Communities of Collaboration

Join Communities Of Collaboration host Fi Peel and passionate poet (and one of six Deputy Commissioners for the NSW Mental Health Commission) Tim Heffernan they explore the art of prose poetry, the responsibility of language and the inherent gifts of those who touch the earth differently. Tim explores his partnership with Alise Blayney in keeping the memory, work and aspirations of Ben Frater alive. Hear Tim's own poetry and poetic insights that inspire celebrations humanity's unique relationship with creativity as expressions of identity and connection with the worlds each we find ourselves in.

Tim Heffernan (pronouns: he/him) is an experienced mental health lived experience (peer) worker who worked in public mental health for over a decade before moving into a coordinator’s role with South Eastern NSW PHN. He has been involved with the Mental Health Commission of NSW since its inception, firstly as a member of the Community Advisory Council and for the last four years as a Deputy Commissioner.

Tim first entered the mental health system in 1983 at a time when the world was experiencing an escalation of Cold War tensions. Ronald Reagan was talking about the Evil Empire and Star Wars, invading Grenada and in November NATO began a simulated nuclear attack code named, Able Archer. Convinced the world would end if he didn’t live past his 24th birthday and listening to the gathering machinery of war on his transistor radio, Tim agreed to go into the Mental Health Unit at Wagga Base Hospital for sanctuary and asylum. The world survived and Tim attempted to return to his teaching career, only to experience involuntary treatment at Kenmore Hospital in 1985. Leaving that ungodly place, he vowed never to go back.

Tim returned to teaching in 1986 and enjoyed a nineteen-year career as an English teacher in NSW public high schools. Despite his best intentions he has been a guest of the public mental health system a few more times since leaving teaching in 2005. Tim has always used poetry to make sense of his experiences and the world, and in 2016 was awarded the Joanne Burns prose poetry award. In that same year, with fellow poet and peer worker Alise Blayney, he facilitated a Mad Poetry workshop, panel and reading at the Wollongong Writers Festival. Not long after Tim and Alise launched an online place for mad poetry ‘Clozapine Clinic – the Frater Project’ in Verity La magazine, published writers form around the word. The Mad Poetry project remains embedded in Verity La and has been taken on by a second journal Red Room Company. Reprised at the Wollongong Writers Festival in 2018 and 2020, Mad Poetry also featured at the Queensland Writers Festival in 2017 and recently at this year’s Big Anxiety Festival in Melbourne.

Join Communities Of Collaboration host Fi Peel and journalist Zoe Simmons as they explore all things challenging and inspiring in crafting lived experience words. Learn why Zoe is committed to drawing on dark times to increase representation of the diversity of perspectives by raising awareness regarding abelist attitudes that continue to entrench marginalisation and societal stigma for people with disability. Hear why Zoe is passionate about the art of storytelling in breaking through loneliness and fear to foster greater individual and community connection that engenders deep hope for shaping better futures for all.

Zoe Simmons writes to make a difference, smash stigma, and create change.

Join Communities Of Collaboration host Fi Peel and general psychologist Louise Hansen as they explore the importance of cultivating trauma-informed care in every day life, in mental health service delivery, organisational structures and the socio-political landscape in the 21st century. Together Fi and Louise unpack the meaning of and possibilities for creating a trauma-informed world that flows beyond the realms of traditional psychological treatment models and reconnects people with deeply ingrained social, cultural and spiritual identities that foster recovery, healing and hope.

Dr Louise Hansen (pronouns: she/her) is from Cairns, Queensland, Australia. She is a kind, down to earth and compassionate person with 20 years experience in Psychology. A registered Psychologist who has also completed a PhD, she is passionate in supporting people to find a sense of safety and wellbeing and has had the privilege of teaching psychology to children at school and to adults at university. She has provided counselling to a range of people of all ages and different backgrounds with simple and complex needs. 

Louise's approach is provides person-centered, strengths-based supports in a culturally safe way. Applying non-judgmental practice, active listening and collaborative principles to foster co-working relationships that foster the best outcomes for specific needs, she also has intimate mastery over a range of trauma-informed tools that help us to establish a sense of safety and stabilisation, to enhance our perception of reality, and to learn to regulate our emotions. This results in a sense of clarity, connection and belonging. Louise also has a lived experience of trauma recovery. This has made her genuinely humble, passionate, pragmatic, optimistic and hopeful.

Join Communities of Collaboration Host Fi Peel and Lived Experience Leader Morgan Cataldo as they reflect on the sacred obligation of building relationships and working alongside the lived experience workforce as distinct from traditional management approaches. Listen to Morgan's unique perspectives on the consumer movement, dimensions of intersectionality, and nuances of the multiplicities of identity. Share in Morgan and Fi's reflections on moral injury and the importance of understanding systems from a relational lens.

Morgan Cataldo (pronouns: she/her) dedicates her professional life to developing and advocating for participatory practice and peer education as essential levers for creating true, lasting, power-shifting systemic change in services for systemically neglected communities.

Meet Communities of Collaboration host Fi Peel. Learn why Fi is passionate about mental health reform, exploring the importance of language, person-centred care and the challenges of embedding peer work within clinical settings. Fi chats candidly with the interviewer Corin Boughton about the impact of systemic stigma upon individual mental health recovery journeys and the power of narrative re-framing.

Fi Peel (pronouns: Fi/they/them/theirs) has had a wide and varied engagement with the mental health sector, training concurrently as as a counsellor and as a mental health peer support worker.

Fi is non-binary artist with beautiful dreams, passion for socially equitable worlds, dedication to research and ongoing commitment to craft, Fi works independently as a lived-experience recovery collaborator, peer workforce supervisor, co-design consultant, mental health reform advocate, writer, communicator, theatre-maker and performer. 

A parent to three beautiful young adults and an ardent lover of all things arts related, Fi can be found absorbed in rehearsals; glued to a laptop writing; stretching vocal cords and harmonic sequences in fascinating ways; attempting to dance without breaking anything or lost in thought wandering unceded Ngunnawal, Ngambri and Ngarigo Lands, headphones blaring musical theatre, always in search of the next strand of inspiration.