Chelsea Watego: Can We Decolonise Health and Community Care? [Booked Out]

Chelsea Watego (formerly Bond) is a Munanjahli and South Sea Islander woman with over 20 years of experience working within Indigenous health as a health worker and researcher. She is a prolific writer and public intellectual, having written for IndigenousX, NITV, The Guardian, and The Conversation. She is a founding board member of Inala Wangarra, an Indigenous community development association within her community, a Director of the Institute for Collaborative Race Research, and was one half of the Wild Black Women radio/podcast show, but most importantly, she is also a proud mum to five beautiful children.

Petah Atkinson is a Yorta Yorta woman with strong family connections to Kulin Nation. She is an active member of her community, particularly in the Shepparton and Melbourne areas. Petah has worked for more than 25 years in the Aboriginal health sector, including leadership roles in Aboriginal Community Control Health Organisations at local and state levels. Currently, she works as a lecturer within the Gukwonderuk Indigenous Unit, FMNHS at Monash University. Petah is also completing a PhD in medical education, with a particular focus on Aboriginal health consumers experiences of medical education. Her research is situated within an Indigenous Research Paradigm and Indigenous Standpoint Theory.

Robyn Newitt is a proud Dharawal (South-West Sydney area of New South Wales) and Yorta Yorta (Echuca and Shepparton area along the Murray River in Victoria) woman. Robyn currently works within the Department of Social Work and the School of Primary and Allied Health Care at Monash University. Robyn focuses on a range of key areas within social and criminal justice systems, including Indigenous self-determination and Indigenous sovereignty within both criminal and social justice systems, historiography, colonialism, policies, and legislation within the criminal and social justice areas; and disability services and criminalisation within colonial systems that impact on current outcomes for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people across Australia, including overrepresentation and social constructs of Aboriginality. Robyn has previously worked in Criminology (School of Social Sciences) at Western Sydney University and Criminology at Monash University as well as the Yulendj Indigenous Engagement Unit (now William Cooper Institute) at Monash University.