Vale Anne Stedman, President of Mental Health Carers NSW (1955 – 2026)

With great sadness, we announce that Anne Stedman, President of Mental Health Carers NSW (formerly Arafmi NSW), passed away on Wednesday 24th of June 2026 after a short illness. Anne will be remembered as a mother, a carer, a trainer, a Board member, President of MHCN, and a passionate advocate for families and carers supporting people with mental health concerns. 

Starting in education as an administrator and then as a consultant, Anne first became interested in mental health and carer supports as a carer for one of her children after they became unwell around 2005. To learn more, she enrolled in the Certificate IV in Mental Health and Alcohol and Other Drugs and later became a Trauma-informed Care and Practice Organisational Toolkit (TICPOT) accreditor for the Mental Health Coordinating Council. What started as a personal necessity grew into a long and dedicated career spanning mental health community support, psychoeducation, systemic advocacy, and peer work, alongside years of teaching mental health and community education through TAFE, where she remained until earlier this year. 

Anne joined her local carer organisation, Central Coast Arafmi in 2010, and later Hunter Arafmi too, eventually serving as president of both. From there she joined the Board of the state peak body, Mental Health Carers NSW, from 2012 to 2018. Anne was elected MHCN’s President twice, first from 2015 to 2018, and again from 2025 until her passing in June 2026, having stepped back into the role following the death of Jenny Learmont in May 2025. When Anne stepped down from the MHCN Board in 2018 it was to join the staff at MHCN as Deputy CEO and Senior Peer Carer Trainer, a role she retained until rejoining the Board in 2025. In that capacity Anne played a critical role not just in MHCN’s training program but also in supporting and developing the staff themselves, providing supervision and mentorship that left a lasting mark. She was, by every account, a deeply popular collaborator, and her absence will be felt keenly by the team and the carers she worked alongside. 

In 2024, MHCN marked its 50th anniversary and recognised Anne as a Lifetime MHCN Member. This was a fitting tribute, though it barely scratched the surface of what her years of patient, skilful advocacy had given to mental health reform. Her contribution was held in high regard not just within MHCN, but among its partners in government, particularly NSW Health, and across the broader community sector. 

Anne lived the values of the carer and lived-experience movement with tolerance, compassion, and acceptance, championing each person’s unique recovery journey and insisting that services be shaped around the people who use them, not vice-versa. She was a fierce advocate and an even fiercer friend; terribly funny, gloriously inappropriate at the best of times, courageous, and larger than life. Garrulous, witty, down-to-earth and endlessly approachable, she shared her wisdom freely and brought genuine curiosity and compassion to everyone she met. She always had a smile waiting, and a hug ready the moment you needed one. She lived her values out loud, never afraid to push back when something mattered, challenging people in the best possible way and making them think harder about what they believed and why. She loved every community she belonged to. 

Anne faced her illness with the same courage and determination that defined her life, and we had all hoped fiercely for her recovery. That it wasn’t to be is a hard reminder of how fragile and precious life is, and how little time we’re given to share it. In Anne’s case, every moment of that time was well spent. 

Our condolences go out to her children and the rest of her family at this sad time.  Her funeral will take place on the 18^th of July 2026 in Bellingen, NSW.