About Us

Our People - the Board - our volunteer staff - our National Advisory Panel

Chronic Pain Australia consists of a number of volunteer staff who are governed by a Board.

Our Board

Mr Luke Arthurs

Luke is a senior executive in the Police Service and cares for someone who lives with pain. He is deeply invested in supporting carers of people living with chronic pain. He has expertise in HR and media management.

Ms Diana Aspinall

Director & Population Health Consultant, Arthritis NSW, Chairperson, Chronic Illness Alliance of NSW. Diana is a registered nurse with over 30 years experience in community health and has a tertiary qualification in Health Promotion Strategic Planning. She has managed many community development health promotion projects including establishing a culturally appropriate Indo Chinese refuge for women, reducing domestic violence in a defined community and setting up a safecommunities model for injury prevention. She has been a volunteer director with Arthritis NSW for the past five years. In the last two years she has been working as a Population Health Consultant, which has included working with Arthritis NSW, strategically planning and developing specialised health programs for people with Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. One of those programs has been "Challenging Arthritis" an interactive online self-management program with the specific aim of reaching people who cannot access a routine self-management course. In September last year she attended the New Perspectives International Conference on self-management and patient centred care in Canada. She has been a member of the committees producing the Arthritis & Musculoskeletal National Action Plan and National Service Improvement Framework. She is on two committees that monitor and review Consumer Medicine Information and is a consumer member of the Working Group for the National Prescribing Service (NPS) Community QUM program. As the chairperson of the Chronic Illness Alliance of NSW she is committed to supporting and encouraging the sixty two members to identify and advocate for key issues that affect consumers with a chronic disease.

Mr Roland Crook

Rolly has been a Rotarian for the last 7 years, and in 2006 was Assistant Governor for the Outer Hills Zone of Rotary. Rolly brings business experience and network to the CPAA and he has worked hard to help the CPAA get started in 2007.

Dr Lynette Guy

Dr Lynette Guy is a physiotherapist with many years of experience in clinical and academic fields in relation to injury management, health safety and return to work processes, management of chronic pain and also self-management of chronic pain. She is currently employed as the senior researcher by the WorkCover Research Centre of Excellence, University of Newcastle. She completed the first of the Post Grad Dip training in management of pain offered by the Royal North Shore Hospital Sydney University collaboration and went on to compete a PhD in this area, the title of which is " Meanings of Chronic Pain: Chronic pain as a *biographical disruption*," through the School of Public Health, Griffith University, QLD with Supervisors Professor Stephanie Short & Adjunct Professor Assoc. Professor Rosemary Erben, from the International Union for Health Promotion & Education, World Health Organisation, Geneva.

Mr Lee Furlong

Lee is the Executive Director of the CPAA and functions as the Business Manager. Lee is a retired geophysicist who lives with chronic pain. Lee's job is to administer the organisation. He has experience in the community, being a long standing Rotarian, and having been involved in the development of Epilepsy NSW. Lee is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Mrs Carolyn Kerr

Carolyn Kerr has been involved in the financial services industry for 25 years working as a consultant in information technology for a major investment bank, and she is now working as a Certified Financial Planner.  She has a degree majoring in Economics, a diploma from the Securities Institute of Australia  and a Diploma of Financial Planning.  Carolyn is a member of the Financial Planning Association and a fellow of FINSIA.  She was involved in fund-raising for local charities while living in Fiji, and has done volunteer collecting for the Red Cross and the Salvation Army.

Mr Ron Mobbs

Ron holds a B Comm (UNSW) and his work history initially involved a period as an industrial advocate for Australia's biggest employer association and, personnel manager for a major company in the building industry. Following that he established his own consulting business and was engaged by major businesses and State and Federal Government departments in a management training role. His business ultimately became a Registered Training Organisation in the field of childcare. Towards the end of that period of some 25 years of consulting work his focus moved to the development of a childcare centre. That was followed by the development of a second one four years later and more recently, the development of a wholesale/import business. Ron is a past president of the Parramatta Chamber of Commerce & Industry and of the Rotary Club of Thornleigh, and brings enormous business acumen to the board.

