Keynote speakers

Professor Sue Shore

Director, International Graduate Centre of Education (IGCE), Charles Darwin University

Sue Shore is a Professor in Education (Research) in the School of Education at Charles Darwin University with responsibility for the School’s Research Portfolio.

Sue has more than 30 years teaching, research and education management experience and has built a sustained history of collaboration with community, school, VET and university organizations and colleagues.

Her key areas of research expertise include

• social and cultural politics of education

• situated knowledges in educational practice

• interdisciplinary approaches to educational investigation

• theory-building as racialised practice

• policy analysis and practitioner research.

CDU profile

Jack Buckskin

Cultural mentor, Tauondi Aboriginal College

A proud Kaurna and Narungga man Jack Kanya Kudnuitya Buckskin has dedicated his life to re-learning and passing on his knowledge and language to the future generations of Kaurna people, especially his own children, in which he speaks the once said 'extinct Kaurna language' of the Adelaide Plains.

Through managing and performing song and dance with Kuma Kaaru Cultural Services, teaching Kaurna language and being a strong icon in the revitalisation process of Kaurna language, Jack has had the opportunity to promote and teach about his language and culture around the world.

Jack has also starred in a documentary about his own journey with language called 'Buckskin - a film about Jack' which won the 2013 Sydney film festival's Foxtel documentary prize.

Jack now works with Tauondi Aboriginal College in Port Adelaide as an Aboriginal Cultural Mentor, providing Cultural Awareness and an Indigenous Mentoring Program

Jack believes that the language has come from the land, this is the only place you will find this language in the world, the language was in the country before we were born, the language is still here today and will still be here tomorrow, as residents it is our duty to makes sure this continues, so we need to learn it and use it together.

ABC program (May 2014)

YouTube film trailer

Louise Wignall

Louise has worked in the education sector for the past 25 years as a teacher, researcher, policy advisor and quality assurance manager with a specialisation in adult literacy and learning in the community, vocational education and training (VET) and the workplace.

Her key interest is in 'joining the dots' between policy and practice to improve the quality of learning experiences. Louise has provided advice to a number of Commonwealth Departments over the past ten years on key policy initiatives including the National Foundation Skills Strategy and has recently completed the Scoping for a Foundation Skills Professional Standards Framework as part of the National Foundation Skills Workforce Development Project.

Louise will present on the final report of the NFSS Professional Standards, based on the qualitative and quantitative research undertaken in 2014-15, and recommended in the Report on the Scoping a Foundation Skills Professional Standards Framework in 2013.

Gabrielle Kelly

SAHMRI Wellbeing and Resilience Centre inaugural Director

Gabrielle is the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) Wellbeing and Resilience Centre's inaugural Director. Film-maker, digital media executive, social entrepreneur and strategist, she has been working on human behaviour and systems change in a range of settings. Previously, she ran the ground-breaking Adelaide Thinkers in Residence program, leading significant implementation of change in city design, advanced manufacturing, early childhood education, and positive psychology.

As Senior Vice President of the Health Accord in New York, a digital start up, she developed a business to deliver health and wellbeing products to self-directed health consumers in 1999/2000. This 'capacity for self direction' has gone global and viral with the arrival of the internet.

She commissioned and led the Professor Martin Seligman residency in South Australia with a range of high profile partners to explore the value of positive psychology in building mental wellbeing and resilience and reducing mental illness. South Australia has now accepted Professor Seligman's challenge to become the 'State of Wellbeing', measuring, building, and embedding positive psychology, and wellbeing and resilience science in the community at large.

The vision: to use Professor Seligman's dashboard of wellbeing – Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishment (PERMA) – as a public health message for all citizens across all age cohorts. Like 'Slip Slop Slap', PERMA+ will become the clarion call for a mentally healthy society in Australia.

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