Chair Commissioner - Treasure Jennings
Treasure Jennings is the Chair Commissioner of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission. Treasure brings experience in senior leadership roles where she has worked to elevate consumer rights. She has spent the past two and a half years as the joint Mental Health Complaints Commissioner and Disability Services Commissioner. She is also a former Public Transport Ombudsman and has more than twenty years of general management and senior leadership experience in several other statutory entities.
Treasure is passionate about the rights of people experiencing mental health issues. She is drawn to work that involves system reform and process improvements, especially where those improvements support the structural and cultural changes needed to promote a kinder, more compassionate service and community approach to diversity, trauma and individual needs. Treasure brings a personal experience to her role, both as someone with an experience of mental health issues and as someone with a long history of engagement with the mental health system as a carer, family member and supporter.
Commissioner - Kathleen Maggie Toko
Maggie Toko is a Commissioner of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission who brings her lived experience of mental illness to her role. She has experience from a variety of positions ranging from work as a consumer consultant to roles in not-for-profit leadership. She is the former CEO of the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council (VMIAC) and most recently, the Assistant Commissioner of the Mental Health Complaints Commissioner.
Her experience as CEO of VMIAC gave her great insight into the consumer movement and the challenges that consumers face daily. This coupled with her work in homelessness, sexual assault and youth work makes her determined to fight for change and to raise the voice of the unheard. Maggie identifies as indigenous to Aotearoa and is of Ngapuhi - Ngati Whatua descent. She also identifies as same sex attracted and as someone with a lived experience of mental illness. Maggie is a fierce believer in human rights and has a strong commitment to ensuring that the voices of all consumers are not only heard but listened to.
Commissioner - Jacqueline Gibson
Jacqueline Gibson as a Commissioner of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission brings her lived experience as a family member, carer or supporter of someone experiencing mental illness or psychological distress to her role. With experience in governance, regulation, advocacy, community development, and human rights, she has been a board member on a variety of national and state bodies, including organisations in the community and not-for-profit sectors. Jacqueline also has extensive advisory and consumer representation experience in the mental health sector through work with Tandem, Black Dog Institute, Independent Mental Health Advocacy, and the Victorian Mental Illness Awareness Council.
An advocate of justice and service quality in the mental health, housing, and disability sectors, Jacqueline has lived experience of mental health challenges in association with homelessness. Jacqueline also has an in-depth understanding of systems, processes, and policy, and is passionate about creating the best outcomes for people living with mental illness and those close to them.
Jacqueline is also passionate about the role of reconciliation in the Aboriginal experience of mental health, and wants to practically address inadequate service, injustice, trauma and discrimination experienced by First Nations people.
Commissioner - Annabel Brebner
Annabel Brebner as a Commissioner of the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission is an experienced executive, economist and public policy consultant. She has over 17 years of experience advising Commonwealth and State governments across a range of social policy matters including health, mental health, and areas of intersection. Annabel has experience of the Victorian Government context drawn during her time as Director, Performance Audit with the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office.
She also has a strong background in mental health through her work in ACIL Allen’s Health and Mental Health policy and evaluation practice, where she worked on projects including the National Mental Health Workforce Strategy Taskforce, and the evaluation of various initiatives addressing the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System's recommendations where she evaluated many programs.
Passionate about sport, community and creating a sense of belonging, Annabel has experienced mental ill health as a consumer and a carer of family members experiencing suicidality and mental ill health, and understands the life-changing impacts when treatment, care and support are unavailable or fall short of what is needed. Annabel is deeply passionate about system reform, and understands the importance of meaningful monitoring, reporting and oversight arrangements.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) - Simon McKenzie
As an admitted lawyer with experience as a company director, Simon McKenzie has over 20 years of operational, senior management and executive-level experience in the private and not-for-profit sectors. He has experience in roles where he has worked to elevate the rights of consumers, including at the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman and Public Transport Ombudsman. Simon’s work has contributed towards system and service improvement through engaging with consumer complaints, people with lived experience, and advocates of those who face barriers to accessing services, education, work and social connection.
Simon has experience of the mental health system as a family member and supporter of someone experiencing mental illness. Simon also brings experience of the National Disability Service and state funded disability support services as Non-Executive Director and former Chair of Distinctive Options, an ACNC-listed NDIS provider in Sunbury, Bendigo, Brimbank and Bairnsdale. Simon spent his early years in Gippsland, and now lives regionally while working in Melbourne. Simon is passionate about fair access to publicly provided services and working toward better outcomes for consumers, carers and family members who rely on the public mental health and wellbeing system.
General Manager, Lived Experience - Danilo Di Giacomo
Danilo Di Giacomo has been appointed as the Commission’s inaugural General Manager, Lived Experience and will start in the role from 22 November 2023.
As General Manager, Lived Experience, Danilo will be pivotal in helping the commission promote lived experience across the sector and engage the knowledge and wisdom of the consumer and carer communities in the strategic directions of the MHWC.
Danilo comes to the Commission from the Department of Health, where he worked as Director, Consumer, Lived Experience. This role provided strategic and operational advice across the Mental Health and Wellbeing Division as it implemented the recommendations from the Royal Commission and oversaw Victoria’s mental health services.
Prior to this, Danilo was manager of the Lived Experience Policy team of the former Mental Health Branch. Danilo also has previous experience in the criminal justice and sexual health sectors.
Danilo is committed to meaningfully including the voice of people with lived experience in both, their care, and in how the mental health system works.
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