2021 Speakers

Keynote Speakers

Grace Tame

Biography:
After being groomed and raped by her maths teacher when she was just 15 years old, Grace Tame has spent the last 10 years turning her traumatic experience into being an advocate for survivors of child sexual abuse and a leader of positive change.

Recognising the injustice of Tasmania’s gag order that prevented survivors from self-identifying publicly, Grace offered her story to the #LetHerSpeak campaign created by Nina Funnell, along with the stories of 16 other brave survivors. In 2019, she finally won a court order to speak out under her own name, making her the state’s first female child sexual abuse survivor to do so.

Current work:
Now, 26 and based in Hobart, Grace is dedicated to eradicating child sexual abuse in Australia, and supporting the survivors of child sexual abuse.

Her focus is around enabling survivors to tell their stories without shame, educating the public around the process and lasting effects of grooming and working with policy and decision-makers to ensure we have a federal legal system that supports the survivors, not just the perpetrators.

She is also a passionate yoga teacher, visual artist, and champion long-distance runner, having won the 2020 Ross Marathon in a female course record time of 2:59:31.

An open book about her experience, but even more passionate about preventing this from happening to other children, Grace speaks from the heart and will have her audience simultaneously inspired and in tears.

She is a regular keynote speaker, media guest and advocacy commentator.

Grace is the 2021 Australian of the Year.

Biography:
Alison McMillan commenced as the Australian Government Department of Health’s Commonwealth Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer in November 2019.

Alison is a Registered Nurse with a Critical Care Nursing Certificate, a Bachelor Degree in Education, a Master of Business Administration, she has held senior executive roles in government and health services within Victoria including the Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer and Director of Quality, Safety and Patient Experience.

Alison is a member of the Australian Health Protection Principal Committee contributing to advice provided to the National Cabinet during the COVID-19 pandemic and, as Co-Chair of the Infection Control Expert Group providing advice and information on best practice on infection prevention and control in the community, hospitals, aged care, schools and community sport.

Alison has been a part of a team providing communication to the community, which is clear, honest, and compassionate.

Workshop - 2 hours
Consent, Care and Trust
[ultimate_heading main_heading=”Catherine Schofield RN MN CGNC” alignment=”left”][/ultimate_heading]

Biography:

Catherine Schofield RN MN CGNC, is the Director of Clinical Services (Statewide Mental Health Services). She has been a nurse for 40 years working in mental health and drug and alcohol services. She is a passionate and inspirational leader, a practice development facilitator for the International Council of Nurses (ICN) Global Nurse Leadership Institute Program (GNLI) and the International Practice Development Collaborative (IPDC).

Catherine is the Tasmanian practitioner member on the Nursing and Midwifery board of Australia. Previous roles include Chair of the Tasmanian NMBA, clinical advisor to the Tasmanian Minister for Health, Manager of the Wilfred Lopes Centre and Strategic Nurse Coordinator overseeing significant reform to the Tasmanian Mental Health Service. Catherine is also a past recipient of the Florence Nightingale awards and is an alumnus of both the Tasmanian Leaders Program (TLP) and the ICNs GNLI Program. In 2021 Catherine was certified as a Global Nurse Consultant by the ICN.

[ultimate_heading main_heading=”Erin McLeod” alignment=”left”][/ultimate_heading]

Biography:

Erin is the Assistant Director of Nursing for Education in the Centre for Education and Research with the Tasmanian Health Service South. She has been a registered nurse for 19 years and during this time has held positions from graduate nurse through to Acting EDON. Her post graduate qualifications include a Master’s in clinical education and Post Graduate Certificate in Health Administration. Her professional interests are education, learning & development with a focus on leadership, best practice and empowering nurses and midwives to make change and innovate in practice. Working in a Practice Development framework, Erin works collaboratively and in solution focussed ways with teams, nurses & midwives with the aim of safe and quality care delivery.

Workshop Overview

Much of healthcare is provided in one on one situations. As nurses and midwives, we have an inbuilt trust of our colleagues, as does the consumer with our professions regularly topping the polls for being the professionals that are the most trusted. We also deliver care in situations where there is an inherent imbalance of power. Serious violations of that power and trust often makes headline news.

Trust, especially trust in health care providers and institutions, is necessary so that people seek health care advice and treatment, make choices as to how they might incorporate that advice into their lives, leading to better health outcomes.
Jeopardising that trust by coercion, deception, manipulation, and abuse can be devastating for individuals, families, carers, health professionals and organisations.
This workshop will explore the issues of Consent and Trust within the healthcare setting. How we obtain consent, how we promote trust, how we protect our consumers/clients/patients/colleagues and how we can repair and heal when trust has been broken.

The workshop will be conducted in an experiential facilitative style to enable maximise participation, engagement and learning opportunities. View the agenda here.

The workshop can accommodate a maximum of 50 participants.

Attendance at the workshop is included in the symposium registration fee. 

Symposium MC

[ultimate_heading main_heading=”Jenni Pyefinch” alignment=”left”][/ultimate_heading]

Biography:
Jenni Pyefinch is a Clinical Nurse Educator in the Department of Critical Care Medicine at the Royal Hobart Hospital. She undertook her Registered Nurse training at the Royal Hobart Hospital in 1986, went on to study Midwifery at the Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne in 1992, and then completed a Masters of Clinical Nursing (Critical Care) through the University of Tasmania (UTas) in 2014. Jenni has worked in several clinical areas, but Critical Care has been her home for more than 11 years. She has worked as a Unit Coordinator at UTas and has been a committee member of the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses, both at a state and national level, for over 8 years. She has also been a co-facilitator/ facilitator at Practice Development Schools in Hobart and Launceston in recent years.

In her other life, Jenni enjoys participating in a range of creative arts, and is the Musical Director of Hobart Harmony, a 55+ voice women’s a cappella singing group. Over the last 24 years this position has given her local, national and international opportunities in leadership, teaching, learning and performing. Interestingly, Jenni has found quite an overlap between her positions as Nurse Educator and Musical Director, and loves the fact that what informs one position often informs the other, particularly in the areas of leadership, collaboration, teaching, communication, and even performing.

Jenni has a strong interest in promoting creative arts in health, particularly for health care workers in the areas of well-being and self-care, and was part of the research team for the, “Expressing Your Experience” study and exhibition for Tasmanian Health Service-South last year.

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