Here For You Since 1976
Franco Guazzelli
Chair
Franco brings significant lived experience of being a carer for a person with a mental health illness and with dementia and has been involved with HelpingMinds® since first joining and then running a share and care peer support group in 1996. In a time when the organisation was much smaller, Franco volunteered his time and skills including with the management of the purchase and refurbishment of the HelpingMinds® head office building.
He is a contractor, with many years of experience including previously running his own building company as a registered builder.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Finance Sub-Committee and Governance Sub-Committee
Deborah Childs
Chief Executive Officer
Deborah is the Chief Executive Officer of HelpingMinds® and leads a team of over 100 to deliver quality support services to families touched by mental ill health.
Prior to taking on this role Deborah was General Manager, Broadcast and Media at Sky Television in Auckland, New Zealand.
Deborah began her television career as a Presentation Director and Editor with Television New Zealand in the mid-eighties. Her career path saw her rise to management level, securing roles with Television New Zealand and, for the last eleven years, with Sky Television.
Having enjoyed over 25 years in the television industry Deborah made the decision to move into the ‘not for profit’ arena. In 2013 her family returned to Perth, WA, where she commenced her work with HelpingMinds.
Deborah brings a wealth of experience in television operations and in management of both smaller ventures and larger corporate enterprises.
Dr Bernadette Wright
Vice Chair
From February 1997 to May 2016, Bernadette was the Senior Clinical Psychologist with WA’s Transcultural Mental Health Service where she specialised in inter-relationship of mental health and cultural issues for migrants and refugees. She is now in a private transcultural mental health practice, a Co-Director of CrossCultural Intellect, and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Curtin University. Bernadette’s work encompasses direct clinical service delivery, advice to community groups and service providers, developing and delivering numerous training seminars and workshops on various aspects of culture and mental health. Her work at the Transcultural Mental Health Service included providing advice to government and community groups in addition to undertaking collaborative research and publications with various universities. Bernadette’s comprehensive range of resource development initiatives were aimed at improving mental health literacy among ethnoculturally diverse groups and facilitating the transcultural process between the practitioner and consumer, their carer(s) and family.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Governance Sub-Committee
Kerry Hawkins
Board Director
A graduate of Boston University’s Global Leadership Institute’s Recovery Class of 2013, Kerry is able to draw on both her lived experience as a family member of someone experiencing extreme and enduring distress, together with a professional career working as a project management consultant, strategic advisor for a federal government agency, and as a Director within the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA). She was the carer representative on the Western Australian Association for Mental Health (WAAMH) board for four years and is currently President of WAAMH. She is also the WA director for Emerging Minds, a national mental health organisation focusing on improving mental health outcomes for children, parents and families and a Board Member of Community Mental Health Australia (CMHA). She is a Commissioner on the National Mental Health Commission.
Nigel Dias
Board Director
Nigel joined the HelpingMinds Board in 2021, having been inspired to join through his lived experience as a mental health carer. Nigel has over 15 years’ experience of providing accounting and audit services to the not-for-profit sector. He is a chartered accountant and a registered company auditor. Nigel believes in tackling issues with empathy, walking a mile in someone’s shoes to understand why decisions were made, and operating with transparency. This enables him to quickly navigate delicate issues and ultimately, provide answers. Nigel believes in giving back to the community and works closely with a variety of not-for-profit organisations. Nigel is married with two children.
Special responsibilities: Board Treasurer, Chair of the Finance Sub-Committee
Elisabeth Stevenson
Board Director
Elisabeth has been exposed to the impact of mental illness on family life from early childhood, having had an aunt with a chronic mental illness and a sister who has lived with the same illness for the past 40 years. Having studied law as a mature aged student, Elisabeth has an LLB (Hons) and has been practising primarily in administrative law, for the past 15 years. Prior to studying law Elisabeth worked as a Senior Investigator for the State Ombudsman and in a variety of management roles in local government. She is married with a ‘blended’ family of 4 children. Elisabeth is keen to use the skills she has acquired in various different capacities to support the provision of services for carers of the mentally ill.
Special responsibilities: Chair of the Governance Sub-Committee, Chair of the Partnership Review Sub-Committee
Mani (Manjula) Vekaria
Board Director
Mani has been fortunate to have lived and worked in both the Public and Private sectors in three continents, Europe (London), Africa (Nairobi), and now Australia (Perth). She maintains a close relationship with her community, which originates from Kutch, Gujarat, India. She volunteers at various events throughout the year and has previously served on her community committee as Vice President for three years. Mani has an insight on how communities work when living in different countries and the challenges this brings for families. Mental Health is not talked about openly in many minority communities due to stigma. Families try to manage the mental illness internally rather than reach out for assistance. Having witnessed first-hand the trauma and difficulty that the person affected and the carer is faced with Mani wishes to bring awareness of the assistance and support that HelpingMinds® can provide to assist the person, families and carers on their difficult journeys.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Finance Sub-Committee and Partnership Review Sub-Committee
Kassem Seedat
Company Secretary
Kassem practises as a business and property lawyer. His experiences in the legal profession have shown him the importance of good mental health for all, and how critical this is in making good decisions and living a stable life.
Kassem has volunteered at non-profit and charitable bodies for much of his life, believing that these are part of the backbone of thriving civil societies, which deserve every support. He is committed to principled, effective action in aid of these causes.
Fred Yasso
Board Director
Fred has worked in the mental health and health sector for the last 12 years, predominately in the Social Services, Health and Mental Health space for Government, and is passionate about providing Mental Health services to the community. As an Aboriginal man from Queensland, Fred has an in-depth knowledge of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Mental Health, having lived and worked in the Indigenous community all his life. Previously, Fred has been a Director on the board of an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, and worked and provided services to Remote, Rural and Urban Indigenous communities.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Finance Sub-Committee
Leslie Delaforce
Board Director
A Gumbaynggirr man with a strong understanding of Aboriginal people and culture, Leslie has worked in disability, mental health, the public sector and Indigenous Affairs space and most recently as a company director in a technological start up business operating in the disability sector. With the combination of strong governance knowledge combined with operational experience in many fields, Leslie identifies innovative methods and focusses on the impact that technology can have on individuals, businesses and the community. Already widely recognised and awarded as a business leader, Leslie has a passion for development within the community.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Governance Sub-Committee and Partnership Review Sub-Committee
Mark Pestell
Board Director
Mark brings lived experience as a carer for a person with mental illness. Additionally, he has worked in various WA health services for more than 40 years as a Social Worker, a Business Manager, and the last fifteen as Area Manager for South Metropolitan Mental Health Service
. He remains committed to development of improved mental health services for consumers of mental health services and their carers. He continues as the chair of the headspace Consortium Advisory Group (Fremantle), member of Murdoch University Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and member of the Perth Voices Clinic Research Advisory Group.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Finance Sub-Committee
Imogen Davies
Board Director
Imogen joined the HelpingMinds board in December 2020. Imogen worked as a clinical speech pathologist and manager before moving into project management to fulfil her passion for service development. She has since managed a number of large and complex health service initiatives within WA Health. Imogen brings knowledge and skills in clinical planning, governance, and project and change management. She is passionate about improving mental health outcomes and optimising use of available health resources.
Special responsibilities: Member of the Governance Sub-Committee
