Kaete Walker

1. Personal background.

My immediate close family consists of: a) my 25 year old daughter, currently a university student, and part time mental health support worker, living in Sydney; b) my mother, 86 years of age, and more than quite energetic and spritely; c) my primary school teacher sister, three years younger than I; d) my six years younger brother, and his spouse; and, e) many nieces, and a nephew. All of whom, I feel immensely proud.

Family and friends are very strong interests, and very strong sources of enjoyment. Some other, ongoing, major interests being bicycle riding, maintaining various email lists of one sort or another, listening to music, particularly classical music, doing daily meditation, reading poetry, having an interest in the meanings, origins and usuage of words, and an interest in sociology/social theory. Being female, but, in the distant past, previously male, I also have some continuing interest in gender, particularly transgender, research.

In addition to the professional experience, below, I’ve also had the experience of being a survivor of the suicides of two my own close relatives (my brother in 1996, and my father in 1999), and, before that, two friends. This personal experience gives me somewhat a reasonably unique perspective, I expect. The suicides took much time, and pain, to recover from and, I suggest, that if one can possibly avoid the experience of suicide, yours and/or your relatives/friends, I very highly recommend that you do so.

2. Professional background and studies.

May, 2012, marked the 61st  anniversary of my birth. Additionally, the year 2012 marked the 41st anniversary of my commencement as a first year, trainee psychiatric/mental health nurse at the, then, Newcastle Psychiatric Centre, although later to be known as the James Fletcher Hospital.

Many changes there have been over the last forty years or so in mental health services in NSW, Australia, and most, at least it seems to me, have been very much for the better.

My work career has been, variously: a) in the very beginning, for three years a trainee clerk, firstly with a local city council, and later with a local university; b) a trainee psychiatric nurse, and later, a community psychiatric/mental health nurse (several times over, in various localities); c) a hospital based psychiatric nurse in the UK; d) a trainee general nurse; e) a generalist nurse working in emergency and acute care; f) a welfare officer, pursuant the 1958 NSW Mental Health Act; g) a co-ordinator of a small rural mental health service located in the NSW South West health region; h) a university tutor and clinical supervisor, University of Newcastle; i) a mental health clinical nurse consultant; j) a project officer (with the organisation ARAFMI) developing and overseeing a hospital based support programme (the ‘Family to Family’ project) for relatives of persons having mental illness; k) a co-ordinator, with a non govt rehabilitation service, Kaiyu Enterprises, for persons having mental illness disability; l) a part time national secretary, and executive member,  the former Bicycle Federation of Australia;  m) a transgender project worker, with the Women and Girls Emergency Centre (WAGEC See also: http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/33942 and http://www.gendercentre.org.au/68article1.htm) in inner Sydney, NSW; and, n) for several years a TAFE teacher (eg, in the course, Cert IV Mental Health Non Clinical.)

Over the last several most recent years I’ve worked for a regional NSW area health service as a community based nurse clinician, providing counselling and case management. Work I much enjoy doing.

My formal undergraduate and post graduate studies, past, have been in the fields of nursing, social welfare, education and training, social policy, theology, and gender. What has been of very most beneficially taught me, I believe, in all of the above, has been that of the importance of critical thinking. The importance of questioning that which is perceived the immediately obvious, and too, the importance of examining the influence of hegomonic social, and political, ideologies in shaping, and perhaps, often times, limiting, practice.

Many studies, undergraduate and post graduate, over the years, I’ve undertaken. In the words of the poet, TS Eliot, “Old men ought to be explorers…”. Similarly so, I think, for old women! :-)