Lived Expertise Advisory Panel

Craig is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. He was appointed as a Community Member on the Victims Advisory Board by the Attorney General of NSW and sits on the NSW Sentencing Council. Craig is also a member of Suicide Prevention Australia’s Lived Experience Panel, the National Memorial Advisory Group (Commonwealth Govt) , the Expert Advisory Group for the Prevention and Response to Violence, Abuse and Neglect (NSW Health), and the Expert Advisory Panel for Transforming Justice Australia.
Previously, Craig has been a board member of Knowmore Legal Service and was appointed to the Prime Minister's Reference Group for the National Apology to Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse (delivered October 2018). Craig has also been a member of the NSW Sexual Assault Expert Group (NSW Health), the Safeguarding Council (Diocese of Parramatta), and the Survivor & Faith Group Child  Safe Standing Committee (NSW Ombudsman). From September through November 2022 Craig travelled to the USA, England, Ireland and Spain on a Churchill Fellowship to investigate best practice methods and support models to assist male survivors of child sexual abuse. Craig is thrilled to be the inaugural LEAP Chair and to contribute to ACCP’s important work.

Caroline is the former Community Education Coordinator at Open Place, the Victorian service for Forgotten Australians, a role from which she retired in 2022. Caroline is a survivor of abuse in many institutional and foster care placements during her childhood. She was separated as a 14-month-old infant from her family, including her seven siblings. Caroline is the Chair of the national peak body, the Alliance for Forgotten Australians. She was awarded the Order of Australia for her work with Forgotten Australians in 2014. 
Caroline has made a number of presentations at national and international conferences, and has sat on a number of reference groups for national projects the Australian Government has undertaken: National History Projects, Find and Connect services, Aged Care Education, the Independent Advisory Council on Redress, the Reference Group for the National Apology to Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, and the National Memorial Advisory Group. 

Chrissie is an advocate and author who, with her late husband Anthony, pursued the Catholic church hierarchy for justice and accountability after learning of the sexual abuse of two of her daughters at their primary school by the parish priest. The lifelong impacts of this abuse led to the death by suicide of one of her children in 2008 and life-changing disablement of another. 
Chrissie’s 2010 book Hell on the Way to Heaven, motivated then-MP Ann Barker to push for the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-Government Organisations. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse was announced months later.
In 2018, Chrissie won the Australian Human Rights Medal.  In 2019, she was made a Member of the Order of Australia ‘For significant service to children, particularly as an advocate for those who have suffered sexual abuse.’
In 2023, Chrissie published Still Standing, covering the Fosters’ lives during the two inquiries, and the abuse exposed by those inquiries. Chrissie was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Reference Group for the National Apology to Victim Survivors of Institutional Child Sex Abuse and is a sitting member of the National Memorial Advisory Group and other university led action groups.  Chrissie is looking forward to working on the LEAP to help make a better future for children – reducing the prevalence of child sexual assault.

Joan is a survivor of child sexual abuse. As a teenager, she was subjected to grooming and subsequent abuse by a Catholic priest over a two-year period. Nearly three decades later, Joan reported her abuser to police and her abuser was criminally charged and jailed.  Following the conviction of her abuser, Joan engaged with the Catholic church’s Towards Healing process. This traumatic two-year experience, ended with Joan being required to sign a Deed of Release and being silenced from ever speaking about her abuse or her experience with Towards Healing.  Joan subsequently gave evidence at a Public Hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Case Study 4). It was the first case study to examine the Catholic Church.   
Having been released from her silencing by the Royal Commission, Joan documented her experiences in her 2016 book, To Prey and to Silence, which was short-listed for the 2017 Queensland Literary Awards. Since 2018, Joan has served as a member of the Truth Healing and Reconciliation Taskforce Advisory Body, formed by the Queensland Government to assist with the implementation of the Royal Commission recommendations.  Joan is committed to keeping children safe, supporting victims/survivors of child sexual abuse and is honoured to contribute to the ongoing work of the ACCP.   Joan is a wife, mother, grandmother and is supported by her beautiful family.

Brenda is a Director and Co-founder of The Survivor Hub, a survivor-led initiative that supports victim-survivors of sexual assault and their allies. The Survivor Hub was created to provide safe spaces for survivors to find connection, support one another, and share knowledge based on lived experiences.
In addition to her work at The Survivor Hub, Brenda is also a PhD Candidate, and engages in teaching and research work in the field of criminology at the University of Sydney Law School. Her doctoral research is on the topic of rehabilitation philosophy in youth justice detention centres. Brenda is able to bring her academic and theoretical knowledge to complement her lived experiences as a survivor and practitioner in her work at The Survivor Hub.

Rebecca is a Research Fellow at University of New South Wales’ Big Anxiety Research Centre, focused on lived experience engagement in research and public events such as the Big Anxiety festival. Rebecca is also a PhD candidate at UNSW, studying the intersection of the personal and the political in politicised public testimony about child sexual abuse by survivors. During this research Rebecca learned valuable information about Royal Commission processes of engagement with public testimony, and developed a map for ‘dignifying practice’ which she believes is the next step on from trauma informed practice. Rebecca has also spent much of the past two decades as an educator, teaching about trauma informed practice and complex trauma in a wide variety of settings, from police academies to lecture theatres, using lived, practice, and academic expertise. Rebecca was part of the social movement that campaigned to bring lived experience engagement to the public and professional eye, and has fought for many years for lived experience expertise to be usefully and respectfully engaged with. She has published peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on this topic, and continues to explore the complexities of lived experience engagement in much of her work. Rebecca is excited to do groundbreaking work with the ACCP, as they lead the field by establishing a formalised Lived Experience Advisory Panel, and develop informed policies and practices for lived experience engagement.

Adam is the founder of Fighters Against Child Abuse Australia (FACAA), a public benevolent society devoted to empowering child victim-survivors of abuse via a range of services, including martial arts training, and a survivor healing program, Phoenix. His background in martial arts from the age of four, and Diploma of Community Services (Welfare) specialising in child trauma counselling, led to the formation of FACAA in 2010; he has been focused on elevating the voices of survivors ever since.  FACAA is entirely run by volunteers who are also survivors, and works from a survivor-centric, trauma-informed approach. 
Adam has sat on the NSW Victims of Crime Interagency Working Group, and was on working groups for the Children’s Champion legal reforms, NSW’s response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and NSW’s amendments to the Forensic Patients Act.   This is Adam’s first advisory group role, and he is very excited to be a part of the LEAP.