John currently oversees the Communities for Children initiative with St Luke’s (Division of Anglicare Vic) and delivers training in social inclusion practice.

Prior to his current role, John was Director of Strategy and Innovation at St Luke’s and also General Manager of Children, Youth and Family Services.

In a career over 30 years spanning youth justice, child protection, child and family services John's work is driven always by his empathy and understanding, and underpinned by his research skills - he identifies peoples' needs, researches and designs a response, and then makes it happen at a local and regional level.

Deborah Glass, OBE was appointed as the Victorian Ombudsman in March 2014. The Ombudsman's role is to investigate the decisions and actions of Victorian government bodies. The Ombudsman seeks to ensure the highest possible standards of public sector service delivery to all Victorians.  She was the Deputy Chair of the UK Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), a position to which she was appointed in 2008. She was also one of the IPCC’s ten operational Commissioners, in which capacity she had joint regional responsibility for London and the South-East.  Glass spent her formative years in Australia. She is a lawyer by profession. 

Donna has been a financial counsellor since 2001 after a 20 plus year career in the banking industry.  She was seconded to Women’s Legal Service Victoria in June last year as the financial counsellor for their Stepping Stones project.  Donna works with women who are dealing with family violence and predominantly economic abuse   Until recently she was convener of FCRC’s Banking Issues Working Group for 10 years, is a current member of the Infringements Working Group and a financial counselling supervisor.

David is a Legal Counsel at FOS.  Prior to joining FOS, David held senior legal positions with the Office of Fair Trading and Business Affair (Victoria) where he was involved in legislative reform, including development and implementation of the Credit Act 1984, Chattel Securities Act 1997, Motor Car Traders Act 1986 and EFT Code of Conduct.  He has subsequently held the positions of Registrar of the Credit Licensing Authority and Director of Consumer Credit Legal Service (Victoria).  More recently he was Senior Consultant at Maurice Blackburn Cashman where he successfully ran a series of consumer and shareholder class actions including the Aristocrat and Multiplex class actions – at the time the two largest damages awards in class actions in Australia.  He also ran the FAI class action – the first consumer class action in Australia and the ANZ civil penalty case.  David has also held a variety of appointments on Boards and Committees including Chair of the AFCCRA, the financial counselling peak organisation, and Chair of the National Investment Centre for Retirement Investments.   He was also a volunteer night session co-ordinator at Springvale Legal Service for 15 years.

Emma was admitted as a lawyer in 2012. Emma commenced work with Women’s Legal Service Victoria (WLSV) shortly after her admission to practice. Emma’s practice since then has been primarily family law. Emma is currently employed as a lawyer and the Economic Well-being Project Co-ordinator at WLSV. In her current role, Emma does a combination of legal and research work. In respect to her legal work, Emma predominantly provides duty lawyer services in the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court and in the Family Court of Australia.  In respect to the research work, Emma is writing a research report on economic abuse, the financial impacts of family violence and the different legal and financial barriers women encounter. As part of that research Emma has carried out in-depth interviews of 30 women. The report will be published on 22 September 2015. The research report will enable financial institutions, service providers and law makers the tools to make evidence-based reform and help more victims of family violence recover financially.