OUR STAFF

Tony McBride
Chief Executive Officer

Tony McBride has been the CEO of Health Issues Centre since 2003. With a Masters degree in Community Development, Tony has over 30 years' experience in a wide range of fields. He previously: managed Commonwealth population health programs in Victoria; taught andconducted research at Deakin University in health promotion; managed health and community services within local government; worked in a community health service in Victoria; and in earlier decades worked as a community worker in Melbourne and Docklands London. His areas of special expertise are in community development, health promotion, consumer participation, and research.
Tony is a member of the Executive of the Australian Health Care Reform Alliance, and a member of the Victorian Oral Health Alliance, the National Standing Committee on Quality of Care of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, the Victorian Public Health and Research Council and the Victorian Department of Human Services' Participation Advisory Committee in Victoria.

Ph: (03) 9479 5827
Email:t.mcbride@healthissuescentre.org.au

Nicola Bruce
Senior Project Officer

Dr Nicola Bruce has qualifications in Health and Community Development with Masters and PhD degrees in Health Science. Much of Nicola’s practice has been in the community health sector. She has considerable experience in health advocacy both from an academic and personal standpoint. Her thesis, Makers of meaning: Consumer participation in breast health and the role of women’s contribution in breast health knowledge, examined the role of consumer participation in the communication of knowledge. Nicola first came in contact with the Health Issues Centre when she was a consumer representative on the Optimizing Consumer Participation committee for the Southern Metropolitan Integrated Cancer Services (SMICS). Since commencing work at the Health Issues Centre Nicola has worked on literature reviews for the Cancer Australia Project and the Sax project, as well as working on a North Eastern Metropolitan Integrated Cancer Services (NEMICS) research project looking into consumer experiences that cross both public and private cancer care.

Ph: (03) 9479 3520
Email: :n.bruce@healthissuescentre.org.au

Lauren Cordwell
Coordinator - Consumer Participation

Lauren has a rich and diverse experience of working in health promotion and community development roles in Australia. She currently coordinates consumer and community participation projects and consultancies that aim to enhance the capacity of organisations to implement meaningful and effective participation. Recent projects include the development of consumer participation plans for Divisions of General Practice, Victorian cancer services, palliative care services and community-based organisations. Lauren is regularly invited to present to health professionals, government officers and community members on consumer and community participation theory and practice. Lauren has a Bachelor of Health Science (Honours) degree and is currently completing a Masters of Public Health.

Ph: (03) 9479 3218
Email:l.cordwell@healthissuescentre.org.au

Tere Dawson
Senior Project and Policy Coordinator

Dr. Tere Dawson has qualifications in social sciences with Masters and PhD degrees in sociology and anthropology, as well as a Master of Public Health. Tere has an extensive research and academic background and has published widely. Since commencing work with Health Issues Centre, she has collaborated in several research projects including complaint processes, consumer participation in quality and safety activities, consumer participation in cancer services and consumer and carer perspectives on the Respecting Patient Choices Program® at Austin Health. Dr Dawson's other responsibilities at Health Issues Centre have included her work in primary health care, general practice integration, and the Primary Care Partnerships Strategy.

Ph: (03) 9479 3895
Email:t.dawson@healthissuescentre.org.au

Diane Lowther
Publications and Information Officer

Diane Lowther has been responsible for getting our quarterly journal, Health Issues, into print for almost ten years. Other duties include coordinating our email bulletin, eNews (originally called Across our Desk), and looking after the library. In the last year, Diane has taken over the maintenance of both the Health Issues Centre website and the participateinhealth website.

Ph: (03) 9479 3222
Email:d.lowther@healthissuescentre.org.au

Vanessa Lynne
Learning and Development Coordinator

Vanessa is an adult educator and facilitator with more than 25 years experience. She has a Master of Adult Education, a Bachelor of Education and a Diploma of Training and Assessment Systems. She is also a trained mediator. Her areas of expertise are adult learning theory and practice, community engagement, problem-solving and decision making. She brings a unique perspective to the way adults learn and aims to make all learning and development activities relevant to the existing experience and skills of the participants

Ph: (03) 9479 5827
Email:v.lynne@healthissuescentre.org.au

Jackie Mansourian
Senior Project Officer

Jackie Mansourian has been working as a community development worker for the past 21 years in Melbourne, London and in various parts of Mozambique, in all sorts of places and levels - including neighbourhood houses, local government, community health, university and international non-governmental organisations. Human rights and social determinants of health and wellbeing are values and understandings that underpin her practice. Jackie's position at Health Issues Centre is to support the ongoing development of Community Advisory Committees across 19 public health services in Victoria. Jackie has a Bachelor of Economics and Bachelor of Social Work from a long time ago and in 2006 completed a Diploma in Professional Writing and Editing.

Ph: (03) 9479 5870
Email:j.mansourian@healthissuescentre.org.au

Souzi Markos
Office Manager

Souzi Markos has been with Health issues Centre since the beginning, providing the vital administrative support necessary to keep activities at Health Issues Centre humming along. Souzi also ensures that enquiries, documents and people coming to Health Issues Centre find their way to the appropriate staff member.

Ph: (03) 9479 5827
Email:s.markos@healthissuescentre.org.au

Assunta Morrone
Senior Project Officer

Assunta currently works with the Consumer Advisory Committees and the Consumer Nominee Program at Health Issues Centre. Both these projects involve direct contact with consumers, as well as strategies support and resource development.

Assunta has worked in the Multicultural Sector as a community development worker for the past 10 years. Her previous role was as Manger of Centre for Culture Ethnicity and Health (CEH), where she managed a team or four project officers as well as all elements of the organisations, workforce initiatives, including training, community consultations and resource development. Before her role at CEH Assunta was the project coordinator for the Multicultural Sport and Recreation Project at the Centre for Multicultural Youth Issues. The project worked with State Sporting Associations, local governments and the fitness industry to build the capacity of these organisations to be responsive to the needs of young people from newly arrived communities when developing, delivering and implementing sport and recreation policies and programs. Assunta has a BA in Social Sciences and a Certificate IV.

Ph: (03) 9479 3520
Email::a.morrone@healthissuescentre.org.au

Charin Naksook
Senior Project Officer

Charin Naksook's research work at Health Issues Centre has been in areas such as patient information, advance care planning, consumer participation audit tools, informed parental consent, women-centred care and costs of delayed dental treatment. Her previous experiences range from immigrant women's health issues to research on alternative dispute resolutions among health practitioners' registration boards, and work on increasing access to aged services by people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Charin has a Masters of Urban Planning from Thailand and a PhD from Monash University.

Ph: (03) 9479 3614
Email:c.naksook@healthissuescentre.org.au

Panayiota Romios
Deputy CEO

Panayiota Romios has been involved in a number of projects at Health Issues Centre including: Austin Health's groundbreaking Respecting Patient Choices (RPC) Project that aims to allow patients and their families to make advance decisions about end-of-life care; a complaints handling process for the Royal Australasian College of Psychiatrists; the development of an annotated bibliography and literature review on consumer complaints handling processes for the Turning Wrongs into Rights Project; the preparation of recommendations to the National Medical Health Research Council on involvement of consumers in the development of health advice; and the Exploring Women-Centred Care in Maternity Care Research Project that aimed to compare women’s and midwives understandings of women-centred care in the midwifery-led component of Team Care in the maternity care program of the Royal Women's Hospital Senior Project and Policy Coordinator.

Ph: (03) 9479 5824
Email: p.romios@healthissuescentre.org.au