Our people

Our team is made up of people based in Walgett, Sydney and beyond.

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Housing work
We work with the community where changes requires them to push a little and we push back a little – like a bow saw. Sawing together shows our partnership. We give them tools to see their strengths and identify the resources and then work together.
— Clem Dodd
Long-term former Speaker of the Dharriwaa Elders Group

Walgett team

Wendy Spencer is the General Manager and Water and Country Co-Lead of Dharriwaa Elders Group. She is the founding Project Manager of the Dharriwaa Elders Group (“DEG”), and brings small business and a background in community media to her roles. Wendy first worked for the Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service (“WAMS”). The Founding Chair of WAMS, George Rose OAM, together with other Elders, founded the DEG in the late 1990s and invited Wendy to support their work, which she continues to further through DEG and Yuwaya Ngarra-li. 

Vanessa Hickey is the Community Response Lead at Dharriwaa Elders Group. She is a Gamilaraay mother of four who began working with the Dharriwaa Elders Group part-time in 2017 in the Elders Support Officer role and joined the Yuwaya Ngarra-li team in April 2018. Vanessa is actively working to improve the education outcomes for Walgett children and has served as a member of the School Reference Group and the Walgett AECG for some years. Vanessa is also an active volunteer for the Walgett Local Aboriginal Land Council’s Aboriginal Culture and Heritage Committee and is very active in the anti-Coal Seam Gas movement to protect Country and wellbeing for north-west NSW communities. 

Kim Sullivan is a Gamilaraay wirring.gaa born and bred in Walgett’s Namoi and Gingie villages. Kim was raised by her grandmother – a well-respected cultural custodian. Kim left school at 16, lived for five years in Sydney and 16 years in Lightning Ridge where she raised 3 children, supporting her family by opal mining. She moved back to Walgett at aged 29 to work as an Aboriginal Healthworker at the Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service. While there Kim honed caring skills and empathy for her clients that she drew from lived experience from trauma in her early life that eventually sent her into alcohol addiction for 10 years. After sobering up, Kim began working for Dharriwaa Elders Group in 2004 as an Elders Support Worker. In 2017 she began work with the newly created Western PHN Aboriginal Hub in Walgett where she provided frontline support for clients struggling with addiction. In 2021 she returned to a full-time role with DEG as Yuwaya Ngarra-li Project Officer in which she contributes to ongoing community engagement and provides project and administrative support. Kim is glad to be back working with a team that is committed to working for and with the community of Walgett.

Steven “Bungee” Dennis is part of the Dharriwaa Elders Group Dealing with Fines team. Bungee supports Aboriginal people in Walgett to work off fines through registering for a Work and Development Order and participating in activities such as art workshops and on Country trips, helping Elders with gardening, maintaining local parks, and running a community café. Bungee has a clear vision for the work he is doing in the Yuwaya Ngarra-li partnership: “I want better quality of life for our mob - better water, cheaper food, more activities for our youth.  I want more gardening programs to grow food, more lunch and dinner programs. There are still people going hungry in Walgett. I want to help change that.”

Zoe Sands is a proud Gamilaraay woman from Walgett. She is currently the Water and Country Co-Lead and a River Ranger Project Officer at Dharriwaa Elders Group. She loves working for DEG because of the advocacy they do for the Walgett community and being from Walgett she wants to give back to her community.

Ernest Sands is a Gamilaraaay man born in Walgett. He grew up on Namoi Village where he still resides. He is the Senior Ranger for the River Rangers at Dharriwaa Elders Group (DEG). Prior to working here at DEG he worked at Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service for 10 years.

Aaron was raised in Walgett. He lived on both Namoi and Gingie Reserves. He is a Ranger in the River Ranger team at Dharriwaa Elders Group. He wants to look after the rivers and being a part of the River Rangers team gives him to opportunity to do so.

Loretta is a Gamilaroi woman from Walgett and Wellbeing Lead for Dharriwaa Elders Group. She has a background as a community researcher and sees working as part of Yuwaya Ngarra-li as a way to be a voice and advocate for her community. Loretta wants to see a healthy Walgett, and for families to feel empowered to make choices for themselves through the support of Dharriwaa Elders Group's programs.

Wendy Rose is an Ngemba women who lived in Brewarrina and Walgett in her early years before moving to Wagga Wagga with her family in the early 80’s. Wendy remained in Wagga Wagga and started her own family. While raising her children Wendy began tutoring in local schools in the Wagga Wagga area. This eventually led to administrative and customer service roles where Wendy gained skills and qualifications to become a case worker and manager.

Wendy moved back to Walgett in February 2024 to get back on country and give back to the community. Wendy starting working in May 2024 with the Dharriwaa Elders Group and Yuwaya Ngarra-li Dealing with Fines program. Wendy is passionate, proud and committed to working with this program to better the lives of our people and community.

