Directors of Mibbinbah's Board

Mr Rick Hayes, Chairperson
Senior Lecturer, La Trobe University

Mr Jason Barrow
Cultural Awareness Officer, Edith Cowan University

Mr Craig Williams
Community Worker, Youth Justice

Mr Jack Bulman
CEO Mibbinbah Limited

Dr Alex Brown
Head The Baker IDI Alice Springs

Dr Brian McCoy
Honorary (Fellow) The University of Melbourne

Dr David Brockman
Vice President of the Australian Indigenous Doctor’s Association
Fellowship with the Royal Australian College of Sexual Health Physicians

Core Group Members (Steering Committee)

Mark Wenitong

Koomla Tsey

Mick Adams

Brian McCoy

Alex Brown

Mick Gooda

Craig Williams

Rick Hayes

Kevin Rowley

Jack Bulman

Gregory Phillips

MR RICK HAYES CHAIRPERSON

Rick is a leading researcher on non-pathologising approaches to men's health in Australia and is often invited to speak and lecture on matters relating to the social dimensions of men's health. With his research partner, Jack Bulman (CRCAH), he is currently engaged in research relating to Indigenous men, men’s sheds/spaces and health.In addition to being the Undergraduate Coordinator for the Bachelor of Health Science Course, Rick lectures in health promotion and public health subjects at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He works on the health promotion team to provide reflective practice and mentoring opportunities for health promotion workers in the field and field placements for students. He also works closely with agencies in urban and rural settings to develop 'community and campus partnerships for health'.

Rick is also a doctoral candidate at the School of Public Health. His topic is: The 'Dialectics' of Survival for 'A Force' on the Burma-Thailand Railway (1942-1943). The thesis explores the perceived salience of the prisoners belonging to groups influenced by various cultural, personal and religious values with regard to their ability to meet vital physical and social needs through various technological, economic and political means. He is using a modified case-study approach that draws upon the various narratives (e.g., diaries, reports and memoirs) of the Medical Officers and the non-medically trained men of 'A Force'

MR JASON BARROW

Jason is a Noongar man with extensive family ties throughout the South-West of Western Australia. He has a background in environmental science, heritage & cultural tourism, land management, land care and in delivering cultural awareness and other educational programs. He has coordinated research projects and stakeholder management initiatives and has completed the Australian Indigenous Leadership Centre’s Certificate IV course for emerging Indigenous leaders. Jason has a growing national profile in the area of Indigenous men’s social and emotional wellbeing. He is leading the development of Kurongkurl Katitjin into an Interpretive Centre.

DR ALEX BROWN

Dr Alex Brown is an Aboriginal Man from the South Coast of NSW. He completed his Bachelor of Medicine in 1995 and in 1998 undertook his Masters in Public Health in Israel. Alex has recently submitted his PhD thesis on chronic disease and depression in Aboriginal men in Central Australia.

Alex has been a driving force in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and has worked tirelessly for over 10 years in education, policy, communicable disease control, service delivery and public health, epidemiology, research and research ethics. Alex ran the Centre for Disease Control in Alice Springs between 1999 - 2003 following this he moved to the role of  Senior Research Fellow with the Menzies School of Health Research.

Alex currently Heads the Centre for Indigenous Vascular Research, Baker IDI where he has spent the past six years developing a program of research with a particular focus on Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes and Rhuematic Health Disease. He has presented extensively across the country, and overseas and has a number of publications including invited editorials discussing Cardiovascular Disease in Aboriginal Australians and key Evidence Based Guidelines for Cardiovascular Disease in Aboriginal people.

Dr Brown represents Aboriginal issues on a number of national committees and at national forums. His work on psychosocial determinants of Cardiovascular Disease in Indigenous men, depression in Indigenous men, quality of care and outcomes following ACS (Acute Coronary Syndrome), KVC ( Kanyini Vascular Collaboration) Programme, the polypill trial in Aboriginal people, and landmark survey of heart failure in Aboriginal communities place him at the forefront of a key research group for chronic disease in Aboriginal people.

DR BRIAN MCCOY

Dr Brian McCoy grew up in Melbourne but has spent much of his adult life in northern Australia in a variety of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. In that time he has been involved in a wide range of community and social activities involving church, sport, music, prison and men’s cultural business. In 1977 he was ordained as a priest for the Jesuit religious order within the Catholic Church.

Apart from working in NQld and the NT, Brian has also worked extensively with Aboriginal men in the desert region south of Halls Creek, the Kimberley of WA (Kutjungka region) where he lived for a number of years and still visits regularly today. He was involved in church, sporting and cultural issues with the people of that region, including work with St John Ambulance (WA), supporting remote area emergency care and the teaching of first aid.

In 2004, he completed a PhD at The University of Melbourne that focussed on the health of the men of the Kutjungka region of south-east Kimberley, WA. This was later published as Holding Men: Kanyirninpa and the health of Aboriginal men. In 2004 Brian was also appointed an Honorary Fellow with The University of Melbourne and following this he took up an NHMRC Australian Training Fellowship for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Research at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society (ARCSHS) at La Trobe University. Brian is currently a Senior Research Fellow in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health at La Trobe University.

Brian’s particular research interest is in promoting, sustaining and evaluating health programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men. These are programs that engage men, are supported by them, and that can be sustained and evaluated.

He is also interested in the work of traditionalist healers (maparn), the impact of mission dormitories on generational trauma, and the health implications of petrol sniffing, music, sport, education and imprisonment.

DR DAVID BROCKMAN

David is a Nunukul-Nughi man and grew up in Brisbane. He studied Psychology at James Cook University of North Queensland in 1990; Medicine from University of Newcastle 1997; Masters of Public Health, Jerusalem 2001; and is a Fellow of Royal Australian Collage of General Practitioners.

David has worked as a doctor for Community Controlled organisations and in private practice as well as research and administration.

David is currently based in Alice Springs and is Vice President of the Australian Indigenous Doctor’s Association. He is completing a second Fellowship with the Royal Australian College of Sexual Health Physicians.