Our Team

Chief Executive Officer

Strategic Planning and Leadership, Government and Non-Government Relations, Policy Management

Organisational Development Manager and BOSS Team Manager

General Administration, Organisational Development

Policy and Advocacy Manager and PAT Team Manager

Policy Writing, Research, Consultations

Stakeholder Engagement Manager and SET/CDT Team Manager

Carer and Community Engagement, Carer Capacity Development

Psychosocial Disability Policy Manager and DAFP Team Manager

Disability Advocacy Futures Program

Senior Policy Officer

Policy Writing, Research, Consultations

Diverse Communities Policy Manager

Policy Writing, Research, Consultations

Carer Peer Trainer 

Carer Capacity Development and Network Peer Facilitation

Peer Trainer 

Carer Capacity Development and Network Peer Facilitation

Mental Health Carer Peer Worker Community of Practice Facilitator

Community of Practice Facilitation

Carer Peer Participation Officer

Carers of Forensic and Corrections Network Facilitation

Chair & Treasurer

Andrew Pryor, GAICD FCA B.Com is an experienced senior finance executive and leader, with over 30 years of financial corporate experience, including 20 years at Westfield Group and 5 years at Big 4 accounting firm, PWC.

Andrew has lived experience as a carer for his daughter supporting her on her mental health recovery journey, providing him with insight into the mental health system, including public and private hospitals and various treatment therapies and programs.

He is passionate about improving the mental health system and applying his skills and experience to improve mental health services, particularly for young people and their carers.

Vice President

Douglas Holmes is Vice President and a founding member of Transforming Australian Mental Health Service Systems (TAMHSS), a mental health think tank set up in Perth in 2009 to allow people interested in system reform to come together and discuss ideas about what issues they would like support with changing the system.

He was MHCN’s Carer Peer Network Facilitator for the Mental Health Carer Advocacy Network from 2020 until 2024. Douglas has had a long involvement with Association of Relatives and Friends of the Mentally Ill (ARAFMI) on the Central Coast and the Hunter, including as current Chairperson of Central Coast ARAFMI Board and is a long-time member of the Yakkalla Community Support Group.

Douglas is the project manager and a volunteer with SUPER CRO, a charity set up in 2018 to aid people with lived experience of mental health distress through education, advocacy, collaboration, feedback and equal representation.

Douglas’s foray into the mental health and addictions sector came later in life after a career within the transport industry. His passion to work with mental health and addiction was sparked by a personal journey of lived experience and recovery. He has worked as an adult peer support/advocacy worker and volunteered as a Consumer Leader.

Douglas was privileged to carry the voice of both consumers and carers to local, regional, and national forums when he was a member of the NSW Consumer Advisory Group Mental Health Inc from 1996 to 1999 and then Executive Officer  from 2000 to 2006. He was also chair of the NSW Consumer Workers Committee, Consumer Participation Officer at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney, and a member of TheMHS Learning Network with a focus on supporting the consumer and carer pre-conference day prior to the main conference.

Douglas lives in Boolaroo as part of Lake Macquarie and enjoys all sports (watching more than participating now) and music, and supports people to organise MAD Pride concerts across Australia.

Secretary

Christian Avent has been an assistant Principal at a NSW Department of Education special needs school with students with mental health diagnoses for over 35 years, and has been a member of MHCN since 2017, and served as the Board Secretary for several years.

She is also the chair of Operation Art, a joint state-wide initiative of DoE and Children’s Hospital at Westmead which has provided art for the psychological and therapeutic benefit of children by children for over 30 years.

Chris has lived experience of mental health issues with family members and has a passion for young people’s mental health welfare.

Ordinary Board Member

Raj Gopalan has over 30 years of experience in the IT and Telecommunications industry in Australia, performing a variety of roles including senior roles in marketing, sales, business development, integration consultant, strategy formulations, program/project management and process improvement and operations for leading organisations like Tatas, Fujitsu, and Telstra.

Raj also has over 25 years of experience as a carer for his daughter with autism, mental development delay and behavioural disorder issues, providing him with rich experience and insight into the mental health system and a solid background for being a strong advocate for carer’s welfare which he is passionate about.

Ordinary Board Member

Simon is a full-time family carer with lived experience of inpatient and community services in Northern Sydney. Prior to working with the NSW Health as a casual carer peer worker, he has over 25 years of experience in education and business.

