Keynote Speakers
KEYNOTES 2025
DR. HALEY PECKHAM - Centre for Mental Health Nursing - University of Melbourne
Dr Haley Peckham is a neuroscientist, mental health nurse, and educator whose work bridges biology and lived experience.
Drawing from her own journey of recovery from complex trauma, she brings a deeply personal and insightful perspective to the fields of mental health and neuroscience. With a background in philosophy, psychotherapy, Mental Health Nursing, and neuroscience, Haley has long been driven by the question of how early life experiences shape our brains, minds, and behaviours. Her early work with children and adolescents in care—many of whom later became over represented in the criminal justice and mental health systems—inspired a career-long pursuit to understand the connections between adversity and adaptation.
Keynote: MHNs Challenging the Narratives That Limit and Lessen Our Contribution.
SHIBS SHARPE - University of Melbourne.
Shibs is a proud Wulgurukaba, Gunggandji woman originally from Far North Queensland.
In a past life Shibs worked in paint & hardware, construction administration and project management. Recognising the significant impacts of intergenerational trauma within her family and through her own experiences, she moved into the mental health sector 4.5 years ago and has worked across a variety of consumer lived experience peer support, academic & leadership roles. Shibs’ first role in the lived experience space saw her become the lead peer worker in the development and implementation of RMH MHS Safe Haven and her contributions have since spread to numerous LE initiatives across Victoria. Ensuring the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice and Social and Emotional Wellbeing lens is captured and highlighted in every space she works in, her passions lay in the areas of complex trauma, the intricacies of grief, suicide prevention and postvention, social injustices and addressing ongoing systemic issues within the mental health sector.
Keynote: Decolonising the Mental Health System – A SEWB & Lived Experience Perspective.
ANNA LOVE - Chief Mental Health Nurse and Executive Director Clinical and Professional Leadership Unit.
Anna was appointed Victoria’s Chief Mental Health Nurse in 2015 and comes with experience across mental health and addictions medicine, having trained and worked in the UK before moving to Australia. Anna’s vision is to ensure we have a skilled, valued, and nurtured mental health nursing workforce. In 2022, Anna was additionally appointed as Executive Director of the Clinical and Professional Leadership Unit within Safer Care Victoria.
Anna is the executive sponsor of the Mental Health Improvement Program, leading significant reform and improvement projects in response to the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System. Anna provides expert advice on quality and safety matters to the CEO of Safer Care Victoria and the Department of Health. As Executive Director, Anna oversees and supports the work of Victoria’s Chief Clinical Officers.
Keynote: Celebrating Mental Health Nurses Doing Extraordinary Things.
DR. TESSA MAGUIRE - Senior Lecturer in Forensic Mental Health Nursing.
Tess has a joint appointment with Centre for Forensic Behavioural Science Swinburne University of Technology and the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health (Forensicare). She has extensive experience in development and delivery of professional development. Her research focuses on enhancing forensic mental health nursing practice, including nursing interventions to reduce the use of restrictive interventions. She was the recipient of the International Association of Forensic Mental Health Services, Christopher Webster Early Career Award in 2020 and received a National Award from the Australian Council on Healthcare Standard for her clinical excellence and patient safety. In 2022 she received the Chris Abderhalden Award for Young Researchers in the Field of Aggression in Healthcare at the 12th European Congress on Violence in Clinical Psychiatry.
Keynote: Marvelous Models and More.