Agenda

David Moody, Director, Management Governance Australia and Workforce Plus

• Gain insight into the Commission’s regulatory priorities, including safeguarding participants, supporting providers, and managing risks in a changing NDIS landscape.

• Explore how providers can balance compliance, quality and participant-centred outcomes while adapting to ongoing policy reforms.

Natalie Wade, Associate Commissioner and Chief Legal Counsel, NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission

• Will standardised assessments deliver fairer, more consistent budgets, or reduce flexibility and create unintended inequities across participant groups and needs?

• Understand how budgets will actually be determined in practice, how transparency will (or won’t) show up, and how to align service delivery to tighter, more structured funding models

• How can organisations become employers of choice, addressing burnout and supporting staff wellbeing?

• What strategies can create meaningful career paths, enabling growth beyond current role limitations?

• Discuss solutions to workforce challenges, from retention to professional development, career growth in high-pressure environments.

Angela Johnson, Chief People Officer, Achieve Australia

Rebecca Coombes, Chief People Officer, The Disability Trust

Gracie Karabinis, Executive Director People Experience, Mind

Alicia Wright, General Manager Talent, Learning & Culture, Villa Maria Catholic Homes

Helen Emmerson, Chief People Officer, Unisson Disability

• How must workforce roles, structures, and leadership approaches evolve to address burnout, workforce shortages, and increasing complexity of care?

• Gain insight into building a resilient, sustainable workforce, including practical strategies to support mental wellbeing, retention, and long-term capability development

Dr Lisa Fahey, Psychologist & Clinical Director, Quovus

• How are NDIS reforms experienced by people with disability in practice, and where do system changes create barriers or enable dignity, autonomy and inclusion?

• Gain insight into the real-world impact of reform from a lived experience perspective, including how participants navigate system changes and what is needed to strengthen rights-based, person-centred support.

Giancarlo de Vera, Chief Executive Officer, Being

• How can providers deliver genuinely person-centred, culturally safe care across diverse communities, including First Nations participants, while navigating systemic and funding constraints?

• Learn practical approaches to reduce access barriers, partner with communities, and embed equity into service design and delivery

Damian Griffis, Chief Executive Officer, First People Disability Network

Kelly Mundine, Chief Executive Officer, Mibayn Disability Services

Chloe Short, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Disability Advocate, ADA Australia

Rebecca Newell-Courtney, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Disability Advocate, ADA Australia

• As eligibility tightens and resources become constrained, how do providers respond when not all participant needs can be funded?

• Gain insight into managing demand, supporting increased participant advocacy, and delivering fair, transparent, and culturally safe, person-centred care

Karim Amin, Director & Chief Strategy Officer, United For Care

Emeritus Prof. Christine Bigby, AO Founder of the Living with Disability Research Centre, La Trobe University

Bronwyn Fitzgerald, Chief Strategy Officer, Ability WA

• Are increasing regulatory requirements actually improving participant safety and outcomes, or creating administrative burden that distances providers from delivering meaningful, person-centred care?

• Learn how to design compliance and safeguarding systems that are experienced by participants as safe, responsive, and trustworthy, while remaining efficient and operationally sustainable

Donna Lockyer Clark, Chief Safeguarding & Quality Governance Officer, Life Without Barriers

Linda Hunt, General Manager Safeguarding & Assurance, Sunnyfield Disability Services

Dr Jeffrey Chan, Chief Strategy and Quality Officer & Adjunct Professor, Former Deputy Commissioner, Practice Quality and Clinical Advisory, ABC Behaviour Support & University of Queensland’s School of Education

• Why are preventable choking deaths still occurring in disability and aged care settings, and what does this reveal about gaps in safeguarding, education, and system design?

• Gain practical insight into improving mealtime safety, communication, and care practices to prevent harm, alongside system-level changes needed to protect people with swallowing disabilities

Professor Bronwyn Hemsley, Adjunct Professor of Speech Pathology & UTS Dean’s Award for Excellence in Academic Leadership, UTS Sydney

David Moody, Director, Management Governance Australia and Workforce Plus