Meet The Guest Speakers - Inaugural MATE Conference

Katarina Carroll

Commissioner, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services

Commissioner Carroll chairs the QFES Board and is on the Board of the Public Safety Business Agency (PSBA). She is also on the Board of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council (AFAC), is a member of the AFAC Commissioners and Chief Officers Strategic Committee (CCOSC), and is on the QUT School of Justice Advisory Panel.She is a member of the Australian and AFAC Male Champions of Change, which works to advance gender equity, inclusive cultures and achieve significant and sustainable improvements in the representation of women among a paid and volunteer workforce of more than 280,000 people.

Commissioner Carroll is also a member of several federal and state government committees including the Australia-New Zealand Emergency Management Committee (ANZEMC), the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management – Senior Official Group (MCPEM SOG), the National Risk Reduction Steering Committee and the Queensland Disaster Management Committee.

Previously, Ms Carroll was an Assistant Commissioner with the Queensland Police Service. After joining the Queensland Police Service in 1983 she worked in various roles including detective work, a Commission of Inquiry, Criminal Investigation Branches, the Joint Organised Crime Task Force and the Covert Unit. Later, she undertook several senior roles throughout Queensland and in 2012 she planned and was the Operations Commander for G20, Australia’s largest peacetime security operation.

Commissioner Carroll received the inaugural Griffith University Outstanding Alumnus Award for 2018 and in 2015 won the national Telstra Business Women’s Award for Government and Academia. In that same year, she was named as one of the Australian Financial Review and Westpac ‘100 Women of Influence’. The Commissioner has achieved numerous international, national and state awards, including the Australian Police Medal.

Commissioner Carroll has several tertiary qualifications including; an Executive Masters in Public Administration, a Degree in Criminology and a Graduate Diploma in Applied Management. She has been the recipient of two scholarships – Sir Vincent Fairfax Scholarship in Ethical Leadership and Sir James Wolfensohn Public Service Scholarship, Kennedy Business School, Harvard.

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Vanessa Fowler

Chair of the Allison Baden-Clay Foundation

Vanessa Fowler is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Allison Baden-Clay Foundation and the sister of the late Allison Baden-Clay. After Allison’s death in 2012, Vanessa has supported her parents in raising Allison’s three young daughters and has been the driving force behind the establishment of The Allison Baden-Clay Foundation which aims to educate people on the signs of domestic and family violence and empower them to aid prevention of these situations.
Vanessa is also a mother of two boys, and a primary school teacher with a love for educating and shaping young minds.

She is committed in everything that she does, taking the experiences that her family has gone through and turning such a tragic situation into a positive, by making a change within the community.

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Elyse Gagnon

New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF)

Elyse Gagnon is currently the Southern Region Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Advisor within the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF). A role new to the NZDF, having been created in June 2016, as part of Operation Respect – the NZDF initiative to eliminate harmful sexual behaviour from the organisation. Previously, she worked in a similar capacity at the Sexual Misconduct Response Centre (SMRC) with the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). Joining the SMRC only three months after its creation as part of Operation Honour – the CAF initiative to eliminate harmful sexual behaviour from the organisation, she helped shape the mandate of the centre whilst providing confidential supportive counselling and information to members who experienced or had been affected by inappropriate sexual behaviour. She holds a Masters of Social Work and a Honours Bachelor of Social Sciences in Social Work from the University of Ottawa.

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Kim Groenewald

Victim/Survivor,and expert on domestic violence & Friends with Dignity

Kim is a surviving victim of domestic violence. After several years of physical, psychological, verbal and financial abuse, Kim gained the strength to flee for her life with her child. She is now a committed advocate, speaker and lobbyist, contributing to raising awareness and fighting for better protection for victims and survivors; aligning herself with several charities and organisations, including White Ribbon and Friends with Dignity.Kim also returned to part time study and was accepted into USQ clinical counselling and psychology with the goal of one day providing trauma and emergency counselling to victims and their support networks.

She strives to inform, motivate and empower victims and survivors to know their options and their potential. Kim also strives to educate others, in the push towards social change to eliminate domestic violence.

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Danielle Harris

Griffith Youth Forensic Service

Danielle Arlanda Harris is the Deputy Director-Research of the Griffith Youth Forensic Service and a Lecturer in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University. She holds a doctorate in Criminology from Griffith University (2008), a Masters in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland (2004) and a Bachelor of Arts (hons) in Justice Studies from the Queensland University of Technology and the University of Westminster (2001). She has published more than 25 articles and book chapters and has given over 50 presentations at international conferences. Her research examines sexual aggression through a life course perspective, examining onset, specialization/versatility, desistance, and related public policy. Her study of civilly committed sex offenders in Massachusetts was funded by the Guggenheim Foundation and she recently received a grant from the California Sex Offender Management Board for a statewide survey of community supervision practices. Her first book—which draws on the narratives of 74 men convicted of sexual offenses and released from custody—was released in December.

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Heather Nancarrow

CEO of ANROWS

Dr Heather Nancarrow is the CEO of Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). For more than 35 years, Heather has worked to address violence against women, including in community services and advocacy, policy and research.

In 2008-09 she was Deputy Chair of the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, which produced Time for Action, the blue-print for COAG’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. She was co-Deputy Chair of the Council of Australian Governments’ (COAG) Advisory Panel to Reduce Violence against Women 2015-16; and in 2014-15 she was a member of the Queensland Premier’s Special Taskforce on Domestic and Family Violence, which resulted in the report Not Now, Not Ever, and a raft of major reforms in Queensland.

Heather has a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Her scholarship is focused on justice responses to violence against women, particularly as they relate to violence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

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Jan Tracey

Gippsland Women’s Health

Jan Tracey has worked at Gippsland Women’s Health since 2008 in the Health Promotion team. During this time Jan has worked predominantly in the Prevention of Violence Against Women (PVAW) space. Jan now coordinates Gippsland Women’s Health PVAW and gender equity training, facilitating communities of practice as well as delivering training. Jan coordinates and supports the delivery of MATE across Gippsland, Victoria with over 80 MATE accredited facilitators, providing regular communities of practice and collating Gippsland wide evaluations of MATE Awareness Raising workshops.

With a Bachelor of Social Work Jan’s 35+ year career has included working in alcohol and drug, community health, education, justice and now women’s health settings. Much of her career has been undertaken within a rural community and underpinning all of this work has been her commitment for women to live in healthy and safe communities. During this time Jan has developed, facilitated and evaluated ongoing programs and specific projects as well as delivered training which enhance women’s leadership in both their own and public life.