Greetings Earthlings,
It is with warmth and solidarity that the ATDC wishes you happiness and joy for the holiday period. Grab hold of it with both hands and embrace the opportunity to reflect upon the year and recognise your achievements in 2022. Your work continues to support and connect people in our community, and your commitment to excellence in practice is valued and inspiring.
As we find our rhythm into the holidays and emerge into 2023 there’s some change afoot. There will be many opportunities to connect with the state government reform team and the team writing the new Tasmanian Drug Strategy in the first three months.
For those on the frontline, Dan has organised Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Training (ACT) for our sector in February, facilitated by the Grand Master of ACT himself – Russ Harris (save the date – Tuesday 21-Wednesday 22 February 2023).
The marvellous work in our sector, elevating the voices of people with lived experiences of ATODs, is one of our biggest innovations in recent times. The achievements sector wide are noticeable, and the momentum building further. Greg is curating another Lived Experience Forum to be delivered early in 2023. Emily is coordinating our Advocates to work together to deliver a campaign on *insert drum roll*… we don’t know what it will be yet, and that’s the essence of co-design: it’s a slow, methodical process to get the authentic voice out there. True representation takes time to develop and we are giving the Advocates the space to find their voice.
Kyle continues to be a driver of people, and there’s so many opportunities for our Advocates. Getting my Nostradamus on for a second, I predict that we will reach a tipping point where demand may well outstrip the capacity of the Lived Experience Advocate Service to provide Advocates to everyone who requests them, and that this will occur sometime in 2023.
Thankyou to Liz Knox, Ruzina Dahal and Shanthini Gurung – who are also in our team but who work across the organisation assisting everyone.
And lastly – we hope our wonderful Chief Executive Officer – Alison Lai – is living her best life (she would be). She’s only been gone a fortnight- but if you are reading this Ali- we miss you, see you in May.
The ATDC office will be closed 12 noon 23 December, and reopen Tuesday January 3, I return to the office January 9 but please do not hesitate to call me if you wish to raise anything,
Have the best time and remember look after yourself, family and friends.
Jackie
Dr Jackie Hallam
Chief Executive Officer
Jackie’s career path reveals a lifelong learner, always searching for, and interrogating, contemporary evidence-based knowledge to drive policy and research work for the ATDC. Jackie enjoys applying this skill when collaborating on strategy, thinking about systems and problem solving generally.Read more✖Dr Jackie Hallam
Jackie’s career path reveals a lifelong learner, always searching for, and interrogating, contemporary evidence-based knowledge to drive policy and research work for the ATDC. Jackie enjoys applying this skill when collaborating on strategy, thinking about systems and problem solving generally. Jackie is committed to alcohol and other drug subject matter demonstrated through a rich tapestry of experience in roles such as researcher, frontline work in needle and syringe programs, program evaluation and now in the policy role she has held since 2016. In more recent years Jackie has become well practiced at people management and loves to be part of a team – especially a team like this one at the ATDC. Working with Alison and the team is a career highlight and she feels like the team has hit a ‘sweet spot’ with the current mix of skills and talents, underpinned by strong shared values. Jackie would love to see a time when there are sophisticated conversations about alcohol and other drugs. In her words “…drugs have long been used by humans, it is time that we stop discriminating against people who use. Most people use alcohol and or drugs with minimal harm or disruption to their lives, but there exist some who experience way more harm- why is that?” Career highlight:
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Tasmania, 2006 – ‘Rise and Stall of Harm Reduction Policy in Australia, 1980 – 2000’