Ms Madeleine Wales

Maddie is our representative of youth on the board of the CPAA. She is 21 years of age, and is a volunteer in the State Emergency Service. She has sponsored children in South Africa and has expertise in media production. Maddie works at the ABC in the news room.

Ms Coralie Wales

Coralie is the President of the Chronic Pain Association of Australia. She is immediate past CEO and founder of the Chronic Pain Group and a founding Director of the Chronic Pain Association of Australia. She lives with chronic pain and is undertaking a PhD program through Sydney University exploring health professional responses to clients living with chronic pain. Coralie speaks regularly at conferences and in the community about pain rehabilitation and the challenges facing statutory systems around Australia. She has worked as a consultant in providing advice to major employers in Australia, and has specialised in the rehabilitation of chronic non-cancer pain clients, assisting many to return to functional lifestyles over the last decade. She has presented a series of lectures on chronic pain rehabilitation in Sydney University's Faculty of Health Sciences to final year and postgraduate rehabilitation counselling students. Coralie is a member of the Australian Pain Society and the Rehabilitation Counselling Association of Australiasia.

Mr Michael Ward

As a physio with 21 years of experience, Michael obtained the title of Manipulative Physiotherapist some 17 years ago after completing further post-graduate training. Michael has complemented this with further study by obtaining a Masters Degree in Manipulative Physiotherapy with research into the role of exercise in the management of low back pain. While Michael has gained broad experience across all areas of physiotherapy including sports injuries and orthopedic rehabilitation, his special interests include spinal and shoulder conditions. Michael is also a consultant to government authorities such as the Motor Accident Authority, and Workcover NSW.

Our Patrons are

Associate Professor Milton Cohen

Associate Professor Milton Cohen is a consultant physician in Rheumatology and Pain Medicine on the St Vincent's Sydney Campus. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and immediate-past Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. He has been very active in the development of pain medicine as a discipline and in the education and training of pain physicians. Dr Cohen's main clinical and research interests are issues in pain theory and practice, rational pharmacotherapy for pain and implications of persistent pain for public policy. Associate Professor Cohen is a patron of the Chronic Pain Association of Australia.

Ms Amanda Muggleton

Amanda Muggleton trained at London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Royal Academy of Dance. Her career spans 23 years working in theatre, film, TV and radio. She has a wonderful gift of speaking with spontaneity from the heart. Audiences love Amanda for her starring roles in Soulmates, Masterclass, Prisoner, Shirley Valentine, and Educating Rita. Many people don't realise that Amanda lives with chronic pain and she is a patron of the Chronic Pain Association of Australia. Amanda spoke about Chronic Pain Australia on national morning television in October 2007.

Volunteer Staff

CEO Ms Coralie Wales

General Manager Mr David Newman

Support Group and Carer Support Manager Mrs Margaret Knight

Marketing and Communications Manager Ms Kim Mathes

Membership Liaison Officer Mrs Suzanne Arthurs

Telephone Support Training Manager Ms Erica Greenop

Relaxation Training Manager Ms Rosemarie Kyle

Telephone Support trainees Kate #1, Rachel, Hanna, Sandra, Anna, Margaret, Kate#2

Consultant to the training program Dr Ruth Bright

Our National Advisory Panel (in alphabetic order)

Editor: Ms Coralie Wales

Ms Diana Aspinall

Director & Population Health Consultant, Arthritis NSW, Chairperson, Chronic Illness Alliance of NSW. Diana lives with chronic pain and is a registered nurse with over 30 years experience in community health. She has a tertiary qualification in Health Promotion Strategic Planning. She has managed many community development health promotion projects including establishing a culturally appropriate Indo Chinese refuge for women, reducing domestic violence in a defined community and setting up a safecommunities model for injury prevention. She has been a volunteer director with Arthritis NSW for the past five years. In the last two years she has been working as a Population Health Consultant, which has included working with Arthritis NSW, strategically planning and developing specialised health programs for people with Arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. One of those programs has been "Challenging Arthritis" an interactive online self-management program with the specific aim of reaching people who cannot access a routine self-management course. In September last year she attended the New Perspectives International Conference on self-management and patient centred care in Canada. She has been a member of the committees producing the Arthritis & Musculoskeletal National Action Plan and National Service Improvement Framework. She is on two committees that monitor and review Consumer Medicine Information and is a consumer member of the Working Group for the National Prescribing Service (NPS) Community QUM program. As the chairperson of the Chronic Illness Alliance of NSW she is committed to supporting and encouraging the sixty two members to identify and advocate for key issues that affect consumers with a chronic disease.

