Hosted by: Dr Peter Steer

Dr Peter Steer has a wealth of healthcare administration experience and clinical expertise, recently joining the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne as CEO. Previous appointments include Mater CEO in January 2019, and Chief Executive of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) in London from January 2015 to December 2018.

Peter commenced his medical career at Mater Brisbane in 1982 after graduating from The University of Queensland and worked there until 1987. After four years of further training in neonatology in New Zealand and Canada, Dr Steer returned to the Mater Mothers’ and Children’s Hospitals in 1991 as a neonatologist and subsequently as Executive Director of Mater Children’s Hospital from 1995 until 2002.

Peter then spent six years at McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in Canada as President and Chief of Paediatrics at McMaster Children’s Hospital and Professor and Chair, Department of Paediatrics at McMaster University. On return to Brisbane, he was charged with the merger of Royal Children’s and Mater Children’s Hospitals and the delivery of the $1.4 billion Queensland Children’s Hospital as CEO of Children’s Health Queensland.

Peter is a current member of the ACU Senate.

Presenter 1 – Professor Laura Miller

Professor Laura Miller is an occupational therapist with 25 years clinical experience working with children with disabilities and their families. Laura has a PhD in clinical sciences and a Master of Health Services Management and has held leadership positions within non-government, private and public health, and disability sectors, both nationally and internationally.

Laura works in the School of Allied Health at the Australian Catholic University and is the chief investigator on the ENVISAGE program of research. ENVISAGE: Enabling Visions and Growing Expectations is a nationally and internationally funded – more than $12 million – program of research engagement, implementation and impact that seeks to empower families and communities raising children with developmental concerns and disabilities.

Laura has conducted multi-organisational, international and national clinical trials with children with disabilities and their families over the past decade. She currently has more than 30 industry partnerships across Australia supporting the implementation and evaluation of ENVISAGE nationally.

Laura is committed to using integrated knowledge translation approaches and partners with parents and communities raising children with disabilities to drive consumer led research with impact. Laura’s research priorities focus on co-design and parent engagement, caregiver wellbeing, participation, community connection and culturally responsive practice.

In 2020 Laura received the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Staff Excellence in Community Engagement and the Vice Chancellor’s Award for the Spirit of Reconciliation. In 2023, ENVISAGE was a finalist in the international Triple E Awards for Community Engagement and the National Disability Awards for Innovation. She was also awarded the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Staff Excellence in Research and Research Partnerships, and the Vice Chancellor’s Medal for Excellence.

Presenter 2 – Rose Babic

Rose Babic is a parent researcher from Melbourne who is passionate about empowering children with disabilities and their families to live a strengths-based values driven life.

She is a mum of two wonderful young men. Her first child Eric, 19, has a congenital brain malformation – polymicrogyria. This has led to developmental delays, cerebral palsy, uncontrolled epilepsy and associated health complications.

Rose has a tertiary background in behavioural science and education. Since 2017 she has been working on the international research collaboration known as ENVISAGE and since 2021 has worked within Murdoch Children's Research Institute's (MCRI) Neurodisability and Rehabilitation Group. At MCRI, as research associate, she has been co-designing and contributing to research that aims to understand the experience of and improve interactions between the health system and the everyday context of a child and family's environment.

She also works as a support coordinator helping NDIS participants and their families to seek out and direct services that empower them to live a good life.

Presenter(s) 3 – Janice Mc Randal and Peter Kline

Janice McRandal

Janice is mum to Leo, a darling seven-year-old boy with complex disabilities. Janice says that ENVISAGE Families program has changed her life. Not only did it provide a safe space and time to reset after the tumultuous early years of caring for Leo, but it gave her the tools and time to empower herself for the journey ahead. She is finally feeling positive and is excited about her caring journey ahead.

Peter Kline

Peter Kline is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology at St Francis College in Brisbane. He is a parent-peer in the ENVISAGE program, a dad to Leo, and a stepdad to Jesse and Penelope.