Constancia Warren
Senior Program Officer and
Director, Urban School Reform Initiative
Education Division

Constancia Warren joined Carnegie Corporation in 2002. Her involvement in school reform dates back to the late 1960s. In the early 1980s, she helped create a small science-oriented public high school in New York City. More recently, at the Academy for Educational Development (AED), Warren headed teams providing evaluation and technical assistance to school initiatives across the country, and directed AED’s Support Center for Educational Equity for Young Mothers.

Before joining AED in 1989, Warren worked to expand school-based health services for adolescents in and to improve the education of pregnant adolescents and adolescent mothers. In 1988, she co-chaired the New York City Chancellor’s Working Group on the Education of Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents. She also worked in the Office of Policy Analysis and Planning of the New York City school system, focusing on high school redesign and school system-university collaboration.

She holds a doctorate in political science from Columbia University.

EVONNE GOOLAGONG CAWLEY, MBE, AO, is a Wiradjuri Aborigine. During  her tennis career she won 92 pro tournaments, was a finalist in 18 Grand Slam events. She won Wimbledon twice, the Australian Open 4 times, the French Open once and was the runner up 4 years in succession at the US Open.

By 1990 she was determined to expand her knowledge of her Aboriginal heritage and this along with the death of her mother in 1991 prompted the Cawley family to leave their USA base and return to Australia

In 1995/96 she was a board member of the Australian Sports Commission. From 1997 to 2001 the Federal Government appointed Evonne as consultant  to Indigenous Sport. In 1998 Evonne teamed up with Tennis Australia to form the national Getting Started Programme aimed at increasing overall female participation in tennis throughout Australia.  In 1993, Evonne’s autobiography “Home! The Evonne Goolagong Story” was published and became an immediate best seller.

She has been Australian Sportsman Of  The Year, Australian Of The Year and she is the Co-Patron of Reconciliation Australia.

Evonne, husband Roger, sometimes their daughter Kelly 28 and pro soccer playing son Morgan 24, reside happily at Noosa Heads Qld.      

The Department of Child Safety in Queensland appointed Joann Schmider to the position of Director for the Indigenous Support and Development Branch based in Cairns in 2005. The Indigenous Support and Development Branch was formed to support the delivery of Indigenous child protection services by newly formed or expanded Indigenous agencies located across Queensland.

Joann Schmider is an Indigenous woman with 25 years of experience in government and Indigenous community engagement, and a background in: human services for children; youth and family programs; education and training; human rights; and social justice.

Dr John Spierings is the research strategist with the Dusseldorp Skills Forum (DSF), and he has published numerous articles and essays on young people and learning and work. He joined DSF in 1998, having previously worked at Melbourne, Monash and Adelaide universities. John’s PhD is a study of business management in Australia between 1920 and 1940.

Bernadette Or
Principal
B3 Consulting

With a diverse background in commerce and accounting, Bernadette has held senior financial executive positions at both commercial and not-for-profit organisations and helped them realise their strategic goals. Such positions include the National Finance Manager at the Starlight Children’s Foundation, the Corporate Services Manager at the Entreprise and Career Education Foundation, the National Finance Manager at the Australian Human Resources Institute and the Company Accountant at Standards Australia.

Bernadette left full time employment and founded B3 Consulting with an aim to assist organisations to improve their efficiency, effectiveness and to deliver better results. She has consulted to a wide range of clients including the Dusseldorp Skills Forum, Meat and Livestock Australia, Centennial Parklands, NSW Dept of Education, Streetwize Communications, SHELLs, Retail Solutions and Links Youth and Disability Services.

Her current assignments include financial reporting, remodelling, organisational performance measurements, and corporate governance.

