So long Sydney

This will be my final blog post from Antipodean soil. I had a few days in Sydney before flying home and managed to cram in some social and some craftivism, as well as in person meetings at Sydney Children’s Hospital and the Clinical Excellence Commission and two phone meetings, one with a bereaved family member […]

Dying to matter #WCMTLD

I spent today, International Day of People with Disability 2017, in Brisbane. Well that’s not strictly true, I spent some of it in Brisbane, some of it travelling to the Gold Coast and a significant chunk of it having an incredibly pleasurable lunch and walk on the beach/paddle in the shallows and chat with Sally […]

A New Zealand weekend

So it’s Monday evening and I’ve not blogged since Friday so I’m going to do a quick post on my weekend as an aid memoire of the end of my time in Wellington. It was a busy week last week, split between Melbourne and Wellington, and I knew I only had one day in Wellington […]

Look backwards to go forwards #WCMTLD

My first day in New Zealand today and it’s been great for setting the context. First up I met with Esther Woodbury from the Disabled Persons Assembly New Zealand followed by Cindy Johns from People First New Zealand (who I forgot to photo). Both disabled people’s organisations form part of the coalition of DPOs who […]

Learning Disability Nurses Webchat #WeLDNs

Today was a day of downtime, the meetings I’d hoped to pull off didn’t happen so I had some much needed nothingness before a flight to New Zealand. Last night I caught the tram down to St Kilda to see the fairy penguins, the most gorgeous sight. I didn’t even think I particularly liked penguins, […]

New approaches to preventing deaths needed

Last day of my first week in Australia, Day 7 of #WCMTLD. I had left my diary clear this morning which I was exceedingly grateful for, my head is buzzing with ideas and reflections and it was good to spend a couple hours in another cafe, Scout’s Honour with a stunning breakfast and some time […]

A reportable incident

Day 6 in Australia today and I spent the day at the New South Wales Ombudsman’s office for a training workshop Handling serious incidents in the disability sector. The workshop looked at handling allegations of abuse and neglect in a disability service setting. It covered: Identifying serious incidents – the legislative and policy framework Planning and […]

Gathering perspectives #WCMTLD

I’m not sure whether it was coffee consumption, nerves/excitement about today, jetlag or something altogether different but I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I woke feeling a little jaded and stumbled across the road to the cafe for breakfast. Turns out avocado on toast is like the food of superheroes, I felt […]

Phase 1: Australia and New Zealand

I can not tell you how lucky I feel to have been given the opportunity of a WCMT Fellowship. The chance to travel, to meet people and to spend time exploring an issue that has been a backdrop to my life for the past few years. I am ridiculously excited and very humbled. You can […]