Alcohol, President of the Governing Council of the Ted Noffs Foundation, Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Centre for Primary Health Care and Equity, University of New South Wales, and is a Director of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation. He practises as a physician in South West Sydney, Nowra, NSW and in a clinic for the homeless at the Exodus Foundation, Ashfield, Sydney.
Dawn O’Neil AM
Dawn O’Neil AM has been involved with the Lifeline organisation for over 15 years and has a passionate interest in evolving and improving Australia’s mental health and suicide prevention services. Working as the CEO of Lifeline Australia since 2000, Dawn has fostered a period of major governance and service reform across the organisation. With a Masters of Business Administration, Dawn is also the Deputy Chair of the Mental Health Council of Australia, a member of the Commonwealth’s National Advisory Council on Mental Health, and the Australian Suicide Prevention Advisory Council, a member of the Advisory Council for the Sydney based Centre for Social Impact and a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Dawn was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in 2009, was voted as a finalist in the Telstra Business Woman of the Year ACT in 2008 and Equity Trust CEO of the Year awards for 2005 and 2006.
Professor Diego de Leo
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Professor de Leo is Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Australian Institute for Suicide Research and Prevention at Griffith University, Brisbane, where he also directs the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Research and Training in Suicide Prevention. Professor de Leo is Past President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) and co-founder and Past President of the International Academy for Suicide Research (IASR) of which he co-founded the journal Archives of Suicide Research. Professor De Leo has been the initiator of World Suicide Prevention Day (2003). Member of the editorial boards for several internationally renowned refereed journals, he is Editor-in-Chief of the journal CRISIS. Professor de Leo has published extensively with more than 220 refereed journal articles, 125 book chapters, 26 books published in the past 25 years and over 150 conference presentations in total. Winner of 6 international awards, in 2007 he was given the title of Doctor of Science by Griffith University for his work on suicide and psychogeriatrics.
Ms Janet Meagher AM
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Ms Meagher is currently the Divisional Manager-Inclusion for Psychiatric Rehabilitation Australia. She is a representative of the Consumers’ Health Forum of Australia and a founding member of the NSW Consumer Advisory Group. Ms Meagher has been a Mental Health Consumer activist and advocate for almost 30 years. She has lived with schizophrenia since the early 1970’s. Ms Meagher was a Churchill Fellow in 1994, investigating “Consumer empowerment & self-advocacy…in Great Britain, USA and Canada” and was made a Member of the “Order of Australia” (AM) in 1996 for “work as an advocate on behalf of people with mental illnesses & psychiatric disabilities”. Ms Meagher has a broad experience at national level in the last 20 years and international consumer involvements for the last 15 years. She is former Secretary of the World Federation for Mental Health and holds appointments on both the National People with Disabilities and Carer Council and the Australian Suicide Prevention Advisory Council.
Associate Professor David Ranson
Associate Professor David Ranson is a forensic pathologist, Deputy Director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University. Qualified in both law and medicine, he has published widely in the area of forensic medicine, pathology and the law. Associate Professor Ranson is also the immediate past Director of the National Coronial Information System, which is a national internet-based data storage and retrieval system for Australian coronial cases. He is a recognised expert in coronial law, medico-legal informatics and the analysis of intentional injury.
Ms Barbara Hocking OAM
Ms Barbara Hocking has held the position of Executive Director of SANE Australia since 1995. SANE Australia is a national organisation helping people affected by mental illness (consumers, their family and other carers), through education, applied research and campaigning for improved services and attitudes. It operates the SANE Helpline, a national Freecall telephone and online service providing information about mental illness, advice and referral to local services and supports. Reducing stigma and discrimination is a special focus for SANE and the SANE Media centre hosts the StigmaWatch program from its website. Ms Hocking represents the community perspective on a wide range of committees and advisory groups, with special interests in suicide prevention and stigma reduction. Previously she was SANE's Education Coordinator and has also worked in Health Promotion and Education in Australia, the United Kingdom and Papua New Guinea.
