It was a pleasure to meet Kevin again, particularly as he was able to tell his story to our Club on Monday evening.
Kevin started off his formal education with a B Ed, M Ed, then achieved excellence as a Certified Executive Coach, Master of NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and, oh I give up - here is his bio. It's his back story that I found so fascinating and engaging!!
...................Kevin runs his own consultancy service (Leading Australia) specialising in leadership training and development, has worked with numerous organisations and their teams especially in the not for profit sector and is an experienced executive coach working with senior executives.
He has extensive experience in workshop facilitation (strategic planning, governance, organisational and team development) working with a broad range of organisations with a focus on values-based leadership and emotional intelligence – emotional intelligence is positively correlated to effective leadership. He has worked with Boards of Management, Executive teams, management teams and frontline workers. He has worked with volunteers and was part of the development of Surf Life Saving Australia’s National Leadership College having run this for over 10 years.
Kevin has a significant record of employment in the health and welfare sector at the senior level and understands the complexities of both welfare and health care delivery. He has spent over 30 years as a senior executive working in Victoria, Northern Territory and Western Australia.
His expertise includes Addictions, having run a Counselling & Referral Centre, led the Northern Territory’s Alcohol and Drug Bureau and CEO of the Western Australian Alcohol and Drug Authority. Was CEO of Centacare Welfare service Melbourne and was CEO of Palliative Care Victoria from 2004 to 2010, in this role he was engaged in the development of community palliative care services in Victoria
He has worked extensively with ATSI populations and organisations and was recently (June 2018 to August 2019) Interim CEO of the Bodhi Bus a remote area transport organisation providing transport for remote aboriginal communities in the Top End of the NT.
He has had a lot of experience in Community Consultation, was a member of the consultancy team (Siggins and Miller) that conducted the Barwon-South Western Region Health and Wellbeing Workforce Strategy 2012-2022 and the National evaluation of the Aboriginal Ear Health Program (2017).
Kevin was also a member of the consultancy team that undertook the national evaluation of Men’s Sheds in Australia looking at the impact of Men’s Sheds on men’s on physical health and mental well being (Men’s Sheds in Australia. Ultrafeedback 2013).
Kevin is also currently undertaking the part-time role of Community Engagement Manager with the Peace of Mind Foundation, a not for profit organisation providing support to individuals and families effected by the diagnosis of brain cancer.
THE BACK STORY
Through my Hospice Board position I met Kevin for a brief walk on the beach, (honouring the COVID rules in April). Three hours later we parted with me having so much of his story in my head, and he, no doubt hoarse.
Kevin started off life in Melbourne and became a Catholic Priest in inner city Melbourne. Well that would be a story in itself, but there's more. He left the Priesthood having met Mary, married and they produced 7 wonderful children. He said that he hoped to continue the good work of his religious vocation in the secular world, and he certainly did. He has worked in senior roles all over Australia in the Not-for-Profit sector- Health, Prisons, Community Services, Disability, Recreation sectors to name a few. He is also a singer and has been a Presenter at the Port Fairy Folk Festival. Ah, yes that's where you have seen him before!!! And he lives in Torquay.
Kevin's daughter, a School Teacher, had developed benign but damaging tumours in her brain and wanted to find a support network, the only one she could find was Peace of Mind Foundation.
We are familiar with PoMF because for a few years we have provided a BBQ for them at their Retreat Camp at Anglesea. These Retreats provide the opportunity for those with Brain Cancer and their families to get together to share their troubles, support and find strategies to accommodate their future. Many are already affected by their illness with sensory and physical changes, so it is extremely valuable to be able to be in a safe and understanding environment.
Brain Cancer affects mostly the young, and yet there is comparatively little philanthropic and government funding for a treatment and cure, possibly due to the very very short prognosis. Kevin and the PoMF are seeking financial support to provide a Project Officer to support the 50-100 sufferers here in our region. As Kevin bluntly stated, "nothing concentrates the mind more than the threat of execution". This is indeed what these people and families are facing, with little time to try to address their finances, family, work, grief and demise. The Project Officer would provide the sufferers and families with tools and a framework to prepare for the future through 4 counselling sessions and at a cost of $5000 per annum.
Our President Jan is going to propose to other Clubs a collaborative program of support so that Peace of Mind can indeed provide some peace of mind to these beautiful young people.
Finally, Kevin came to Geelong to work in Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation. Today he sent me this note and the poem that he read out to us on Monday evening.
"I have attached what I can remember from the Poem, I know it was published in an anthology of poems on Addictions back in the 70s but I couldn't source it or find the original anthology that I was given. Anyway as I said on the night it was inspired by my very first client at the Geelong Centre for Alcohol and Drug Dependence which I was given the opportunity to set up in 1975 at 59 Sydney Parade. Robert came to the Centre referred by Psychiatrist Dr Marcus Benjamin seeking help. My inability to be of any real help to him hit a chord with me when I read of his death in the Geelong Advertiser, realising that so many had been unable to help him, and feeling deeply what must have been his desperate sense of isolation and helplessness.
Anyway the poem is in some sense a stream of consciousness and the fact that I can still recall it shows the impact he had on my life driving me to do better with others.
To that extent Robert did have an impact on the lives of many others and reflects the meaning of John Donne's For Whom the Bell Tolls (the death of one diminishes us all). "
ROBERT
Alone a man
A man alone
A man
But not a man alone
He reaches out
and out and out
But not but one
That out would come
He tried to hide
And cried
and cried
But hide he could not
Cry he could
And so he cried
And cried
And cried
Until his tears
Flowed into years
And man was nought
But tears
And fears
He chose his death
But not his life
And yet in death
He chose his life.
