Amani Haydar is an award-winning artist, lawyer, writer and advocate for women’s health and safety based in Western Sydney. Amani’s Mum, Salwa Haydar, was 1 of 83 women who lost their lives violently in Australia in 2015. Since then, Amani has engaged in storytelling and advocacy to honour her mother’s life and explore the personal and political dimensions of violence, trauma and grief. In 2018 Amani’s self-portrait titled Insert Headline Here was a finalist in the Archibald Prize. Since then her writing and illustrations have been published in Racism, Arab Australian Other, Sweatshop Women Volume Two, SBS Voices and ABC News Online. In 2020 Amani was a Finalist for the NSW Premier’s Woman of the Year Award and was named Local Woman of the Year for Bankstown in recognition of her advocacy against domestic violence and she is the recipient of the 2021 UTS Law Alumni Award. Amani serves on the Board of Bankstown Women’s Health Centre and her memoir The Mother Wound (Pan Macmillan) was released earlier this year.

Amanda is one of the best known public commentators on the climate crisis in Australia. She is the CEO and co-founder of the Climate Council, an independent climate change education and advocacy body. Previously, Amanda co-founded the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and has served on Renewable Energy Expert Panels for the Queensland and Northern Territory governments. Amanda was the founding Chair of the Centre for Australian Progress and is a former Board Director at Plan International Australia and the Whitlam Institute. She holds an Honours degree in Law from Monash University and an Arts Degree from Melbourne University. Amanda has won numerous awards including being recognised as one of Westpac’s 100 Women of Influence and a finalist in Telstra Young Business Woman of the Year Awards. 

Dr. Marsha Scott is a feminist researcher and practitioner and has advocated, volunteered, researched, and worked in the violence against women sector in the United Kingdom, the United States and Europe for 30 years. Prior to taking up post at Scottish Women's Aid in April 2015, Marsha worked for 10 years at West Lothian Council, where she helped set up and had strategic responsibility for the West Lothian Domestic and Sexual Assault Team.

Natalie Lewis was appointed Commissioner for the Queensland Family and Child Commission in May 2020. Ms Lewis, a Gamilaraay woman, brings with her a wealth of experience and knowledge from her distinguished over 20-year career in youth justice, child and family services and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. Ms Lewis works with a strong and renewed focus on the systemic and structural issues disproportionately affecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. Previously, Ms Lewis held the role of Chief Executive Officer with QATSICPP Limited. As Commissioner, Ms Lewis drives change to better the safety, wellbeing and interests of children and young people, including those in the child protection system.

Thelma Schwartz is the Principal Legal Officer of QIFVLS, an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Community Controlled Organisation providing legal and non-legal support services to Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander victims/ survivors of family violence and/or sexual assault. Thelma identifies as of Torres Strait Islander heritage alongside her German/Samoan and Papua New Guinean heritage.

Thelma has extensive practice experiences working with and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, in the provision of legal services in regional, rural and remote Queensland in her representation of Adults and Youths from both a victim and defendant legal practice perspective across multiple courts.

Donnella Mills is a proud Torres Strait Islander woman with ancestral and family links to Masig and Nagir. She is Deputy Chair of Wuchopperen Health Service, Chair of the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation – NACCHO and member of James Cook University Council. For the past 7 years, Donnella has been a Cairns-based lawyer with LawRight, a Community Legal Centre which coordinates the provision of pro-bono civil legal services to disadvantaged and vulnerable members of the community.

Donnella most recently was the project lawyer for the Wuchopperen Health Justice Partnership. This innovative HJP is an exciting model of care providing access to justice in a community-controlled setting, where lawyers and health professionals collaborate to achieve improved health, social, emotional and spiritual well-being outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

With over almost 30 years’ experience in the domestic violence and child welfare fields, David and his Safe & Together Institute focus on improving systems' responses to domestic violence when children are involved. David has developed the Safe & Together™ Model to improve case practice and cross system collaboration in domestic violence cases involving children. He has identified how a perpetrator pattern-based approach can improve our ability to help families and promote the development of domestic violence-informed child welfare systems.

David and the Safe & Together Institute have worked with governments and NGOs in Canada, the US, Australia, Asia and United Kingdom. Through their live training, organizational consulting, elearning, and Trainer Certification and Partner Agency Program, the Safe & Together Institute provides organisations and systems with a wide range of tools to partner with adult and child survivors, and intervene with perpetrators. David hopes that his work ends the use of “failure to protect” mentality in domestic violence cases, and helps systems better work with complex cases involving mental health issues, substance misuse and domestic violence. Using an intersectional analysis, the Model is designed to be flexible and relevant across diverse situations.

David has written or co-written numerous journal articles, book chapters and white papers including his most recent ones on how perpetrator intervention program completion certificates can be dangerous for survivors, and on worker safety in the context of domestic violence. He is regularly part of research studies including Professor Cathy Humphreys’ recent series of Australian national research projects on intervening with perpetrators, and complex case practice.