
Communities of Collaboration
By The Lived Perspective Productions and Collaborators

Communities of CollaborationJun 06, 2022

Ep 7: Tim Heffernan - Touching The Earth Differently
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.
You can reach out to Tim on LinkedIn

Ep 6: Zoe Simmons - Transmuting Darkness
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.
As an experienced journalist who’s been published hundreds of times around the globe—including by News.com.au, Daily Mail, Kidspot, POPSUGAR, Mamamia, the Sydney Morning Herald, the New York Post and That’s Life and New Idea magazines—Zoe knows how to captivate audiences through the raw power of storytelling. Alongside her journalism, Zoe runs her own copywriting and editing business, where she helps businesses small and large to find their perfect words. She also works with a lot of disability and health organisations, as a writer, speaker, and a lived experience advisor.
Zoe has words on ethical journalism published in Kathy Divine's 2019 Amazon best-selling book Golden Age Politics, and has two poems on chronic pain and mental illness in Tea with my Monster, a 2022 mental health anthology by Beyond the Veil Press. She has a chapter on how journalism helped her community in the Black Summer Bushfires in Occupational Therapy Australia’s 2022 book Doing Our Best: Individual and Community Responses to Challenging Times. She’s also writing a book about her experiences as a disabled journalist—and her hometown’s survival—in the Black Summer Bushfires.
After her national speaker debut at the 2021 National Young Writers’ Festival, where she spoke about journalism and trauma, Zoe now regularly speaks to media—including podcasts, and local and national print, radio and TV—about disability, chronic pain, and bushfire recovery. She’s also spoken at the 2022 National Youth Disability Summit, a 2022 headspace panel on mental health and disability allyship, and the 2022 National Young Writers’ Festival on trauma and storytelling, gaming journalism, and ethical journalism.
Zoe was also the winner of the Silver Young Female Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the 2021 Stevie Awards for Women in Business, winner of the 2021 Clever Copywriting School Member of the Year Award and has had one of her poems about chronic pain and medical trauma listed as Highly Commended in the 2022 Pocketry Prize for Unpublished Poets.
You can learn more about Zoe's work via her website and you can reach out to her via LinkedIn.

Ep 5: Louise Hansen - Trauma Informed World
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.
You can learn more about Louise's passions via her website- Trauma Informed World and you can reach out to her via LinkedIn

Ep 4: Morgan Cataldo - Sacred Ripples
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.
Bringing 12-years of experience, Morgan is currently leading Y-Change, an innovative platform within Berry Street, one of Australia’s largest independent family service organisations. Y-Change engages, trains, employs and supports young people (aged 18-30) to access and harness their lived experience of socioeconomic disadvantage as a significant expertise, and apply their unique insights toward organisational and sector discourse and advocacy.
Separate to Y-Change, in her independent consultancy practice, Morgan advises, coaches and consults with organisations across Australia who are seeking to understand the role of power in their everyday work, and how they can design and shape more meaningful policies, programs, and services by partnering with people with lived experience relevant to their purpose.
Morgan also serves on the Boards of 100 Story Building and The Constellation Project.

Ep 3: Emma Paino - Peer Work Gremlin

Ep 2: Zoe Tizard - Highlighting Hope
Zoe Tizard (pronouns: she/they) is a young peer worker while concurrently completing a Bachelor of Psychology honours year. Zoe has dedicated volunteering hours with several mental health and crisis support organisations and is passionate about supporting others.
Zoe is a demi-girl who hopes for a world where mental health is discussed openly and respectfully. As a peer worker at a local youth mental health service, Zoe uses her lived experience and empathy to validate and support young people. Being able to create a safe space for herself and others, Zoe remains focused on keeping young people at the centre of care, caters to their unique goals and passions. Zoe enjoys being able to play, have fun and connect with creativity and their inner child. She also enjoys rock climbing, soccer, Futsal and being out in nature walking on the beautiful unceded Wathaurong lands on which they live. She also has desires to travel all around the world and explore as many different cultures as possible. They are unsure what the future holds with regards to her career but aims to help others, work in support groups, support young people and connect further with the LGBTQIA+ community. Zoe is always looking to support and help others in their own unique way.
You can learn more about Zoe and their mental health reform passions by reaching out to them on LinkedIn.

Ep 1: Fi Peel - Connecting The Dots
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.
You can learn more about Fi and their mental health reform passions at www.thelivedperspective.com

Communities of Collaboration Teaser
Introducing the Communities of Collaboration Podcast. Mental Health Reform: Who we are, where we've come from and where we're going next. Fi Peel (Host) and interviewer Corin Boughton chat about lived experience, the peer workforce and mental health reform themes that the podcast aims to explore.