Rock Solid People Auscare Support

Kirk Watson
Award-Winning Sailor and Surfer
Kirk grew up on an island on Sydney's Northern Beaches which is an absolute haven for watersports.
Kirk loved surfing and would get out there with his mates as often as possible. As a teen, I he started losing his night vision and peripheral vision.
Kirk was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa a degenerative condition. This progressively took things from his life not just his sight, his opportunity to drive a car, his independence, confidence, bike riding, and surfing.
At this point, he got into sailing and started to sail competitively, which gave him great freedom.
Ocean racing taught Kirk about everyone bringing their strengths to the team. He competed in many campaigns including 10 Sydney to Hobarts. Kirk would surf very occasionally with friends when out of Sydney.
A friend who is an amputee surfer encouraged Kirk to enter the Australian National para titles. This really inspired him, experiencing others surfing despite their challenges. This pushed Kirk to get out there as much as he can and really work on improving his surfing.
In 2019 I competed in the US Open, where he won the bind (VS1) division. Unfortunately, he was knocked out early in the 2020 ISA para world titles, he trained hard from that time on. For the 2021 world titles everything came together and Kirk was able to get over to the US for the ISA para world titles again, this time coming home with a silver medal. 

Cassie Day
Founder Director of The Carers Place
The Carers Place officially opened its doors in 2016 but has been a business idea bubbling and brewing since 2002, when Founding Director, Cassie Day’s first son, Matthew was diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis (CF) at 4 weeks old. 
Now a young business, The Carers Place provides innovative and flexible services that support families living with chronic illness, disability and special needs. Our programs and services focus on optimal mental, physical and emotional health and wellbeing including strong connection to community, government and health services in Australia.
Cassie was a young mum, alone, frightened and bewildered by the medical system and the little information that she was given. Still new to motherhood, Cassie had to return to the workforce when Matthew was just six months old. The family welcomed baby Joshua a year later and, in a bid to learn about the human body to better understand CF, with a toddler and a tiny baby, Cassie began to study natural medicine.
A year later the marriage broke down and a separation followed. With two children under three, Cassie added single parenting to her juggling act. Studying gave her the tools to understand how the human body worked and make sense of the medical issues Matthew was facing. This resulted in her making more informed decisions regarding Matthew’s health care, increased confidence and she introduced carefully considered complementary medicines and therapies to his régime.
Two years into the course, the financial pressures and health needs of Matthew were such that Cassie was unable to continue studying and she returned to work full time. Looking back it is all very clear. While Cassie was doing everything that she could for her beautiful boys, she was neglecting herself. Her mental health suffered and the weight piled on. The loneliness, the worry, the responsibility of her role was immense. Feeling overwhelmed and like she had nowhere to turn for help or assistance, she soldiered on. Something had to give. Cassie had her own health crisis and was admitted to hospital in late 2010. It wasn’t until 6 months later she decided to take charge of her situation. She made radical lifestyle changes that saw positive benefits for her and the boys.
Matthew’s health improved and the family was connecting to each other again. Life was getting easier and better. Or so it seemed until that fateful day in August 2011 when their world came to a crashing halt. Nine-year-old Matthew suffered a nasty fall. A very nasty fall. He sustained a severe brain injury (Acquired Brain Injury) and spinal fractures.
Less than a year later Cassie closed the doors to her corporate career and continued her quest to do whatever she could to help her little boys. She knew that she needed to continue to look after herself and continue the positive changes she had started earlier in the year. She needed to focus on Matthew and his rehabilitation. She made more important life-changing decisions. She was eating well and moving. She was paving the way for her and her family’s well-being to improve.
She completed Certificate’s III and IV in Fitness, planning to make a career path change and became a personal trainer. Her positive mindset was developing. She was highly motivating and inspiring to others and she was moving forward again. Matthew had enjoyed a year hospital free and as his health stabilised Cassie started a successful personal training business from home. But sick kids are sick kids and Matthew’s health took a turn for the worse. After 18 months she had to close the doors and walk away from her successful fitness business.
A return to researching natural medicine was on the cards seeking support in a naturopath, the changes that they implemented together were profound.
Cassie’s advocacy skills had developed and improved over the years and she was able to successfully communicate with medical staff to balance the best health

