Introducing our current mentors
Meet our team of dedicated mentors currently supporting our pharmacies
Alana Cartner
Alana Cartner is a registered Accredited Exercise Scientist through Exercise & Sport Science Australia (ESSA) and also a Mental Health Practitioner. She has recently completed a Master of Mental Health Practice at Griffith University. Alana's particular interests are in pain science, mental health, and neurological conditions. She is currently working in this area of expertise. Alana has had an extensive amount of experience working with vulnerable people, particularly those with Severe & Persistent Mental Illness (SPMI). Alana aims to specialise in this clientele following the completion of a Master of Clinical Exercise Physiology, and treat participants more specifically with a comorbidity of SPMI and physical disabilities. Alana strives to advocate for those who cannot advocate for themselves as she has experienced SPMI first-hand. These experiences have led Alana to facilitate several Mental Health First Aid trainings where she has educated community members and service providers in how to provide effective mental health supports to participants with and/or without SPMI.
Helena Roennfeldt
Helena Roennfeldt is a lived experience researcher and PhD candidate. Her research explores the experiences of mental health crisis and formal mental health crisis responses. Helena has researched extensively on the development of the Lived Experience workforce in Australia. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work, Forensic Mental Health, Suicidology and Mental Health Practice. Helena has over 20 years’ experience working in the mental health sector and her academic, practical and lived experience informs her knowledge and skills base in qualitative research.
Kayla Lee
Kayla Lee is a practising community pharmacist and pharmacy owner in ACT & NSW. After completing a Master of Pharmacy at the University of Canberra in 2015, Kayla went on to complete a Graduate Certificate in Mental Health Practice which fuelled her passion for mental health service delivery within a community pharmacy. Kayla won the University of Sydney Innovative Pharmacist of the Year award in 2017 for a mental health program she designed and delivered out of Capital Chemist Wanniassa. Kayla is honoured to be a part of the PharMIbridge trial and is looking forward to seeing the positive impacts on the communities of interest.
Dr Lisa Kouladjian O'Donnell
Dr Lisa Kouladjian O’Donnell is a consultant pharmacist and research fellow in geriatric pharmacotherapy at the Sydney Medical School, The University of Sydney, and the Kolling Institute, Royal North Shore Hospital, NSW. Lisa’s research primarily focuses on improving quality use of medicines in older adults. She conducts research to identify patients’, healthcare practitioners’ and researchers’ perspectives, barriers and enablers of deprescribing medications, and develops strategies to overcome challenges of deprescribing in practice. She significantly contributes towards the development of deprescribing tools and guidelines to improve medication management in older adults. Lisa has contributed towards the development and validation of The Drug Burden Index Calculator© and the Goal-directed Medication review Electronic Decision Support System (G-MEDSS)© - computerised clinical decision support systems that are designed to aid de-prescribing for pharmacists and general practitioners during medication reviews
Luke (Lucian) Kelly
Luke Kelly has worked in the Pharmacy industry since 1976, initially as an assistant, then student pharmacist, pharmacist, pharmacist in charge and pharmacy owner. Since selling the business, he has moved into a Pharmacy Business Consultant role, as well as Pharmacy broker. He has been a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia since 1986 and of the Newcastle and Hunter Valley Pharmacists Association (NHVPA). In 2011 he became a committee member of the NHVPA and served as President since 2016 and was also a member of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia from 1988 to 2016. Drawing on his experience in the Pharmacy industry he lectures final (4th) year Pharmacy students at the University of Newcastle in the course Clinical Leadership (PHAR4204). During his time as a pharmacy owner, he took great pride in being able to mentor young pharmacists in their career. Since selling the business, and through his connections to the NHVPA and the University of Newcastle, this mentoring/coaching role has become central to how he conducts business and teaching. He enjoys providing a balanced perspective about the challenges of running an ethical professional business in a challenging and competitive economic environment.
