Workplace Mental Health Policy, Strategy & Training
I am a highly accomplished mental health policy writer, strategist, workplace trainer, public speaker, communicator, author and journalist. Most recently, I produced sophisticated submissions and briefing papers for the Mental Health Council of Tasmania (MHCT) while my online and face-to-face presentations on moral injury have won rave reviews from psychiatrists, counsellors, social workers, WHS officers and people with lived experience.
I bring enormous skill & experience helping organisations in Australia manage workplace psychosocial hazards.
Please note, I am employed by Positive Solutions as a casual workplace trainer (as of July 2025). If your organisation is interested in my presentation — an Introduction to Moral Injury — you can contact me directly through this website, LinkedIn or admin@positivesolutions.com.au
Recent Policy & Advocacy work
Researched and wrote detailed, impactful submissions and briefing papers for the Mental Health Council of Tasmania that usually involved significant consultation with MHCT members (community mental health organisations), industry experts and other stakeholders.
These included:
** A detailed mental health platform for candidates competing in Tasmania’s July 2025 election. Among other things, this platform urged all candidates to better integrate evidence-based, cost-effective community mental health services with acute and primary care; develop and implement a long-term mental health workforce strategy that brings together the public, private and community sectors, as well as educational providers and registered training organisations during the term of the next government, and commit 5% of Tasmania’s mental health budget to promotion and prevention initiatives by 2030.
** A 16,000-word submission on Tasmania’s 20-year Preventive Health Strategy, called Making Mental Health Promotion and Prevention a Top Priority for Tasmania.
** A briefing paper called: A Plan for Funding Psychosocial Supports for Tasmanians with Severe and Moderate Mental Illness.
** The Case for a Suicide Prevention Act in Tasmania. A briefing paper prepared for the Department of Health that showed how a Suicide Prevention Act could strengthen Tasmania’s considerable efforts to reduce suicide.
** Bring me a problem in the mental health space. I’ll try to help you solve it.
Need something voiced? Looking for authoritative audio or video? Click on this sample of my audiobook or check my website for videos.
Dean’s qualifications & experience
I created & rolled out a mental health strategy for 2,500 journalists at the Reuters news agency (2017-2020). I designed the program based on 23 years as a bureau chief, news leader and journalist across the world as well as research from organisations such as the Black Dog Institute.
In late 2022, I designed and implemented a mental health strategy for Private Media that involved an audit of their support for staff, including their EAP. I’m a trainer with The Self-Investigation, a European media foundation.
I’ve done trauma & mental health training with staff from the BBC, SBS Australia, Zeit Online, Iran International, Change.org, Radio Free Asia, S. Group, Circle In , Berlin-based Media in Cooperation and Transition & Agence France Press. I’ve recorded workplace mental health videos for Well™, the first tool for Microsoft Teams to help control psychosocial risks.
I’ve given talks and presented at various events, including the Black Dog Institute, Moody’s Corp (London), MAD World Summit (London), SC Group-Global (Sydney), Monash Health, Tasmanian Leaders, the Sydney Peace Foundation, Local Government Engineers’ Association (NSW), and the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
Peer worker (permanent part-time) at Head to Health, Launceston.
Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) accredited.
Workplace Mental Health Leadership Professional Development Certificate Program (2022) Lifeworks & Queens University (Canada).
Lived experience of PTSD and moral injury.
Australian expert in moral injury.
Author of highly acclaimed memoir, Line in the Sand (published June 27, 2023). My book contains many messages for business leaders, governments and staff.
I can relate to every person in an organisation. I’m a skilled communicator. I’m good at connecting with men, whether they wear suits or Hi-Vis vests.
I’m across the workplace mental health research and have interviewed a lot of experts in this field.
I led Reuters teams that covered the 2002 Bali bombings and the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia’s Aceh province. I was deputy bureau chief for Israel and Palestine in 2006, during the Lebanon War. I was Reuters bureau chief in Iraq, responsible for 100 people, from 2007-2008.
As Reuters top news editor for Asia 2010-2012, the bucked stopped with me on coverage of the major stories in the region each day.
Speaking on ABC News Breakfast about the workplace and moral injury