Online Self-Assessment Tool

Dale has been working in education as a teacher for the past 25 years, 20 years with young people who are marginalized from mainstream education.
Presently he is the Principal of the Edmund Rice Education Flexible Learning Centre  (FLC) Network. The network consists of five sites, Logan City, Brisbane City, Deception Bay, Sunshine Coast and Townsville and an educational outreach based in Ipswich.
The Centres offer educational pathways based on social justice principles, to young people 13- 18 years of age who have fallen through the mainstream education net. They are all registered non-state schools.
Dale has  a fundamental belief in the dignity of each individual and trust in relationships based on respect. His Masters work has been focusing on values and ethics and the relationship to education and marginalization.

Dale feels privileged to have been associated with the hundreds of young people and staff that he has worked with over the years with his involvement with the FLC network.

ERIC SIDOTI has extensive experience in public policy development, advocacy and communications. After more than decade working in the human rights movement, he established Strategic Options, a small consultancy, in 1992. Since then he has developed long-term relationships with a small number of clients principally the Dusseldorp Skills Forum where he has been a part of the DSF team for a number of years.

He was closely associated with the establishment of the Australian Student Traineeship Foundation and retained a working relationship with that organization and its successor, ECEF, for some years. He has in addition been engaged in a range of projects for organisations as diverse as Job Futures, Greening Australia, the Human Rights Council of Australia, and Amnesty International. More recently he has been working with the Australian Red Cross in addition to DSF.

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Gabriella Holmes is the supervising psychologist at Triple Care Farm, on the southern highlands in NSW. With over 7 years experience working with young people with complex needs including dual diagnosis (substance misuse and mental illness), family break down, abuse and trauma. Gabriella has a passion for connecting with young people and assisting them to turn their lives around.

Gabriella is a registered psychologist completing her studies at the University of Wollongong with a Bachelor of Arts (Psychology), a Graduate Diploma in Applied Psychology and has recently completed a Master in Adolescent Mental Health through the NSW Institute of Psychiatry.

Geoff Holt is the Deputy Principal of the Swan Nyungar Sports Education Program (SNSEP) at Balga High School (WA). Prior to this he occupied the position of Aboriginal Curriculum Coordinator at Swan View Senior High School (WA) working with staff and students in developing the ACCESS program which won several state and federal awards for improving outcomes for Aboriginal students. The ACCESS model has subsequently been replicated in other schools. Geoff has been undertaking doctoral research in the form of a critical case study of the factors which promote and inhibit improvements in outcomes for students, presenting at several national forums. In 2004/5 he won Teaching Australia’s Outstanding National Achievement by a Teacher Award. 

Jason Tatipata is part of the Indigenous Enterprise and Youth Employment Team that has responsibility for managing the IYEC programme in DEWR (Department of Employment and Workplace Relations) national office. Jason is a proud Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man, whose mother’s family is from Wuthathi people n Cape York and father’s family is from Badu Island in the Torres Straits. Jason commenced work in Indigenous Affairs in 1992, and over the last five years has specifically worked on yout- focused programs.

Director of the Centre for Learning, Change and Development and Senior Lecturer in Educational Psychology, School of Education at Murdoch University in Western Australia. Judy is a leader in research and development of mentoring in Australia.

She is an enthusiastic advocate of mentoring as a strategy for personal and career development, as well as team building. Her work encompasses development of theory on mentoring, training of mentors and program coordinators, and evaluation of mentoring programs and has been the Project Director of several large national research projects concerning mentoring.

Judy was a member of the steering committee to establish a national mentoring association in Australia and is currently the convenor of the group. She provides advice to a wide range of organizations about mentoring.

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Judy Yaron has over 20 years experience as a teacher, teacher trainer and pedagogical consultant. She is an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) textbook writer and specialises in material development. Judy is currently undertaking her PhD in ‘Shared Leadership in an Online Teachers Community’ at The School of Education at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Judy is currently YALP’s (Yachad Accelerated Learning Project )
National Coordinator and has worked in Australia developing and implementing accelerated learning programs in literacy in Shepparton, Victoria and Aurukun, Queensland.

