Board members
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Andrea Porte
Andrea joined the Families Tasmania Board in , and has served as President of the Board since . Andrea sits on a number of not-for-profit boards, and has a passion for community, advocacy, social policy and corporate responsibility. Andrea has a keen interest in programs that facilitate wellbeing and connectedness for Tasmanian families, and is herself a mother of two beautiful children. Andrea is a Senior Client Executive with Aon Risk Services, and utilises her professional skills in strategy, governance and risk management for the benefit of the organisation. Andrea is a Qualified Practicing Insurance Broker with the National Insurance Brokers Association and a Senior Associate with the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance.
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Debbie Spandonis
Debbie is currently the Hobart Branch Manager of Aon, a leading global professional services firm providing a broad range of risk, retirement and health solutions. Debbie is also a Committee Member of the National Insurance Brokers Association (Tas). Debbie has over 20 years’ experience in insurance and financial services and, driven by a devotion to help people, joined the board of Families Tasmania in .
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Kate Slater
Kate joined the Families Tasmania Board in . Kate has a strong belief in building positive partnerships with families and has a particular passion and focus in the early years. Work in the last few years has involved engaging the community to support parents and their young children. Collaboration with a range of stakeholders and using her experience as an accredited coach has developed community engagement, improving support for families. A characteristic of her work is innovation and creativity and she is focused in looking for new ways to improve outcomes for our youngest citizens. Her extensive leadership experience and working with others in different contexts (size, environment, socio-economic) and working across agencies, local government, schools and community groups has been ongoing throughout her professional career.
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Kate Crawford
Kate joined the Board in , bringing a background in event management, marketing, leadership, governance and the volunteering sector. Kate is the Strategic Manager of Sector Development for Volunteering Tasmania. Kate wishes she had discovered Families Tasmania when her two children were babies and she was a young mother navigating the world of motherhood. Her motivation in being part of the Families Tasmania Board was her way of giving back to the community and investing in today’s youth, providing opportunities to make better life choices towards their future world.
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Tanya Greenwood
Tanya is a project officer with the Fingal Valley Neighbourhood House, delivering the mobile early learning and parenting support program, Building Blocks, which travels across NE Tasmania supporting families and children 0–8 years. Tanya has a background in social welfare, early childhood education and care and was a keen participant in local playgroups and school and sporting groups when her two children were younger. She was previously coordinator of Hub4Health (a not-for-profit community organisation based in St Helens), currently serves as a member of the Break O’Day Employment Connect and Youth Collective North East Coast Tasmania steering committees and is a community representative on the Premier’s COVID-19 Regional Recovery Committee (North). Tanya is passionate about giving every child in Tasmania the opportunity to thrive and grow and to see all families with the support they need to care for their children.
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Madelaine Holt
Madelaine was delighted to join the Families Tasmania board in after discovering the work of the organisation following the birth of her daughter. Madelaine brings extensive leadership, strategic management and stakeholder engagement skills from her role at the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission where she leads complex investigations into contraventions of Australia’s consumer and product safety laws. In her spare time, Madelaine is a marriage celebrant and enjoys playwriting. Madelaine holds a Bachelor of Business and Bachelor of Laws (Hons) and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice.
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Emily Creak
Coming soon.
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Kaitlyn Graham
Kaitlyn is a mother to a toddler, with a comprehensive background in health policy and research. She is motivated to empower Tasmanian families and communities to feel capable of, and confident to, improve the health and well-being of themselves and those around them. Kaitlyn has high-level skills in policy analysis, research, media and communications, project management/coordination, grant/proposal preparation, resource development, and stakeholder engagement/consultation. Kaitlyn has worked at consumer, provider and systemic levels designing and implementing initiatives that use evidence-informed best-practice models to create sustainable change systemically. Kaitlyn hopes to contribute to a better Tasmania, not just for the current generations of Tasmanians, but for many more to come.
