About me
Community development is 'in the blood'. I have been a practitioner for approximately 25 years, or if you go way back in time, my first CD 'gig' was raising funds for charity as a 19 year old by way of organising community events. Ancestors on both sides had roles in local government and immediate family have been dedicated to making change in communities for many decades (my father started the first Men's Shed in the Mundaring Shire and was a dedicated union man in the Midland Workshops of WA Government Railways). I'm proud of this history and it constantly informs my practice in regard to maintaining a connection to grassroots impact.
My area of interest is Aboriginal relationship building and Reconciliation, with a strong emphasis on non-Aboriginal people 'doing their own work' in this space. Again, this has been directly informed by family history.
In 2024 I hope to undertake my Masters by Research and look at the changing relationship between Aboriginal people and local government since the turn of the 21st Century (the Reconciliation movement as a focal point) and the increasing involvement of Aboriginal people in local government governance positions (Elected Members) with, inter alia, the research questions of what do non-Aboriginal people need to learn and how do we work together to de-colonise local government at the governance level, and perhaps, what would this look like in terms of informing decision making from the local level up to the national level?