Kathleen Vella, a professional social worker, is now the Executive Officer of the National Youth Mentoring Partnership creating the Youth Mentoring Network. Prior to working at the Network she managed over 800 community welfare volunteers at the University of Sydney Union, ran holiday camps for at-risk youth and group homes for adults with intellectual disabilities. When Kathleen isn’t reading the latest mentoring research she enjoys catching up with friends and working her way through The Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide.

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Kevin Garrick is highly respected in public education and has been on the board of MYC since 2001. He is currently Principal of Sarah Redfern High School and has been a Principal of three High Schools in Macarthur over the past 14 years.

He is a member of the University of Western Sydney Council, Rotary member, Principal’s representative on SW Sydney Sports Council, and member superintendent of the South West Sydney Principals Advisory Group. Kevin has been a District Superintendent and Chief Executive Officer for the Department of Education. He has chaired the Campbelltown Education and Industry Advisory Council (CEIAC), and has been the chair for course provisions for Vocational Education, a past member of the Macarthur Workplace Learning Program and Member of the Campbelltown VET in Schools Committee.

Linda Farrington’s qualifications and experience reflect her interest and passion for the education of learners who face some kind of disadvantage or might have been disaffected because of their previous experiences. Holding a Graduate Diploma in Special Education and a Diploma in Career Guidance her career focus has been the successful transition from school to work for this target group. However her claim to fame comes as ‘Naughty Nanny’ to her granddaughter and her friends.

A passionate believer in the power of Community Education and, like most educators involved in Learning Choices programs, has lead a varied teaching career from developing work experience programs for physically disabled students to using community mentors in gifted & talented programs. As Co-ordinator of Studentworks Lin has been an active member of the Local Community Partnership, a local Enterprise Education Partnership and a national pilot in partnership with the Tasmanian aboriginal community.

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Merle Miller has been teaching for over 10 years and is acknowledged as a specialist in Koorie Education.

Since completing her Degree in Education at Deakin University, Merle has worked extensively at Gowrie St Primary School in Shepparton. She has taught students in every grade level, and worked specifically with ‘Manega’, an all Aboriginal classroom. For the last 7 years, her responsibilities at Manega have been teaching a senior class, consisting of Grades 3, 4, 5 and 6.

Hailing from the Shepparton region, Merle brings ample local community knowledge into her classroom.

The Yachad Accelerated Learning Project (YALP) proudly acknowledges Merle as one of the important Educators involved with the project.

“Teaching is very important to me. I love being with the students and seeing them learn”

Marcia studied to be a teacher as a mature-age student, already the mother of three children. It had always been her dream to enter the teaching profession and she has never regretted it. Her teaching career began in 1979 at a small primary school on the outskirts of Sydney. From there, she took on the challenge of working as a teacher in a school located within a Juvenile Justice Centre. She is now the principal at the school in the only NSW female Juvenile Justice Centre. She is faced with the daily challenges of providing a stable, predictable environment that facilitates learning for some very disadvantaged students.

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Muriel Eddleston has had twenty years experience in Education. She has worked in schools, in regions, districts and across the State of Queensland providing a range of services including counselling, professional development and training as well as presenting relevant  workshops for teachers, students, parents and community members.  She is currently working at IETA (Indigenous Education Training Alliance) in Cairns as the Project Officer for Crossing Cultures for Education Queensland.

Norman Holmes
Links to Learning Coordinator
Mission Australia: Triple Care Farm

Norman Holmes is the Links To Learning Coordinator at Triple Care Farm in Southern NSW. He comes to this position with experience in a range of educational settings including early childhood education and disability services. Norman brings a passion for learning and creativity to his position and hopes to reignite this passion in the young people he works with.

Norman studied at the University of Wollongong completing a Bachelor of Teaching (Early Childhood Education), and going on to studies towards a Graduate Diploma of Heath Science (Developmental Disability).

