Sometime last century I commenced with SSRV as a volunteer member of the Board. Back then, SSRV was called the Welfare Rights Unit (WRU), and was a tiny but mighty community organisation.
I was then a senior financial counsellor and a regular witness to the way WRU made a difference helping Centrelink recipients find solutions to social security issues. After around ten years I decided to put that law degree to some use and ceased volunteering as a Board member to take up a role as a lawyer.
I returned to SSRV in 2022 to work on our Disaster Preparedness and Response Project. In my time away, I had gathered deep experience in consumer and insurance law, worked across a range of human rights legal issues, and even helped to develop Victoria’s Disaster Legal Help model in 2009.
I hope my involvement with the Disaster Preparedness and Response Project helps SSRV and other community organisations build capacity to support people impacted by disasters and who need help to successfully interact with Centrelink.
To help me switch off my lawyer’s brain, I try cooking, growing things in the garden to eat (or for bees to enjoy) and watching almost anything the sports channel serves up… preferably with an adoring cat on my lap.