Dr Pene Wood
Dr Pene Wood is a general practice pharmacist working in both Aboriginal and Community Health in Victoria. She participated in the IPAC pharmacy trials program in 2019 and remains employed as the practice pharmacist at the participating ACCHO. She specialises in pain and addiction and is currently a PhD candidate at La Trobe University looking at the pharmacist’s role in opioid management in particular in the prevention and early identification of opioid dependence. She was the first pharmacist to participate as part of the Pain Revolution outreach tour and remains heavily involved with the ongoing work including becoming a mentor for the local pain education program. She has a special interest in mental health in particular where it insects with addiction and people’s experience of persistent pain and has been a Mental Health First Aid instructor for 4 years conducting numerous courses for pharmacists and pharmacy staff and for pharmacy students at La Trobe University where she was a lecturer in the pharmacy program from 2010-2020 and remains an adjunct lecturer.
Vicki Jennar
Vicki has worked in a Support role for 10 years for NDIS participants and those living with a mental illness. She has worked with Community Justice Program (CJP) clients and One Door Mental Health as a Carer Advocate and support for carers of loved ones living with a mental illness, and most recently in a recovery-focused drop-in centre. Vicki is passionate in supporting consumers to live their best lives and understands the importance of having a holistic and person-centred approach.
Previous mentors who have contributed to the RCT
Other mentors who have supported the research team
Carli Sheers
Carli Sheers began studying at Edith Cowan University in the 90s and secured a Bachelor of Business and coordinated international conferences. After this time, she personally experienced mental health issues which prompted her to become very active in the mental health sector. Reaching out to the community mental health organisation Grow changed her life. It was also the catalyst for facing her own self stigma and ultimately set her on a course of self-determination. Carli’s leadership and openness to her recovery resulted in her appointment as a WA Consumer Representative on the National Register for Mental Health Australia. She is passionate about using her own experiences and enjoys an extensive network of peers and colleagues that she may draw on with their consent to assist government, organisations, researchers, individuals, and health professionals. She understands and overcame mental health challenges such as social isolation, mental health stigma and discrimination, economic marginalisation, and impairments/reduced ability to function. She feels privileged to have reached self-agency, full citizenship and socioeconomic participation in the Australian community. Building on her tertiary education, Carli qualified in community services, mental health and training and assessment, and founded her own mental health education and training micro-business last year. She provides consultancy on a local, state and national level with 14 current representations, and is sought out for speaking at state and national mental health conferences. Carli co-facilitated an Empathy Workshop at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Empathy Symposium in December 2019. In addition, she co-presented at the 2019 WA Mental Health Conference and Mental Health Australia National Register and National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum 2019 Annual Workshop. This demonstrates her ability to integrate her own experiences of mental distress and recovery into her life, retain value from this lived experience and share wisdom with others.
Dr Katherine Gill
Dr Katherine Gill is a Senior Occupational Therapist, Lived Experience Researcher at the University of Sydney and guest lecturer at the University of Technology, Sydney. She is passionate about improving the quality of services to better meet people’s wellbeing and recovery needs; harnessing the power of lived experience in the co-design of services and in research studies, and also breaking down stigma and barriers to care. She was awarded the 2018 Hocking Fellowship, 2019 Lived Experience Leadership award and was a finalist in the 2019 Disability Leadership, Change Maker award and 2020 finalist for the Telstra Women’s Business Award, for Purpose and Social Enterprise.
Lathalia Song
Lathalia Song is a mental health advocate with Primary Health Network and One Door NSW. Also an artist, teacher and writer at Heffalump Dezign Art School, Authora Australis and FlyWaterLeaf screen-printing, poetry studio. Nature and creativity have brought healing to her story of being a young carer for family, with bipolar, and an eating disorder, and for her own recovery from childhood stress disorder, then also a carer as a mother. Learning from volunteering and teaching those with mental health symptoms and life challenges she is convinced that a healthy connection with nature, spirituality, ourselves, and others can heal.
This RCT is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health as part of the Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement.