The WA Mental Health Conference 2024 provides a dynamic space to enhance knowledge and shared perspectives among the mental health workforce, people with lived experience, community members and professionals whose work relates to mental health and wellbeing.
Claudia Karvan
Claudia Karvan is one of Australia’s most respected and acclaimed film and television actors.
Claudia can currently be seen starring in the fourth series of Bump, which she co-created and co-produced with Rough Diamond for Stan, and will shortly commence production on the fifth series. She was nominated for an AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama and a Silver Logie Award Nomination for Most Outstanding Actress for her role in Bump.
She recently appeared in the Disney+ series The Clearing and on stage for The Old Fitz in Sparking Darkly Monologues by Nick Coyle, and in the Sydney Theatre Company and State Theatre Company of South Australia’s production of The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?.
Claudia also co-produced and co-created the first three series of the Nine Network’s Doctor Doctor and co-created, produced and starred in the Foxtel series Spirited and Love My Way. The second series of Spirited won the ASTRA Award for Most Outstanding Drama in 2011. Love My Way won numerous awards including the Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Drama Series and the Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Television Drama Series three years in a row. For her role as Frankie in Love My Way, Claudia is also a two time winner of both the Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress and the AFI Award for Best Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
Claudia has also starred in numerous Australian television series and miniseries including hosting Books That Made Us for the ABC, Dancing with the Stars for the Ten Network, the second season of The Other Guy for Stan, Newton’s Law, Jack Irish, and The Time of Our Lives for the ABC, for which she was awarded the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama. Her other television credits include Puberty Blues, Black Comedy, Halifax: Retribution, Orange is the New Brown, Better Man, The Broken Shore, The Secret Life of Us, My Brother Jack, Small Claims, and Saved, directed by Tony Ayres, which earned her the 2010 Silver Logie Award for Most Outstanding Actress.
Her feature film credits include Moja Vesna, June Again, for which she was nominated for a FCCA Award for Best Actress Supporting Role and an AACTA Award Nomination for Best Support Actress in Film, Justin Kurzel’s The True History of the Kelly Gang which premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, Infidel opposite Jim Caviezel, Warwick Thornton’s The Darkside, 33 Postcards, Daybreakers opposite Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe, Dating the Enemy alongside Guy Pearce, The Long Weekend opposite Jim Caviezel, Gillian Armstrong’s HIGH TIDE with Judy Davis, Phillip Noyce’s Echoes Of Paradise, Paperback Hero with Hugh Jackman and The Heartbreak Kid for which she was awarded Best Actress by the Film Critics Circle of Australia.
In 2023, Claudia Karvan was made a member of the Order of Australia for service to the film and television industry.
Di Darmody
Host
With over 20 years experience as a journalist and presenter with ABC Radio, Di Darmody is a well known – and popular – voice for listeners in Perth and throughout Western Australia.
Di has presented ABC Radio Perth Breakfast, Mornings, Afternoons, Drive, Saturday Breakfast, The Country Hour as well as National Nightlife. She has also worked on National Grandstand, AFL and WAFL coverage and hosted a variety of regional and state-wide programs across Western Australia.
Now Di is a sought-after professional MC, interviewer, facilitator and conference host, working across WA as well as for national organisations – either in person or virtually.
Dr Piers Gooding
Dr Piers Gooding is an Associate Professor at La Trobe Law School, and an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow. His work focuses on mental health law, policy, and practice. He is the author of A New Era for Mental Health Law and Policy: Supported Decision-Making and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2017) with Cambridge University Press, among other publications, and he is on the editorial board of the International Journal for Mental Health and Capacity Law and International Journal of Disability and Social Justice. Piers has worked with a range of international organisations and agencies, including the UN Special Rapporteur for the Rights of People with Disabilities, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, the World Psychiatric Association and the World Health Organization. Piers held roles as a senior research fellow at Melbourne Law School (2015-2023) and a research fellow at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, at Galway University in Ireland (2014-15). He has a background in law and humanities, with degrees from the University of Melbourne and Monash University.
We are excited to have secured some of the most inspiring minds from around Australia and the world representing a range of professions, experiences, genders, cultures and ages.