Keynote speakers

Gill Callister commenced as Secretary of Victoria’s Department of Human Services in August 2009.

Gill has had a long career in human services in both the public and community sectors. She began her career with a ten-year stint in the community sector, working with children, young people and families.

Gill commenced with the Department of Human Services in the early 1990s and has held responsibilities across the child protection, community services and mental health programs.

As Executive Director for the related portfolios, Gill has lead major policy, legislative and service delivery reforms for the child protection, family services and mental health systems in Victoria. She was Deputy Secretary at Skills Victoria prior to her current appointment as Secretary.

Gill holds Bachelor degrees in Arts and Social Work with Honours. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia (Victoria) and a Board Member of Swinburne University Council.

Gill is passionate about social justice and improving public policy and service delivery and she is a frequent public speaker on these issues. She is steadfast in her commitment to the St Kilda Football Club, adores her family and enjoys cooking, camping and fashion.

Eileen Cummings is a Rembaranggarr-Ngalakan woman born in Central Arnhem Land and a member of the Ngalakan clan of Traditional Owners of the Roper River region.  She is a member of the ‘Stolen Generation’ having been taken as a young girl from her mother to live on the Mission at Croker Island. The first Indigenous person to qualify as a pre-school teacher in the Northern Territory, Eileen has spent much of her career in both research and policy development with special expertise in family violence, Indigenous community services and education. She has a long history in engaging community members in Indigenous family violence programs and has done substantial work in Alice Springs and surrounding communities. In the 2000s, Eileen initiated and coordinated the Strong Family, Strong Community, Strong Future program, an Indigenous-designed, Indigenous-staffed program which provided training and support for people in remote communities to support families at risk in their own communities. Widely known for her humanitarian work and respected by Indigenous women and communities across the Territory, she has received the NT Women’s Achievement for Services to the Community, the 2010 NT NAIDOC Award “Indigenous Unsung Hero” and is recognised in ‘Who’s Who in Australian Women’.  

A mother of three, grandmother of ten and great-grandmother of three, she continues to be active in research and advocacy, although her focus has been shifting to supporting the development of a new generation of Indigenous researchers and evaluators.  In 2013 she ran as a candidate for the House of Representatives in the Federal Seat of Solomon for the Australian First Nation’s Political Party.  She is a Board Director of the Northern Territory Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation and is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at The Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University.

Justice Peter McClellan AM is a Judge of Appeal in New South Wales. Prior to this, Justice McClellan was the Chief Judge at Common Law of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, having been appointed to that position in 2005. Before that appointment, he held judicial and other appointments including Judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales, Chief Judge of the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales, Chairman of the Sydney Water Inquiry and Assistant Commissioner at the Independent Commission Against Corruption.  Justice McClellan was admitted to practice law in 1974 and appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1985. Justice McClellan became a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2011 for services to the judiciary through the Supreme Court of NSW, to environmental law, and to legal education.

Louise Newman is the Professor of Developmental Psychiatry and Director of the Monash University Centre for Developmental Psychiatry & Psychology.Prior to this appointment she was the Chair of Perinatal and Infant Psychiatry at the University of Newcastle and the previous Director of the New South Wales Institute of Psychiatry. In January 2011 she was appointed as a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia.

She is a practising infant psychiatrist with expertise in the area of disorders of early parenting and attachment difficulties in infants.She has undertaken research into the issues confronting parents with histories of early trauma and neglect.Her current research is focussing on the evaluation of infant-parent interventions in high-risk populations, the concept of parental reflective functioning in mothers with borderline personality disorder and the neurobiology of parenting disturbance

She has published in the areas of infant mental health, attachment disorders trauma, and prevention of child abuse. She is co-author of the textbooks Clinical Skills in Infant Mental Health and Contemporary Approaches in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

She is the Convenor of the Alliance of Health Professions for Asylum Seekers and an advocate for the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. She is a member of the Immigration Health Advisory Group an independent body providing advice to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship on the health needs of asylum seekers. She has been involved in research into the impact of immigration detention on child asylum seekers.

Paul Nixon is Chief Social Worker for Child, Youth and Family, in the Ministry of Social Development in New Zealand. Paul is originally from the UK and has worked for more than 23 years in Child Welfare and protection, always in a statutory setting.

Paul and his family, Nici, Carys, Haydn and Rhianna and Murphy their dog live in Wellington. Paul always been interested and inspired by practice and innovations from New Zealand, particularly Family Group Conferences, Restorative Justice, and Whanau / Kinship Care. Previously Paul was Head of Social Work services in North Yorkshire, England.Paul has written a number of books on Social Work and numerous articles and chapters. He has provided training and consultancy on Social Work around the world. He and his family are enjoying being in New Zealand.

Stephen Smallbone is a psychologist and Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Griffith University, Director of Griffith Youth Forensic Service, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. His recent publications include the books Situational Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse (Wortley & Smallbone, 2006, Criminal Justice Press), Child Pornography on the Internet (Wortley & Smallbone, 2006, U.S. Dept of Justice), Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Evidence, Policy and Practice (Smallbone, Marshall, & Wortley, 2008, Willan), and Internet Child Pornography: Causes, Investigation, and Prevention (Wortley & Smallbone, 2012, Praeger). His current projects include empirical investigations of the development, onset and progression of youth and adult sexual offending, developing and testing an ecological field-based intervention model for adjudicated youth sexual offenders, and the implementation and evaluation of place-based strategies for preventing sexual violence and abuse. He is the incoming editor (from 2014) of The Journal of Sexual Aggression.

Dr Tomison was appointed Director of the AIC in July 2009. He is internationally recognised as an expert in the field of child abuse, the prevention of child abuse and other family violence, and the development and operation of child protection and family support systems. An experienced public service executive, he has worked over the past two decades with a range of government, non-government organisations and advocacy groups focused on child protection and child abuse prevention in Australia and overseas. Prior to his appointment with the AIC he was Head of the Child Protection Program at the Menzies School of Health Research. From 2004 to 2008 he held various senior executive positions within the Northern Territory Department of Health and Families, including as Director of the Northern Territory's Family and Children's Services, and as the Department's inaugural Principal Child Protection Adviser in 2004. In 2006-07 Dr Tomison acted as the expert advisor (and Director of Policy and Research) for the 'Little Children are Sacred' NT Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse. He became well-known for his work as a senior researcher with the Australian Institute of Family Studies, managing the National Child Protection Clearinghouse. Under his leadership, the Clearinghouse became a centre for excellence with a national and international reputation in the field of child abuse prevention and child protection. He subsequently developed a number of other national research and information units for the Institute, notably the Australian Centre for the Study of Sexual Assault. Dr Tomison has made significant academic contributions to scholarly and applied research in the areas of child protection and violence prevention, and was appointed as an Adjunct Professor at the Australian Catholic University in 2010. He is a frequent presenter at conferences and has regularly run educational and training seminars for professionals and the wider community.