Ms Louise Bilato

Director/ Rehabilitation Counsellor, IMconcepts Darwin NT. Louise has a background working on an Outreach Rehabilitation Team providing innovative rehabilitation services and undertaking community development in remote Aboriginal communities and townships throughout the Northern Territory and East Kimberley region of Western Australia. More recently Louise has been actively involved in the development of the multidisciplinary RESTORE Pain Management Program as well as developing and conducting small group training programs for employers, insurers, GPs and Rehabilitation Providers. In 2006 she completed an eight-week Churchill Fellowship study tour of Canada and New Zealand visiting facilities that deliver pain management intervention within the functional context of return to work programs. Together Louise and her colleague, Pam Garton have developed the innovative Abilita Program. Its design concept evolved from the combined comprehensive experience in pain management and occupational rehabilitation and having witnessed the critical role of work related psychosocial factors and the importance of self-management functional restoration to chronic pain sufferers.

Associate Professor David Buchanan PhD

A/Prof Buchanan lives with chronic pain, and works in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Postgrad Medicine at Edith Cowan University. David's transdisciplinary PhD on the creative brain and pain won him both the Faculty and University Research Medals in 2006. He works in an international medical collaboration on Pain and has been published internationally in this regard. He has presented symposiums at numerous national and international conferences on pain and mental health. For the last two years he worked on the National Mental Health Benchmarking Project for the Federal Government and authored an international meta-analysis on readmissions in mental health. He is also a playwright, poet and musician and in 1992 he won the Outstanding Playwright Award and in 1993 he was awarded a Fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. His latest play A Bell in the Storm was staged at the Planetarium at Scitech by Alcoa and deckchair theatre and won the international Domie Innovation Award in the USA in 2005. His major interest is in learning to see what the creative brain means for the whole person beyond the word ‘mental'.

Mr David Butler  

Director Neuro Orthopedic Institute SA. David obtained his primary degree from the University of Queensland and subsequently earned a Graduate Diploma in Advanced Manipulative Therapy in 1985 and a Masters by research in 1996 from the University of South Australia. He has written and co-written many publications and is the author of the texts, Mobilisation of the Nervous System written in 1991 and published by Churchill Livingstone, and The Sensitive Nervous System, published by NOI. David has also recently completed the text Explain Pain, a patient directed book, co-authored with Lorimer Moseley. David has taught concepts of clinical reasoning, physical health of the nervous system and pain sciences for many years and in many countries. In Australia, he is an adjunct lecturer at the University of South Australia. David has research interests in pain measurement and mechanisms based classifications of pain.

Associate Professor Milton Cohen

Associate Professor Milton Cohen is a consultant physician in Rheumatology and Pain Medicine on the St Vincent's Sydney Campus. He is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians and immediate-past Dean of the Faculty of Pain Medicine of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists. He has been very active in the development of pain medicine as a discipline and in the education and training of pain physicians. Dr Cohen's main clinical and research interests are issues in pain theory and practice, rational pharmacotherapy for pain and implications of persistent pain for public policy. Associate Professor Cohen is a patron of the Chronic Pain Association of Australia.