UNSW team

Associate Professor Ruth McCausland (PhD, MISD, BA Hons 1) is Director of Yuwaya Ngarra-li at UNSW. Her research focuses on systemic critiques and community-led responses to the criminalisation and incarceration of women, young people, people with disability and Aboriginal peoples. Ruth was a researcher on the Indigenous Australians with Mental Health Disorders and Cognitive Disability in the Criminal Justice System (IAMHDCD) Project that involved collaboration with the Dharriwaa Elders Group and Walgett Aboriginal Medical Service from 2011-2015, and has been involved in building the Yuwaya Ngarra-li partnership at the UNSW end since then. Ruth’s PhD was on evaluation and the diversion of Aboriginal women from prison, and she also has a Masters in International Social Development. Ruth has previously worked as an evaluation consultant for government and non-government agencies, a senior research fellow at Jumbunna, UTS, and policy officer at the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and Australian Human Rights Commission.

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Peta Ivy MacGillivray (BA/LLB; Grad. Dip Legal Prac; LLM) is a Kalkutungu and South Sea Islander lawyer and researcher, and the Yuwaya Ngarra-li Senior Research Fellow focused on legal and justice issues based at UNSW. Peta has worked as a researcher on a range of criminology, legal services and community-development projects in NSW and across Australia. Peta was a Field Researcher and Project Manager for the Indigenous Australians with Mental Health Disorders and Cognitive Disability in the Criminal Justice System (IAMHDCD) Project, which first introduced her to the Dharriwaa Elders Group. Peta’s area of legal practice specialisation is the legal needs of children and young people, particularly those experiencing social and economic disadvantage. Peta is passionate about Indigenous children and young people’s participation in community development work.

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Dr Rebecca Reeve (BEc Hons., PhD) is a Senior Research Fellow with Yuwaya Ngarra-li at UNSW. She is an applied econometrician who is committed to using her skills to help improve wellbeing and social justice, through evidence-based research and evaluation.  Rebecca has fifteen years’ research experience in academia and the not-for-profit sector, working on a range of mixed-methods projects.  She has particular expertise in using linked administrative data for longitudinal analyses relating to health, education, and criminology.  In her spare time Rebecca is an advocate for refugees and people seeking asylum.  

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Samantha Rich is a Wiradjuri Graduate of Architecture, Adjunct Lecturer at UNSW and a researcher dedicated to embedding First Nations worldview into the design of buildings and the broader built environment. Samantha has a focus on addressing systemic housing needs facing many remote and regional communities. She has worked with Yuwaya Ngarra-li for the last few years looking at multiple housing needs in the Walgett community. She is interested in the role that housing can play in supporting reciprocal relationships embedded in Indigenous culture to care for people, communities and Country.

Andrea Hadaway is the Project Manager - Justice with Yuwaya Ngarra-li at UNSW. Andrea worked as a criminal and civil lawyer for 15 years representing children and young people in the criminal justice and out-of-home-care systems. She has also worked in the youth and community services sector, leading programs and services supporting children, young people, women, families and communities.

May Miller-Dawkins is a researcher, advocate and facilitator with over twenty years’ experience working in and with social movements, community organisations, international civil society, universities and foundations with a focus on community leadership, systemic change and action learning. She is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at UNSW. 

Alicia Dunning is a proud Bundjalung dietitian with a Bachelor of Science (Nutrition) and a Master of Nutrition and Dietetics with Distinction. She spent the first 8 years of her career working as a clinical dietitian in NSW public hospitals gaining vital dietetic, communication and counselling skills. After working in the hospital system through the COVID-19 pandemic, she moved to Canada for a working holiday. While there, she learned about First Nations people of Canada and how colonisation had impacted them, as well as how nutrition research was unethically conducted on them. She realised the similarities to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Australia, which re-ignited her passion for research and her desire to return to Australia to work with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. She joined the Food and Water for Life program in mid-2023 as a research associate and is focused on improving food and water security in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. 

Alicia is an Adjunct Fellow with the UNSW Division of Societal Impact, Equity & Engagement.

Ashley Shepherd is a Wiradjuri Social Work Researcher and the Senior Project Officer at Yuwaya Ngarra-li. She is a current PhD at UTS, focusing on Aboriginal and Torres Strait LGBTQIA+SB young people's mental health. She has experience working across governmental areas, including her recent work on Closing the Gap Priority Reform Four—Data Sharing with Aboriginal Communities and as Department Liaison Officer for the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. She is passionate about improving outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and being led by community.

Yssy Burton-Clark is Yuwaya Ngarra-li's Project Officer at UNSW Sydney. Yssy holds qualifications in Communications and Criminology & Criminal Justice, and has previously worked in stakeholder engagement, communications, administration and customer service, as well as completing a placement in disability research at the UNSW Social Policy Research Centre. He is also currently completing Honours in Criminology, incorporating crip theory and cultural criminology in a critical analysis of pop culture depictions of psychosocial disability. 

Evangeline is a Research Assistant as part of the Global Water Institute and the Yuwaya Ngarra-li Partnership. She has a Bachelor of Science (Hons), focusing on ecology and stable isotope analysis. She previously worked within the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences (BEES) at UNSW Sydney, focusing on waterbird diet.