Who We Are

Our Principal Facilitators

MELANIE ATKINS

Melanie started her working life as a Registered Nurse becoming Director of Nursing in a home for older people in 1983. She has worked with people with brain injury since 1986 and believes that every person can and should be a part of their community and free to contribute if that is their desire.

Melanie also:

  • is an experienced trainer/facilitator, working with adult learners
  • has a strong project management focus in all her work
  • developed and directed Communitique Pty Ltd, a service that provided support to over 1400 people with disabilities, focusing on people with brain injury
  • has 12 years experience managing an organization that employed and trained over 4000 largely unskilled workers to work with people with disabilities, mainly focused on brain injury.

SANDRA BATTEN

Sandy began working life as a secondary school teacher training in Physical Education with a focus on remedial education. She has worked with people with brain injury since 1989.

 Sandy also:
  • is an experienced trainer in a range of educational settings for people of all ages and backgrounds
  • has extensive experience in the design of training and education material for competency-based training in Disability, Community services and Aged Care
  • is experienced in working directly with families and people with brain injury in a range of settings
  • has been responsible for developing, implementing and managing the training, support and supervision of a largely unskilled workforce providing support to people with disabilities living in the community
  • has worked as instructional designer and trainer for the development and delivery of competency-based training packages to workers and family members of people with dementia.
 

Board of Management

Joining Melanie and Sandy on the Board of Management for The Journey are:
 
Ruth Hargrave
Mark Keily
Robert Welch

RUTH HARGRAVE

Ruth began her working life in nursing and school teaching. After further study Ruth moved into Adult Education, she has vast experience in developing and delivering competency based training to workers providing direct care to the aged in homes and residential settings. Working as an educator with Alzheimer’s Australia (Victoria) for many years, Ruth delivered dementia-specific training to a range of people including family carers across Victoria.
 
Ruth is now retired and joined the The Journey’s board in 2006. She brings to the board great skills, great enthusiasm and a major interest in healthy ageing and person-centred care for all people living with cognitive changes of any kind.

MARK KEILY

Mark was born in 1954 and describes his life as nearly finishing in 1977 when he sustained a brain injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident. Mark spent 2 years in hospital and "was let free" into the world in 1979. Mark was an original member of Headway Victoria and has been involved in a number of presentations and workshops on brain injury for various organisations over the years since his injury. Mark is an active board member of The Journey, he brings to the board not only his personal experience of living with a brain injury but also an ability to challenge the thinking of the board and, most importantly, great humour which keeps us all sane.

ROBERT WELCH

 Robert is an Accountant who has been a member of the Board since The Journey's inception.