Vision
I am committed to advocating for a more inclusive world where neurodivergent individuals who have done their part to meet society's expectations, can learn, work and thrive in their unique ways, free of bias or stigma.
My Story
I'm a neurodivergent individual, and I wear many hats: a mother, sister, daughter, friend, colleague, advocate, impertinent question asker, over-sharing, ski-obsessed, cat owner.
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I'm also a certified late bloomer, and my career has taken a winding road. From a fledgling occupying the lavish corporate offices in St Kilda Road, Melbourne to the even more lavish Crown Towers Hotel in Southbank. But the turning point was a fortunate moment where a financial counsellor spoke on ABC Radio Melbourne about the work they do and took some talkback calls. I knew from that moment that would be my next step and by February 2016, I was enrolled at RMIT Melbourne in the Diploma of Financial Counselling course.
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From learning new skills and utilising many that I had already developed, my passion for working in the community services sector continues to grow and working as a financial counsellor has been the highlight of my career so far.
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Working in such a supportive sector, my needs as an AuDHD'er (Autistic/ADHD) were supported and have adapted over time. Some of it was luck, much of it is about working in a diverse team - we are all so different and have our own journeys that have led us to Uniting in Broadmeadows.
Despite working in a diverse sector, I noticed no mention of autism, ADHD, or neurodivergence - anywhere. So in 2022, I reached out to our training coordinator at FC Vic inquiring whether we could build a training session to help financial counsellors understand more about neurodivergence and why it is relevant to our sector. The answer (being yes of course!) started me on a path that stretches long into the distance.
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Since then, I have run many professional development sessions for the financial counselling sector, delivered a live seven-minute SPOT talk at our national conference in Canberra in 2023, written a guide as a follow-up for the SPOT talk, and delivered numerous presentations including one to the Victorian Energy and Water Ombudsman (EWOV) and numerous community groups who wanted to know more about neurodivergence.
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In 2023 I was awarded the Uniting 'Living our values' award (Bold, Compassionate, Imaginative, Respectful) for my work supporting neurodivergent clients and advocacy within my sector and organisation.
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My vision for the future is to focus on education, from the outside in. This means, speaking with leaders about increasing understanding of neurodivergence in our community to improve employment outcomes for one of the most unemployed groups in our community, and then using my detailed understanding of financial hardship to improve the lives of autistic and neurodivergent young people because:
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Financial literacy is not about wealth creation,
it's about hardship prevention
and that starts with education.
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