Simon has an interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Management/Anthropology from the University of Melbourne that focused on organisational effectiveness and street youth.

Simon’s corporate career focus is on entrepreneurship, project financing, fundraising, investment risk management, project management and compliance globally. He is active locally in advocacy work on many technical clinical standard committees and is Co-Chair for the Northern Sydney Carer Network.

In 2021 Simon won the Unsung Hero award for MHDA by leading the development of a carer video project through an innovation grant. He is also an Aged Care Board Member and an Owners Corp Treasurer.

Ordinary Board Member

Nikkie is an experienced public relations and communications professional with over 16 years working across the health, not-for-profit and government sectors. She specialises in turning complex information into accessible content, securing strong media coverage, boosting social engagement and improving organisational communication strategies.

Nikkie is also a carer for her dad, who lives with complex mental health conditions, additional health issues and addiction challenges. Her personal and professional experiences have given her deep insight into the NSW Health system, with much of her career spent in NSW public hospitals and health-focused not-for-profits including The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick and Central Coast Local Health District.

She currently wears many hats: Director of Bright Side Communications; PR and Communications Manager for Life Ed Australia; and a volunteer with Coast Shelter. Through MHCN, she has also recently joined the NSW Health Family and Carer Mental Health Program Steering Committee as a lived experience representative.

Having navigated the challenges of a complex system, Nikkie knows the impact that the right support and follow-up can have, fueling her passion for advocacy. She lives on the Central Coast with her husband and energetic four-year-old son and frequently travels to Western Sydney to support her dad.

Ordinary Board Member

Ali is a psychologist and national mental health leader with experience spanning clinical practice, system reform, governance and multicultural mental health. He currently leads multicultural practice nationally at headspace, where his work focuses on improving equity, cultural responsiveness and access across the mental health system.

Ali serves as a Director of the Justice and Equity Centre and on the Governance Committee of the Australian Multicultural Health Collaborative. His work contributes to policy, advising government and sector leaders, and advancing approaches that strengthen the voice of communities in system design and reform.

Ali brings a strong personal understanding of what it can mean to navigate systems that do not always reflect the realities of community. He believes that in an increasingly stretched mental health system, carers often provide the continuity, advocacy and support that holds things together, much of it unseen and unrecognised.

He is particularly passionate about hidden carers, including young people and people from multicultural communities who may never describe themselves as a “carer” because supporting a loved one is seen as simply part of being family. This drives his commitment to ensuring carers are recognised, heard and valued as genuine partners in care and system reform.

Ordinary Board Member

Alexandra is an experiened legal practitioner, accredited mediator and Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner (FDRP). Alexandra has worked as a lawyer across both public and private legal practices, including working at top tier international law firms. Alexandra also has experience as an educator and trainer, with tertiary qualifications in education. She is committed to trauma-informed, accessible and collaborative approaches to advocacy, education, dispute resolution and service delivery.

Alexandra is also a published author, writing both on the law and Australian History and was a recipient of the Australian National University Vice Challenor’s Awards of Excellence in Education for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning’.

She has extensive experience working with people and families from diverse backgrounds, including culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients. Her work has given her a strong understanding of the challenges people can face when navigating complex legal, health and human services systems, and the importance of ensuring that people and families are heard and supported in those systems.

Alexandra brings to Mental Health Carers NSW her professional experience in law, mediation, education and advocacy, together with a particular interest in supporting carers and families to have their voices heard and to participate meaningfully in the systems that affect them.

Ordinary Board Member

John brings rich lived experience as a carer for an older person, alongside nearly 15 years of state and national healthcare leadership within the NSW Ministry of Health. As a Senior Policy Officer in the NSW Older People’s Mental Health Policy Unit, he has co-authored state guidelines and models of care, and managed statewide clinical benchmarking for older people’s mental health to drive ongoing service improvement.

John is currently the Chair of the national Equally Well Older People’s Mental Health Community of Practice, facilitating cross-jurisdictional collaboration between senior managers, clinicians, and sector stakeholders to improve older persons’ mental health outcomes across Australia. A published researcher and strategic policy leader, John’s work focuses on embedding recovery-oriented practice across healthcare systems and implementing frameworks that significantly improve physical health outcomes and reduce comorbidities for people living with mental illness. John is dedicated to combining high-level health governance and evidence-based practice with meaningful advocacy for carers and their families.