Taking things step by step is how I have learned to live my life . . .

​

I started Disability Supports to help others to find this approach in their lives. Life can get overwhelming and sometimes that extra support guiding you to navigate those steps can make all the difference.

​

Life has led me down many interesting paths. I lost my Mum to breast cancer at just 19 years old. This was devastating and shook my life to the core, I got to experience the reality and raw feelings of grief and loss. With appropriate help I was able to realise this loss also gave me the chance to move from Colorado in America, to study Social Work at the University of Queensland in Australia. A move that changed my life in so many positive ways. I fell in love with Australia - the country and the culture - and while I visit America, I have never returned to live.

​

I feel very lucky to now live in a country that supports people the way that we do. I have had the pleasure to work along-side many people, and their families, to help them access support and to work through their own feelings and emotions; to set goals and obtain life dreams; or at times to just make it by, day by day when the world is too much.

​

At different points in my life, I have had to rely on similar support mechanisms. Like my mother I had to navigate the health system, when diagnosed with a life threatening condition, and rely on others to help me take one step at a time until I could start to step up again on my own.

​

I have had an extensive career working in the State Government at Disability Services, working as a Social Worker and then Managing the Clinical Teams across the North Coast Region. It was a career path I thought I would continue following for many years. With the introduction of the NDIA, all the offices were closed and we all had to find other employment options.

 

I chose to make the best I could of this situation and packed up me and my dog into a campervan. We took off for 10 months driving the whole country and seeing the most amazing sights. It gave me a lot of time for thinking and reflecting on the work I would like to do and the mark I really want to leave on the world…I wanted to return to working with people directly. I relish the joy of learning about a person and helping them see the glimmer in their future.

 

I returned home with the plan of setting up Disability Supports, a service where I could walk alongside people and help them through the trenches and valleys that come with life. A chance to impart my social work skills and theories along with experiences gained from my own life challenges.

​

The images on this website, both of me and the water,  are from the final leg of my journey - my final campsite at Nug Nug Victoria and a hike through Mt Beauty Gorge, just before turning for home. It is a time I could clearly see the path I wanted to take with an aim of being able to help others and people with disabilities to navigate their own paths and for a clearer vision of their future.