Voices from the Edge

Sarah Thomas - All that is NZ in safety catchup

A regular part of the podcast Sarah brings us news of what's happening in New Zealand in terms of safety and social issues.

Sarah is a Health and Safety specialist, Professional Member of NZ
Institute of Safety Management (ProfNZISM), Health & Safety Australia
New Zealand Registered (HASANZ) and ANZCAL (Australia and New
Zealand Coaching Alliance) accredited trainer.

Sarah is an experience health and safety professional with over two
decades of experience. With an outgoing personality and an inclusive
style of communication, clients have described Sarah as facilitative;
however, she can also be direct and hold people accountable, while
keeping a sense of humour.

Sarah enjoys helping her clients define what their key health and safety
challenges to develop solutions that are written in their language and
work in their operational context.

Book Review - There are No Accidents

A book review of this book by Jessie Singer

Cathy Oddie

Cathy Oddie worked for Centrelink for seven years, before moving on to work in the Superannuation and public mental health sectors. After her role as Business Development and Policy Coordinator at HESTA ended in 2019, Cathy embraced the opportunity to become Monash Health’s first ever Family Violence Lived Experience Consultant within their Mental Health Family Violence Project Team. She then went on to work in Emergency Service response at the Police Assistance Line. Cathy was employed for Berry Street in the roles of After Hours Specialist Family Violence Practitioner, Positive Shift Program Facilitator and Family Safety Contact Practitioner.

 

More recently, she has been the Intake and Client Engagement Practitioner at Bloom Well-being which is trauma specialist counselling service and a Senior Family Violence Practitioner with Goulburn’s Orange Door virtual team. 

 

From 2007- 2022, Cathy was a volunteer Survivor Advocate with Safe Steps Family Violence Response Centre. This role led Cathy to make a submission and give evidence at the 2015 Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence. Her testimony resulted in two of the final 227 Recommendations, one of which led to the Review of the Victims of Crime Assistance Act which was tabled to Victorian Parliament in 2018. The dismantling of the Victims of Crime Assistance Tribunal and upcoming implementation of the new Financial Assistance Scheme is as a direct result of Cathy's evidence to the Royal Commission. Cathy made a submission and was called to give evidence to the Legislative Council Legal and Social Issues Committee: Inquiry into Victoria’s Criminal Justice System in 2021. She has also been involved in numerous consultation and co-design processes on legislation and policy reforms including the Victorian Law Reform Commission (VLRC) Stalking Inquiry and VLRC Improving the Response of the Justice System to Sexual Offences Report. 

 

Cathy was on the working group and co-evaluated the DHHS Pilot Project “Family Violence Survivor Employment Pathways Program” and was also on the expert reference group for WIRE’s “Teachable Moments” Research Project, which was a project which had a focus on financial abuse. In 2017, she was elected to the Committee of Management for Project Respect, which is an organisation which provides assistance and support to women experiencing exploitation, abuse or human trafficking in the sex industry. Cathy was also a Director on the board of Violence Free Families from 2021-2022. During her time at HESTA, she was successful in receiving a grant from Victorian Women’s Trust to improve the economic outcomes for women from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds through bringing together the organisations HESTA, ICAN, Fitted for Work and WAM to deliver a targeted financial literacy for women program using a narrative story-telling approach. In 2019, Cathy became the first official survivor ambassador for Mettle Women Inc. This is an organisation which provides safe and accessible employment and opportunities to women who have experienced family violence and homelessness to establish financial independence. In 2021-2022, Cathy facilitated Domestic Violence and Coercive Control Masterclasses around Australia. Also in 2021, she became a published author, having a chapter about her lived experience of family violence included in the short story compilation: “Love, Bruises and Bullsh!t”. 

 

Cathy was appointed to the Victorian Department of Justice and Community Safety’s Victim of Crime Consultative Committee as a Victim Representative in 2020. In addition to this appointment, in 2020 she joined Victoria Legal Aid's "Specialist Family Violence Court Project" Steering Committee, and in 2021 the “Legal Services in The Orange Door Project” Project Control Group as a Family Violence Lived Experience Consultant. She was on the working group designing the new Victims Legal Service which commenced operation in March 2023. Between 2023-2024, Cathy was a member of the Expert Advisory Group for Transitioning Well's contract with the Federal Government and assisted in the co-production of a suite of resources to support small business to implement their legislative obligations to provide their employees with ten days of paid domestic and violence leave when required. Cathy was appointed to the Victims of Crime Commissioner's Lived Experience Experts' Network and to the Adult Parole Board as a Sessional Community Member in June 2024. She has recently commenced a role as a Peer Educator with Western Sydney Recovery College. Cathy is passionately committed to the healing, recovery and financial wellbeing of victim survivors of domestic, family and sexual violence.

Book Review - Thinking fast and slow

A book review of this book by Daniel Kahneman

Book Review - The Black Swan

A book review of this book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Marc Miles Is The TAE Fit For Purpose

The wonderful Marc Miles, the font of knowledge on all training and assessing matters in the vocational education and training sector helps disect the TAE qualification. An honest, sometimes brutally honest about whether the keystone qualification required for all trainers and assessors in the sector actually is fit for purpose. 

Marc Miles is a career presenter and trainer. He has written a book on Advanced Facilitation Skills, and for over a decade, has taught public speaking skills, and content from the Training and Education Training Package for Australian Vocational Education and Training.

During his time in the Vocational Education and Training sector, Marc has taught the TAE package over 500 times to people all around Australia in various industries. He has a been an instructional designer, training manager, and currently works as a senior facilitator for Spec Training.

Marc’s students know him as a dynamic and engaging facilitator in both the face-to-face and online environments, believing he has set a new standard for how online delivery can be done.
Marc’s book, Creating Transformation: Advanced Training Skills for Workshop Facilitators, was published in 2024. 

Marc has a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics, Natural language processing certifications, and has conducted numerous professional development workshops for various audiences across Vocation Education and Training, corporate and entrepreneurial sectors.

Book Review - Killed by a traffic engineer

Book review of this book by  Wes Marshall

Dr Megan Tranter

Dr. Megan Tranter is a recognized global voice in Health, Safety, and Environment leadership. She is among
the few women who have held top EHS roles  at Amazon, PepsiCo, Novartis, and Netflix.
Megan has extensive experience in global strategy development and implementation, risk management,
cultural change, and Board and CEO-level engagement and coaching.

Originally from Australia, Megan has had an impressive career spanning government, mining, and
academia. As a former lecturer at Central Queensland University and the University of Western Sydney,
Megan taught undergraduate and master’s students in Australia and Hong Kong.
She then moved to corporate roles, starting at McDonald’s Australia and then at Coca-Cola Amatil. After
relocating to the United States, her career took off as she built and led high-performing EHS and tech
teams in global companies, achieving significant results.

Megan’s mission is to spark a safety culture revolution. She now offers leadership development and
consulting services to help companies and safety leaders elevate their impact and create workplaces
where safety is second nature.

Megan brings a unique perspective as someone who has seen firsthand the complexity of safety and the
various ways to make an impact. She uses her refreshing, pragmatic voice to facilitate discussions and
offer keynotes based on her experiences with CEOs, senior leaders, and the front line.
Megan was awarded the NSC Marion Martin Award for the Most Influential Woman in Safety and is a
Certified Industrial Hygienist . She is a published author and holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the
University of New South Wales, a Master’s in Occupational and Industrial Hygiene from Deakin University,
and a Bachelor’s in Occupational Health and Safety from Queensland University of Technology.