Dr Rachael Beswick

Dr Rachael Beswick PhD MBA is a Director within the Queensland Health Reform team and the First 2000 Days Program lead and co-chair of the Queensland Child and Youth Clinical Network. With more than 10-years in program and system level leadership roles, Dr Beswick has delivered several large-scale population-based research programs receiving $1.6 million in research funding to date and has more than 30 publications. Dr Beswick has established and maintained extensive sector partnerships at a local, state and national level, including development of the inaugural Childhood Hearing Collaborative. She is also currently leading the Australasian Newborn Hearing Screening sub-committee which is developing a national consensus statement for detection of hearing loss beyond the newborn period.

Simon Fewings

As the National Early Years Support Director with SNAICC: A National Voice for our Children, Simon has always remembered that he liked helping people. Growing into his late teens, he realised he liked to help people by empowering and enabling them. He understood that education could be emancipation and that started his journey within education.

Simon has been an educator for over 20 years and through most of his roles in his career, there has been a link to Aboriginal education and adult learning. He started teaching secondary and VET programmes to Aboriginal learners with Dulka Yuppata Koorie Learning Centre in Northwest Victoria and Far Western NSW. He became the manager of Dulka Yuppata then moved to working in leadership development with the Australian Principals Associations. Simon had the opportunity to work with school leaders across the country, supporting them to realise their aspirations for their schools. It was during this time, he was exposed to the Early Years sector; he worked with Centre Director’s, and built relationships with ‘Early Childhood Australia’.

Today he is also a Director with Early Childhood Australia and National Director of Early Years Support where he leads a pilot program that supports Early Years leaders and workforce development across the country.

Adjunct Prof Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan is an Adjunct Professor at QUT and until recently was a Paul Ramsay Foundation Fellow.

He is the Convenor of the Thriving Qld Kids Partnership, a fledgling systems coalition and intermediary.

Michael has been a senior executive in the Qld and NSW Governments including as a Director-General, and was head of a not-for-profit public interest advocacy organisation. Michael is a member of the Centre for Policy Development’s Early Childhood Development Council, is a director on the board of the Torres Health Corporation, and is also involved in the Every Child coalition.

 

 

 

 

 

.

Prof Sharon Goldfeld

Professor Sharon Goldfeld is a paediatrician and Director, Centre for Community Child Health (CCCH) the Royal Children’s Hospital, Co-Group leader of Policy and Equity, and Theme Director, Population Health at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. She has a decade of experience in state government as a senior policymaker in health and education including Principal Medical Advisor in the Victorian Department of Education and Training. Her research program is made up of complementary, synergistic and cross-disciplinary streams of work focused on investigating, testing and translating sustainable policy relevant solutions that eliminate inequities for Australia’s children. As an experienced policymaker, public health and paediatric researcher she aims to ensure ongoing effective, rapid translation of research into the policy and service arena.