Kyabra Community Association
Community Service in Brisbane

We labor with families and communities to help strengthen family and community life. It highlights the inspirational transformation of Julie and how Kyabra helped Julie to create a better life for herself and her family. We wish to present particular thanks to Julie for her openness, generosity, encourage and courage in helping us make this film. It was an outstanding experience and Julie helped make it a very special one for us. David worked premature in his career as a community development worker before applying the same principles and beliefs to his role as Manager of a number of human service organizations and services. Jean has worked in marginalized areas in country Victoria in supported and transitional housing. Jean hopes that the notions of offering a supportive learning and developmental environment that harness existing strengths and resources are pertinent with both the labor that is done with community members and within organizational life. Dianne has assisted in developing some of Kyabra's management approaches and has a keen interest in how strengths based approaches can be applied across all levels of organizations. She has also enjoyed facilitating training for Disability Urge Workers and running Caring for Parent Caregiver groups for parents of people with disabilities. Lori was voted in as President of Kyabra at this year's Annual General Meeting. During this time she has conducted social research and evaluation in education, employment, health (including mental health and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health), housing, hasty intervention, juvenile justice, disabilities and family policy. She has provided government agencies with policy and strategic advice on these issues. She continues to facilitate strategic planning with advocacy and service agencies and to evaluate the outcomes and impact of policy and program investments. Lori also has extensive teaching and training experience, including specially designed strategic planning and evaluation courses for senior bureaucrats and service providers, tertiary courses in research, policy development and evaluation, and workshops for practitioners across health, community services, workforce development, innovation, visioning, planning and priority setting. Chris is the Governance and Risk Manager for a notforprofit health fund. He has over 25 years experience in a range of strategic, management and client service roles in the financial services sector. He looks forward to bringing the skills he has acquired in this time to assisting the community through the Kyabra Executive Board. She is also a CPA and a Chartered Tax Adviser. Samara is a Community Development Practitioner with a potent passion and commitment to social justice, community capacity building and social inclusion of marginalized families and communities. Amanda has been connected with Kyabra Community Association over several years as a local community member, workshop participant, previous employee and Board Member. As a practicing Social Worker she continues to be impressed by the innovation and forward thinking that Kyabra offers the community services field and the sense of belonging that Kyabrians bear our community. In holding a position on the Executive Board she hopes to use her insight as a community services practitioner to promote her fellow Board Members, Kyabrians and the pursuit of the Kyabra vision. Chris Engelhardt is the Governance and Risk Manager for a notforprofit health fund. Leigh ton is new to Kyabra's Board in 2016.