Mr Matthew Craig

Matthew Craig is director of bounceREHAB, a multidisciplinary rehabilitation practice at the forefront of non-pharmacological pain management. Matthew has a foundation in clinical physiotherapy and strength and conditioning specialisation across many patient populations (sports, musculoskeletal, neurological, orthopaedic and occupational) which has provided him with a clinical focus on pain and its impact on human behaviours such as return to work, fear avoidance and its impact on quality of life. Matthew is currently involved in research projects at the faculty of Health Science, University of Sydney. His current research involvement is on treatment effectiveness of supervised and unsupervised exercise using specific outcome measures following various foot and ankle surgical procedures. His primary treatment focus uses a cognitive behavioural approach, positively reinforcing patients with compensable injuries; empowering them with the knowledge and skills for better long-term self-management of their pain and perceived injury. His aim is to reduce the impact of pain on day-to-day behaviour and improve confidence with general function, quality of life with a specific aim for a safe and appropriate return to work.

    

Ms Jenny Faulkner

Jenny lives with pain and is the Vice Chairperson of Fibromyalgia SA, she is a Board Member Bridges and Pathways Institute, a Member of the Australian Fibromyalgia Collaboration and a Member of the Southern Chronic Illness Links Network. The Bridges and Pathways Institute holds a vision of "people working together in a transparent culture of continuous quality improvement and risk minimisation to reduce the burden of chronic illness that is quality driven, client focussed and outcome based. The Bridges and Pathways Institute Inc is a not-for-profit organisation established in the context of the Australian primary care service reforms to focus on solutions. Its purpose is to improve the health-related outcomes and reduce the burden of chronic illnesses on individuals, their families and the Australian community.

Ms Mandy Nielsen

Mandy lives with chronic pain, and is a PhD Candidate, School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences, the University of Queensland, QLD. Her thesis title is Stories of Pain: A qualitative study of the experiences of people with chronic pain. She has recently accepted a post studying the language of pain and indigenous culture in Queensland at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies Unit based at the University of Queensland.

Professor Jennifer Strong

Jenny Strong is the Professor of Occupational Therapy in the Division of Occupational Therapy, School of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences at UQ. She is the past President of Academic Board at UQ, and a past Queensland Director of the Australian Pain Society. During her 3½ years in the Academic Board, Jenny served on the UQ Senate, and was on the Vice-Chancellor's Senior Executive. Jenny has worked clinically, researched, published and taught on pain management for the past 25 years. Jenny has published just approximately 150 articles in peer reviewed journals, book chapters, conference publications, and government reports, and two books. She is most proud of her edited 2002 book "Pain, A Textbook for therapists".

Dr Barbara True

Dr True is a rheumatologist based in South Australia. She is an exponent of Narrative Practice having presented at the APS Scientific Meeting in Perth, Australia in April 2008. She has a practice in Adult Rheumatology in Adelaide, also practises in the Adelaide Foot and Ankle Clinic, and is a Visiting Specialist at the Wallaroo Hospital in South Australia. She has published in both medical and literary fields, having published poetry (The Doing, Named for Life, Window Ledge, Rock Doctor Ars Medica, Toronto, 2007; My Body Never Lied, GumBoot Press, Adelaide, 2007) Induction to Narrative Medicine (April 2007), and Womb of the Moon, a novel through GumBoot Press, Adelaide, 2008. Barbara is a pioneer in analyzing the narrative used in working with people living with chronic pain.

Dr John Quintner

Rheumatologist, Perth, West Australia. MB BS (Sydney) 1963 MRCP (London) 1967 FFPMANZCA 1999. Dr Quintner is a Consultant Physician in Pain Medicine at the Fremantle Hospital (2007 - current) and prior to that was Clinical Lecturer in Rheumatology, Department of Orthopaedics, University of Western Australia (2001-2007). He was Locum Consultant Physician in Rheumatology, Royal Perth Hospital (2005 - 2007) - private practice (March 1975 - December 2002) and Consultant Physician in Rheumatology, Geraldton Regional Health Service (1993-2007). He was Honorary Medical Editor for Arthritis Today, (1999-February 2005).

He is an invited referee for the following journals:

  • The Lancet
  • Medical Journal of Australia
  • Theoretical Medicine & Bioethics
  • Paediatrics
  • Acta Orthopaedica Scandinavia
  • The Wellcome Trust
  • Centre of National Rehabilitation & Disability (CONROD)
  • Physiotherapy Research Foundation
  • Clinical Journal of Pain

He has exhaustively published in peer reviewed international journals.