Staff

Operations Manager

Alanna is a proud Anaiwan inyenda (woman). As an Indigenous woman she is passionate about achieving justice for her fellow mob and has a particular interest in elevating the voices of young peoples. She is focused on systems change and strategic thinking and and believes collaborative working and interdisciplinary partnership is the corner stone to creating genuine change.

Alanna’s role at Just Reinvest NSW focuses on supporting Indigenous Data Sovereignty, managing the operations process, improving efficiency, developing and delivering on strategic objectives and designing the monitoring evaluation and learning framework of the organisation.

Community Engagement & Partnerships Manager

Youth Engagement Lead

Nicole has been working with young Aboriginal people and communities for more than a decade and has built and maintained strong relationships and connections that have shaped her life. She is passionate about First Nations communities leading change, youth participation, service sector and criminal justice reform, and adequate and holistic access to mental health support.

Nicole’s role at Just Reinvest NSW focuses on supporting young Aboriginal people to be involved and at the centre of community-led change and state-wide policy and legislative reform. She is grateful and constantly in awe of the strong, determined and endlessly caring, young people and community members, we learn from and work alongside.

Policy & Advocacy Lead

Jo has worked in research and project management positions including at the Indigenous Justice Clearinghouse, the NSW Reconciliation Council and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Jo has also served as a board member for ANTaR NSW.

Jo’s role at Just Reinvest NSW is to lead the development and implementation of  strategies aimed at influencing policy and systems change to support community-led agendas and reduce interactions with the criminal justice system. This includes facilitating collaboration with community members, partner organisations, academics, and government on key projects and initiatives. 

Community Data Consultant

Fiona is an academic, has worked alongside numerous communities interested in implementing justice reinvestment, including Katherine, Cairns and Cherbourg and is Convenor of the Justice Reinvestment National Network. Fiona believes at the heart of justice reinvestment sits compassion and understanding of why people offend, and greater accountability of those that hold most power to influence peoples’ lives positively and negatively. She enjoys the focus on self-determination, collaborative approaches and systems-based change and believes justice reinvestment provides a positive and constructive way forward to so many things we get wrong as a society. 

Fiona’s role at Just Reinvestment NSW focuses on supporting Indigenous Data Sovereignty and delivering a data driven approach to justice reinvestment. Her work assists in pulling all of the threads together, with community sitting at the centre, to help build happy, healthy, strong communities and to bring about necessary systems-based change.

Founder and Executive Director

Alistair was the Chairperson of the Bourke Aboriginal Community Working Party for more than 10 years. Justice reinvestment is a core component of the Maranguka initiative. Key to Alistair’s community development is the belief in seeing communities truly empowered and taking responsibility for their own issues and plight.

In 2018, Alistair was nominated for the Australia’s Local Hero Award which aims to acknowledge the extraordinary contributions individuals make in their local community. In 2015, in recognition of 20 years of work for his community in Bourke, and in particular for his leadership on the Maranguka Justice Reinvestment Project, Alistair received the Aboriginal Justice Award at the Law and Justice Foundation of NSW Justice Awards. Alistair Ferguson is a Director at Orana Haven Rehabilitation Centre and NSW Aboriginal Housing Office Member of the Regional Aboriginal Housing Committee, as well as on the Corrective Services Aboriginal Advisory Council.

Backbone Coordinator

Vivianne’s role at Maranguka is to facilitate and support the cross-sector collaboration and learning needed to achieve the community’s goals in the Growing our Kids Up Safe, Smart Strong strategy. 

Executive Assistant & Project Officer

Samara’s role at Maranguka is to provide assistance to the Executive Director and to provide office management and information co-ordination.

Communications and Data Officer

Tyra’s role at Maranguka is to work part of a multi-disciplinary team to provide communications and community engagement support to Maranguka, including data support to the working groups.

Moree Community Engagement Officer

Jude is a Gomeroi woman with almost four decades of experience working with education, disabilities, child protection, age care and juvenile justice.

“What I want to see is less young people before the criminal justice system in Moree. I want the young people to help build our community and utilise their strength and knowledge to empower themselves to make this place a better place, for themselves and everyone else in this community for many years to come so their children and grandchildren can benefit from having a safer, stronger community. JR in Moree is putting young peoples’ voices at the centre. It’s about giving mine, yours, our children and young people a say, listening to them, making them feel heard and valued, someone is listening.”

“My mob are very resilient Mob, country tough and staunch, fighters, never give up, so it’s hoped through this approach with Justice Reinvestment having whole of community involved in leading decision and assistance involving especially the young people help build bigger and better pathways for everyone.”

“It’s is important the children and young people in our community are given every opportunity to grow, be independent and strong leaders as they are the future.”

Moree Project and Administration Officer

Mekayla Cochrane is a proud Gomeroi woman, born and raised in Moree. With many of Mekayla’s family going through the system, she has experienced firsthand the impact it can have on families. She is passionate about breaking the cycle and the “normality” young people experience in their homes, with education as a main focus key. Through these experiences Mekayla is able to easily compare and identify where the system has failed the Aboriginal people in the community.

Mekayla’s role at Just Reinvest NSW focuses on engaging with community to work together in making their own decisions on what their people need to be able to succeed and grow.

“I can’t wait to see how the community rise up and take back control of their lives, create a safe and stable homes, educate themselves and lead a promising future”

Mt Druitt Community Engagement Officer

Julie is a single mother to 5 children, and grandmother to 11 grandchildren. She is a proud Gamilaroi women born and raised in Mt Druitt. She was raised strong in identity, community and culture, through both her mother and father’s family. Both herself and her family have experiences with the criminal justice system which allows Julie to better understand the forces that pull our young people in. She strongly believes in the need for early intervention and better community-based support for families.

“Just Reinvestment allows me to be involved in change and better support parents and their families to lead their own change. The criminal justice system is letting us down, they traumatize young people. We need to recongise that every community is different, and every family has their own story. We need to be looking at our data and deciding what do we do with it, listening to local Elders and young people and taking lead from them to begin the solution. If they haven’t lived our experience, how do they know what our struggle is? They need to listen to us and our stories. We, as members of the Mt Druitt community, have lived experiences of these issues and hold the solutions.”

Mt Druitt Youth Engagement Consultant

Isaiah Sines is a proud Dhungatti man from Kempsey and also has ties to the Wiradjuri people. After moving around a lot early in his life he is now settled in Mt Druitt.

“I have experienced a lot in my life and that is why I wanted to become a youth ambassador with Just Reinvest. I hope to be able to use this position to advocate for other Koori kids who are going through what I went through and hopefully prevent the future generations from being affected by the same systems I grew up in. I like the concept behind Just Reinvest and how the organisation understands that Aboriginal people have the solutions to the issues that affect us and that we just need to support communities to heal themselves.”

Some Isaiah’s work includes:

• Leading with Terleaha a youth-led project called Mounty Yarns- the lived experiences of Aboriginal young people in Mt Druitt;
• Instigating and leading a community OzTag team – Native Sons;
• Producing an op-ed with Terleaha;
• Sharing his story with young men in youth justice centres; and
• Advocacy around community-led solutions, changing policing practices and raising the age of criminal responsibility.

Mt Druitt Youth Engagement Consultant

Terleaha is a proud Kamilaroi and Yuin woman. She is a Just Reinvest Youth Ambassador and a project lead on Mounty Yarns – The lived experiences of Aboriginal young people in Mt Druitt. Terleaha is also assisting and coordinating a community-led OzTag team.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time.” – Barack Obama.

“Young people now in Mt Druitt are making change. We are putting as many things in place to help, support and guide change. And we will not stop.”