Georgie Harman is one of Australia’s most influential and trusted figures in the mental health sector. She leads with a community heart and a business head.
Since being appointed CEO of Beyond Blue in 2014, Georgie has steered the organisation through significant growth and transformation – expanding its services and supports, strengthening connection to the community, and harnessing digital innovation.
She is Deputy Chair of the Australian National Advisory Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs and serves on the Boards of Mental Health Australia and mentoring organisation, Kilfinan Australia. She is a patron of Out for Australia – an organisation that supports young LGBTIQA+ professionals.
Before taking up the position at Beyond Blue, Georgie had broad-ranging leadership, policy and service delivery experience in the community, public and private sectors. She helped set up the National Mental Health Commission, where she was Deputy CEO, providing independent advice to government on reform and system performance. From 2006-2012, Georgie was a senior executive at the Commonwealth Department of Health, with responsibility for mental health, suicide prevention, substance misuse, cancer and chronic disease policy and programs.
She also spearheaded the early strategy and development of legislation to introduce plain packaging of tobacco products in Australia – a world first. Georgie has also led national reforms to lift Australia’s organ and tissue donation rates and worked in the HIV/AIDS sector in Australia and the UK.
It takes a village: how collective solutions can empower educators and help raise mentally healthy children and young people
Raising the next generation of mentally healthy Australians means creating the conditions to help children and young people thrive – not just in schools and early learning services but in every area of their lives.
In this presentation, Beyond Blue CEO Georgie Harman outlines how we can build mentally healthy young people by looking beyond individuals to take a whole-of-community, inclusive approach. If we collectively address the broader social drivers that lead to poor mental health outcomes, everyone is better off.
Georgie will also highlight why educator wellbeing is a key ingredient for mentally healthy classrooms, and why we need to move beyond notions of educator self-care and towards a future where learning communities make educator wellbeing a shared responsibility. She will share her own leadership insights, and how Beyond Blue’s national mental health in education initiative, Be You, can help.