Previous award recipients – 2019
Advocacy Achievement Award
Criteria: The recipient of this award will be acknowledged for their leadership and advocacy efforts, they will have made creative contributions of significance to people with a lived experiences of cerebral palsy and other childhood-onset disabilities.
2019 Award Winner: Joan Gains
Nominated by: Rachel Toovey and her team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute
- Mum to son Nic and a strong advocate for his health and wellbeing and fought for opportunities for him to live life to the fullest
- Co founder of the Cerebral Palsy Support Network in 1995
- Embodies “nothing about us without us. She is passionate about people with disability and their families being integral to health service development and research
- Parent representative on a number of projects at the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne including the development of the Consumer Charter
- A key member of the Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Program at the University of Melbourne. As part of this role, Joan contributed to several transformative projects including the “Hearing Parent Voices” performance at the Malthouse Theatre and the “Parent Voices” video. These projects gave parents of children with disabilities a space to express their experiences and a place for their voices to be heard
- Community Coordinator with the Centre of Research Excellence in Cerebral Palsy (CRE-CP) based at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute over the last 5 years
Joan Gains receiving her award from AusACPDM President Dr Christine Imms
Mentorship Award
Criteria: The recipient of this award will be acknowledged for demonstrating outstanding leadership mentoring students, early career clinicians and colleagues in the field of childhood-onset disabilities. Particular focus is placed on the contribution and impact of mentoring to improve services and care, support of advocacy, promoting professionalism, ongoing education, and promoting research and uptake of research for children with disabilities.
2019 Winner: Tegan Davies (Occupational Therapist) and Therese Everton (Physiotherapist)
Nominated by: Hayley Smithers-Sheedy and the Cerebral Palsy Alliance team
- Awarded for commitment to mentoring clinicians in Ghana
- OT and Physio at Tuggerah office, Cerebral Palsy Alliance
- Tegan spent two years in Ghana, and continued to mentor with Therese on her return
- They have developed alternative, more cost effective ways to continue to provide remote support to clinicians in Ghana.
- This has included development and provision of short EBP information modules for clinicians working with children with CP in regards to assessment, goal setting, therapy and post-intervention evaluation
- They are providing these modules in conjunction with real time guidance and advice using a Messaging App, which enables them to offer real time support up to 4 clinicians at any given time
- They have organised pre-loved specialised disability equipment to be shipped to Ghana each year
- Therese has also assisted in the development of the first mentoring program for 2018 AusACPDM scholarship winners
Tegan Davies (Occupational Therapist) and Therese Everton (Physiotherapist) receiving their award from AusACPDM President Dr Christine Imms