Meredith Coote
GM of Community Circles Australia 
Meredith Coote has 38 years of experience in the disability, aged care, and mental health sector.  Her work has focused on supporting people to make decisions and how to bring the voice of people to the center of our work, helping them live the life they choose with the support they need. She is passionate about the quality of this support and that connection and relationships are at the heart of living well, that we all need someone to take care of the little things, good company from people not paid to be with us, and a sense of purpose and help to shift into different ways of living throughout our lives.
Meredith has worked in Guardianship and Financial Management, with the NDIS rollout, and in the Profit for Purpose sector at Mable assisting to build the rights and practice of people to self-manage their care and support teams. Meredith has recently become a ‘self-directed’ consultant, leading to extraordinary opportunities to partner with purpose-driven people to drive and influence innovative change in the sector. She is a thought leader, human rights advocate, and believes our best work comes from genuine collaboration. Meredith is also a wife, carer, daughter, friend and mother of 2 fabulous humans, one who is an NDIS participant who she supports to self-manage and reimagine her potential for a life of greater happiness and possibility.  Meredith sits on the Advisory Committee for Carers Australia and has run carers mental health groups.
Meredith is a strong advocate for the safeguards and quality of life that community connection provides to assist people to live independent and interdependent lives. She has recently launched Community Circles Australia, partnering with Helen Sanderson in the UK and the Charity Touched by Olivia with the goal of creating better, connected lives for everyone. 
https://www.touchedbyolivia.com.au/projects/
https://youtu.be/PgQnLXazdSg
 

Jodi Rogers
Sexologist, Counsellor at Birds and Bees
Jodi Rodgers is a qualified sexologist, counsellor and special education teacher.
 
Jodi has worked within the education and community sectors in both Australia and internationally and has extensive experience working with people with diverse neurology, across the life span.
Jodi established her private practice, Birds and Bees Pty Ltd, after 25 years of working within the education, disability and sexuality fields. Birds and Bees specialises in delivering counselling services and workshops for people with a disability with focus on sexuality, sexual health and relationships, as well as delivering trainings for parents, carers and professionals to raise the community’s capacity in this sometimes-tricky area.
Jodi was recently featured on “Love on The Spectrum” which was released on ABC and globally on Netflix in 2020 and 2021.
https://birdsandbees.com.au/

Steve Dresler
CEO and Founder of Whatability
Steve was just a regular kid who grew up on a farm with a dream to play in the NRL. At 21 years with 14 surgeries behind him and 4 weeks away from achieving his goal, he damaged his ACL for the 3rd time. His career was over.  Steve had been robbed of his passion but soon fell into the disability space. He discovered the important lesson that if you can live your life and also make sure somebody else's life is okay, you will always be OK. Find out how Steve turned everything around. https://whatability.com.au/ 

Sean Dempsey
Chief Executive Officer Plan Partners, Victoria
Sean is proud to say he is driven by achievement and progress. He likes to see hard work resulting in outcomes – "the good you do being observed in other people". I hate coming home from a day’s work not knowing what was achieved.
Before Plan Partners, Sean worked in car and home insurance claims integrating supply chains that involved a lot of travel to places like Taiwan, India, and the US trying to repair cars better and cheaper. Those days of travel feel like centuries ago now.
His favourite moment working with Plan Partners involved a presentation the team did to the McMillan Shakespeare Group. We wanted to truly convey what we do at Plan Partners and why we do it. Rather than present through the typical, sterile channels of PowerPoint, we asked a customer to come along and tell her story. At age 16, Anj was beaten within a millimetre of her death. Previously, a star netball player and overall high sports achiever, Anj was left with permanent physical and mental injuries, yet cognitively still bright as a button. When she finished telling her story, there wasn’t a dry eye left in the room. Anj, and customers like her, are our why; the reason we do what we do - and everyone at McMillan Shakespeare Group could very quickly understand that.
https://planpartners.com.au/