First Responders Conference - Melbourne 2021

Pro-Com founder John O’Neil presents from a military and policing background. Of his 26 years with State and Federal police John spent most of his time in the field of Police Hostage Negotiation, critical incident management and protection. Holding a Counter terrorism negotiator qualification since 1996, John has been fortunate enough to have trained with negotiator personnel from the FBI Academy and Scotland Yard and as a visitor to LAPD SWAT negotiator unit and Department of Homeland Security Training facility as well as working with negotiator units all around Australia. In addition to his work in crisis negotiation John was involved in critical incident management, helping to set up the critical incident response team (CIRT) for Victoria Police as well as spending many years in close personal protection. John has had the privilege of working alongside international counterparts protecting visiting dignitaries such as her majesty Queen Elizabeth II, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the Director CIA and Prime Ministers and Premiers. His later career has seen John operating as an air security officer (air marshal) and ASO instructor. Prior to resigning from the AFP, he spent four years in the field of behavioral detection, training with UK leaders Profile Aware and Israeli predictive profiling specialists before working with police at airports all around the country assisting to identify criminal behavior and intent. John has surrounded himself with people possessing specialized skill sets to form Pro-Com who now bring this experience privately to Government and the corporate sector and pride themselves in in developing safety and capability in front line staff across many industries. A recent example of this was in training more than 4200 paramedics for Ambulance Victoria resulting in a reduction in assaults of more than 50% in just 12 months. Pro-Com not only provides training but assists organizations in reviewing and developing operational safety and security policy extending into physical security operations and target hardening including active armed offender protocols for clients such as City of Melbourne, Metro Trains, Taxi Service Commission, TT-Line Shipping, Crown resorts, the AFL nationally and around 20 hospitals across the state.

Beck Gardner is an emergency nurse practitioner who works at both Austin and Alfred Health. She started her nurse practitioner career in 2011 as a candidate at Austin Health. She completed her masters of advanced nursing in 2008 at the University of Newcastle and prior to this she completed her diploma and certificate of Critical Care in 2005 at Alfred Health and LaTrobe University. She completed her undergraduate nursing degree at LaTrobe University in Bendigo 2002 and completed her graduate year at Alfred Health on 4 East in 2003. Her emergency career began in 2004 at the Alfred in the Emergency and Trauma Centre. Beck is passionate about emergency nursing, the ongoing development of the nurse practitioner role and education. She has regularly presented at local, national and international conferences.

Jeff Kenneally has a lifelong commitment to pre-hospital care, having served as an operational paramedic for 34 years, mostly in intensive care roles. He has managed frontline paramedic teams, commanded major events, mentored, educated and worked in communications dispatch centres and at the ambulance air wing. His roles have taken him to rural and metropolitan areas. For four years, Jeff managed the Ambulance Victoria clinical practice guidelines. In recent years, Jeff has turned to university lecturing for paramedic students, including leading international study tours. He is a published author in pre-hospital practice and contributor to numerous major textbooks. In 2018, Jeff was awarded the Ambulance Service Medal in recognition of his contribution.

Narelle was a member of Victoria Police for 27 years, 15 of those as a detective with homicide, rape, sex crimes, missing persons and child exploitation squads, specialising in sex offences and child abuse. She has been involved in many high profile investigations. In 2012 Narelle was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) & was never able to return to Policing, however she overcame many adversities to become an accidental mental health advocate & keynote speaker on the challenges of first responders who face trauma & grief on a daily basis. Narelle shares the signs of stress she ignored, hoping they would magically disappear. Instead of disappearing, they increased to the point she couldn’t continue in the career she loved. The stigma of mental illness is alive & well in our community & Narelle’s hope is to help in ‘normalising’ rather than stigmatising, mental illness.

Dr Louise Alexander is a mental health nursing academic at Australian Catholic University (ACU) teaching in both undergraduate and post-graduate programs. Louise has a background in forensic mental health nursing in acute, subacute and rehabilitation areas, and an interest in perceptions of dangerousness and stigma. Louise’s research has focused on the use of simulation within the mental health context and has published in several peer-reviewed journals on this topic and presented her findings at both a national, and international level. As part of her post-doctoral research, Louise is also employed as an early career researcher within the North Western Mental Health/ACU Academic Nursing Research Centre conducting research in a variety of important areas of mental health nursing. Recently Louise was a co-lead author of a first edition mental health nursing text, published in August 2019.

Ella is a Nurse Practitioner with the Addiction Medicine Consultation Liaison team at Western Health, working across Sunshine and Footscray Campuses. Previous experience has included working in the residential detox unit at Uniting Regen, Custodial nurse with Victoria Police and private practice ORT clinic in the Geelong region. Ella studied with the University of Melbourne to complete a Postgraduate Diploma in Mental Health and a Master of Advanced Nursing Practice (Nurse Practitioner). Ella is also a Pilates instructor and has a passion for getting people moving to improve their physical and mental health.

Amanda Wynne is a barrister at the Victorian Bar whose practice includes family law, child abuse, family violence, mental health, health profession disciplinary panels, coronial inquests, victims of crime, and guardianship and administration regarding the elderly. Amanda also holds nursing qualifications and is an experienced general nurse, midwife, and maternal and child health nurse, last practising in May 2009. She regularly presents pertinent legal seminars to the healthcare profession.