Peter has been the coordinator of Macarthur Youth Commitment since soon after its beginning in 2001, and has been responsible for the implementation of the networks, projects and partnerships developed. Previously he worked as Education Programs Coordinator for Mission Australia in their Marketing Department & Research and Social Policy Units. Other experience includes pastoring a church, managing a sports centre and high school science teaching.

Peter O'Beirne is the Queensland Action Area Coordinator for the national Dare to Lead project which has currently engaged about 3500 schools across the country, workng to improve Indigenous students' outcomes. He is in this role while on leave from his usual position as Principal of North Rockhampton State High School, a school of 1000+ students.

Peter is also active in the Queensland Secondary Principals' Association and is the Convener for the Queensland Branch of APAPDC (Australian Principals Associations' Professional Development Council).

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Priscilla Holborn is a woman from the Ugarapul and Birragubba people. Her passion is the educational needs for our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, their families and our community. This has developed from her work at Education Queensland for the past thirteen years as a Teacher Aide, Liaison Officer and now as a Community Education Counsellor at Toowoomba State High School.

Priscilla believes this to be a most rewarding job and that Toowoomba State High School is developing a very supportive and caring environment for all students and specifically for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, families and community.

Dr Rob Simons, National Manager Strategic Research and Social Policy at The Smith Family, has responsibility for The Smith Family’s internal research capacity and contribution to the development of public policy.

His brief involves forging strategic research alliances and partnerships that contribute to the evidence base and schedule of reports and publications that provide a platform for The Smith Family’s societal change agenda focusing on education/lifelong learning as a preventive strategy against intergenerational disadvantage.

Over the years he has worked closely with the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) focusing on The Smith Family’s work in relation to the school to work transition. In addition, he has also work with Edith Cowan University in the evaluation of The Smith Family’s major demonstration project, the Swan Nyungar Sports Education Program (SNSEP) focusing on improved retention and achievement rates and successful school to work transitions for indigenous students in WA.

Prior to his work in the community sector Rob had responsibilities in the tertiary sector at universities in the United States and The Flinders University of South Australia. During that time he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University where he carried out an interdisciplinary analysis of economic theories to assess their impact on both social and economic policy. He has also worked in public health. His undergraduate studies were in education and psychology. He holds graduate degrees in theology and philosophy and has a Doctorate in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington DC.

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Stephen McVey is the manager of the Flexelearning Virtual Campus in Mandurah Western Australia and a Director of Skills Strategies International, a Registered Training Organization specializing in e-Business and Management training.
Stephen has been involved in teaching and training for over 16 years with 8 years experience in developing and managing online, e-learning programs. He has extensive experience in professional development training.
In 2004 Stephen gained a scholarship from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework to explore flexible delivery platforms for Vocational Education and Training utilising e-learning initiatives.
Stephen was also a group manager in the ‘textme’ mobile learning learnscope project in 2004.
In 2005 Stephen developed and facilitated for the Australian Flexible Learning Framework, an e-networks of Australia online community for teachers in Western Australia.

Will Davis is an Indigenous Teacher. He has worked in a mainstream school for seven years as an English / History Teacher. He has led a number of successful Indigenous Education Programmes including ‘Murriland’. Will currently works in the Centre Education Programme Indigenous Unit in Brisbane and creates and coordinates curriculum for this Unit. He is currently completing further studies including a Masters in Educational Leadership.

Viv White was the CEO of the Victorian Schools Innovation Commission (2002-2005) and was the national co-ordinator of the Australian National Schools Network for ten years. She remains on the Board of the ANSN and with others  is generating new work She is now the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Big Picture Australia, a not- for-profit with the twin goals of building a Big Picture School in Australia and sharing the ideas with existing schools. She is currently working at Victoria University developing a new set of national initiatives on school reform, redesign and community development. She has worked with Australian schools for 30 years as a policy activist, teacher, university researcher and facilitator of change and improvement.

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