speakers
Emeritus Professor Judy Atkinson is a Jiman (central west Queensland) and Bundjalung (Northern New South Wales) woman, with Anglo-Celtic and German heritage. As the founder of We Al-li she is currently their patron and working across many community-based trauma healing programs.
She is an international renowned leader and researcher in intergenerational trauma. Her academic contributions to the understanding of trauma related issues stemming from the violence of colonisation and the healing/recovery of Indigenous peoples from such trauma has won her the Carrick Neville Bonner Award in 2006 for her curriculum development and innovative teaching practice.
In 2011 she was awarded the Fritz Redlick Memorial Award for Human Rights and Mental Health from the Harvard University program for refugee trauma. Her best-selling book ‘Trauma Trails – Recreating Songlines:
The transgenerational effects of trauma in Indigenous Australia’, provides context to the life stories of people who have been moved from their country in a process that has created trauma trails, and the changes that can occur in the lives of people as they make connection with each other and share their stories of healing. Judy is a A member of the Harvard Global Mental Health Scientific Research Alliance and Chair of the Australian Childhood Foundations Cultural Governance Group.
On the 26 January 2019 Judy received a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for her outstanding services to the Indigenous community, to education and to mental health.
Debbie McGrath lives and works on Wiradjuri country. She is a social worker who is passionate and committed to women's rights especially in regards to domestic and family violence, sexual assault within marriage and sexual assault.
Debbie has twenty-nine years’ experience with the NSW Homicide Victims Support Group as a member and volunteer and experience with the Restorative Justice Unit in the NSW Department of Communities & Justice.
Debbie participated in her own restorative justice conference with her brother Michael’s murderer before he was released on parole. Debbie’s conference changed her life, she left her conference a different person then when she went in and Debbie started to heal. Debbie has gone on to be support person with two other families in their conferences. They were both completely different and they were both healing and empowering experiences. Debbie came out of her conference a changed person.
Debbie has recently become involved with Transforming Justice Australia, a unique restorative justice program in Australia that prioritises the needs and perspectives of survivors of sexual and family violence.
Professor Jennifer Llewellyn
Jennifer Llewellyn is Professor of Law, Chair in Restorative Justice and Director of the Restorative Research, Innovation and Education Lab at the Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, her teaching and research focus on relational theory, restorative justice, justice transformation, truth commissions, peacebuilding, international and domestic human rights law, public law, and Canadian constitutional law.
She has advised governments and NGO’s, supported many governments, projects and programs including the Nova Scotia Restorative Justice Program, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, the South African and Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the governments of Columbia, the Jamaican New Zealand and the United Nations. She was appointed as an expert on the UN mechanism to review the UN Basic Principles for the Use of Restorative Justice in Criminal Matters. Additionally, Professor Llewellyn facilitated the design process for the first restorative public inquiry and served as a commissioner for the Inquiry into the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children.
Recognized for her contribution in the field of restorative justice, Professor Llewellyn was awarded the National Ron Wiebe Restorative Justice Award from Correctional Services Canada in 2015, was the 2018 recipient of the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council National Impact Award, the highest award for research achievement and impact in Canada, and in 2019, she received the Dalhousie University President's Research Excellence Award for Research Impact.
A/Professor Jane Bolitho
Jane Bolitho, PhD is an Associate Professor, holds the Diana Unwin Chair in Restorative and leads Te Ngāpara the Centre for Restorative Practice at Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington New Zealand. The Centre is a multidisciplinary team of researchers and practitioners established to increase the reach and quality of restorative interventions in government and civil society organisations in Aotearoa New Zealand.As a social scientist Jane’s research explores the experiences of those coming before adversarial systems with a view to critically considering transformative, healing and justice alternatives. Jane is the co-founder of Transforming Justice Australia, sits on the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Restorative Justice, the ethics committee for RJ4All, the Global Advisory Council for Restorative Justice International and is a member of the RJ committee for Resolution Institute.