Speakers and Presenters

Dr Louise Byrne

Dr Louise Byrne has multiple, first-hand, life-changing adverse experiences which have had a profound impact on her life. Over the last 20 years, Louise has worked in a broad variety of designated Lived and Living Experience roles. Louise’s seminal 15-year program of research has supported the growth in understanding, awareness and development of Lived Experience workforces, nationally and internationally, and helps shape the perspective of Lived Experience work as a respected, credible, evidence-based discipline. Louise’s work as a strategic consultant, trainer and thought leader on the role and benefit of Lived Experience workforces assists meaningful implementation of the research findings and promotes an evidence-informed approach to Lived Experience workforce development.

Simon Katterl

Simon Katterl is a mental health and human rights advocate with Lived Experience of mental health and using public community and private mental health services. He runs a consultancy advising government, mental health and legal bodies, on consumer leadership, human rights and governance. Simon's work includes advising the Victorian Minister for Mental Health, various government departments, and providing consumer perspective supervision. He also undertakes public advocacy in favour of human rights and has written for academic and news outlets.

Indigo Daya

Indigo practices independent peer support, education & co-reflection, growing radical alternatives to carceral psychiatry, and is completing a PhD. Her practice draws on the collective wisdom of survivor research and mad studies, and her experiences of madness, psychiatric incarceration and oppression. She’s passionate about de-pathologising, de-individualising and de-carcerating how we respond to humans experiencing distress and altered states. She seeks collective, emancipatory, loving, creative practices which recognise the deeply meaningful and political nature of madness. Indigo held consumer roles for 18 years, including education, supervision, advocacy, government policy, reform, consulting and peer-delivered programs. She absconded from system work in 2022

Kerry Hawkins

Kerry works from a Lived Experience perspective as a family member. Her interests lie in systems transformation. President of the Western Association for Mental Health, she is a board member of Psychosis Australia Trust; Helping Minds; Emerging Minds; and Chair of the national Family, Carer and Kin mental health peak, Mental Health Carers Australia. She has worked in senior roles for the NDIA, the Western Australia Mental Health Commission and as a carer consultant in both NGO and public mental health services. An alumni of Harvard Kennedy School's Implementing Public Policy program, she is a graduate of Boston University's Global Leadership Institute's Recovery Class of 2013 and returned last year from a Churchill Scholarship investigating international rights-based contemporary approaches to mental health that recognise the integral role of families in mental health. She served 3 terms as a National Mental Health Commissioner from 2018-2024