Professor Brian Kelly
Professor Brian Kelly was appointed Chair in Psychiatry, Faculty of Health University of Newcastle in March 2009. Professor Kelly has previously been Director of the NSW Centre for Rural and Remote Mental Health, Orange since March 2004, with the University of Newcastle, School of Medicine and Public Health, and continues to play a major leadership role in the Centre’s research, education and service development programs. His role in the rural health includes being a member of the Executive of the NSW Institute of Rural Clinical Services and Training; leading the mental health stream of the Australian Rural Health Research Collaboration; and working with NSW Health Department in the planning and policy development for mental health services in rural NSW.
Other previous activities include developing and evaluating programs for continuing education of rural health practitioners and mental health promotion in rural communities (including research investigating rural mental health service models through a NSPS funded program investigating methods of improving early intervention for mental health problems among farming communities). Professor Kelly also works with the ANU National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, in the mental health impact of climate change and drought in rural areas. He has been leading a state-wide Drought Mental Health Assistance program funded by NSW Government and has led a 3 year NHMRC-funded household survey across rural and remote NSW, investigating determinants of the mental health and wellbeing of rural communities. Other research activities include investigation of treatment methods for comorbid mental illness and substance use disorders, a long standing research and clinical interest in psychological aspects of palliative care, and a past project investigating clinical aspects of suicidal ideation and the wish to hasten death among cancer patients. Other previous research has addressed bereavement in family caregivers, psychosocial aspects of HIV/AIDS and psychiatric complications of cancer.
Dr Michael Dudley
Dr Michael Dudley works as a psychiatrist at Prince of Wales and Sydney Children’s Hospitals, and is a conjoint senior lecturer in psychiatry at University of New South Wales. He has long-standing clinical, public health and research interest in suicide, self-harm and depression in young people. With colleagues Dr Dudley is researching risk and protective factors for suicide and attempted suicide in metropolitan and rural young adults, and the relationship of antidepressants, suicide and attempted suicide in young people. He has ongoing clinical and research interest in indigenous suicide. Michael is on the Advisory Board of Inspire Foundation’s ‘Reach Out!’ Program and is involved in the development of Reach Out Pro, an internet site for health professionals working with young people. He is also involved in refugee mental health clinical work, teaching, research and advocacy and is co-editing a book on Mental Health and Human Rights for Oxford University Press. Dr Dudley also chairs Suicide Prevention Australia (SPA), the national independent advocate for suicide prevention.
Adele Cox
Adele Cox is a Bunuba & Kija (Gija) woman from the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She has spent the majority of her earlier working life in the Kimberley region in media and in suicide prevention, although has spent the last 9 years living and working in Perth. Most recently her work has taken her into Indigenous Health Research, having worked previously at the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research. Adele now works part-time as an academic at the Centre for Aboriginal Medical and Dental Health and Rural Clinical School of WA at the University of Western Australia, and also runs her own consultancy business part-time as Director of ACOX Consultancy. She is and has been an active member of several committees' at both the State and National levels, including, the WA State Forensic Mental Health Council, the Ministerial Council for Suicide Prevention, the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children Steering Committee and Design Sub-Committee for the Department of Family and Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, the Oxfam Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Reference Group, the Taskforce for the Shadow Reporting of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child, and until recently was Chairperson of the National Indigenous Youth Movement of Australia (NIYMA). Adele's commitment to Indigenous affairs comes from a long-standing family history of Indigenous health service provision and advocacy and continues to be a focus in her life, along with advocacy for Indigenous youth issues, and Indigenous Affairs generally.
Ms Wendy Sturgess
From 2002 to 2009 Ms Sturgess was Chief Executive Officer of Crisis Support Services Inc. (CSS) an independent not-for-profit organization that provides specialist professional telephone counselling services including pioneering call-back services, information and referral and, in addition, specialist training and research. Ms Sturgess holds a bachelor of Economics and Politics (Monash University) and a Diploma of Marketing (Chisholm Institute) and has worked in the community sector for almost ten years. Prior to her current appointment she worked in management roles for The Age newspaper and for several multi-national firms. She has tutored and lectured in the tertiary sector in several areas including the marketing professional services and has operated several successful small businesses.