Joan Clarke, Director, Joan Clarke Consulting Named Executive of the Year in Executive Management Training

    VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, May 22, 2014 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Dr. Joan Clarke, Director of Joan Clarke Consulting, has been named a Worldwide Branding Executive of the Year in Executive Management Training. While inclusion in Worldwide Branding is an honor, only a small selection of members in each discipline are chosen for this distinction. These special honorees are distinguished based on their professional accomplishments, academic achievements, leadership abilities, years of service, and the credentials they have provided in association with their Worldwide Branding membership.

Dr. Clarke has 26 years of professional experience, with 10 years of experience as the Director of Joan Clarke Consulting. Over the years, she has established herself as an expert in Australian colonialism and post-colonialism, budgets, business administration, mental health, and allied fields. On a daily basis, she is responsible for keeping abreast of changes in the health and mental health fields, training employees accordingly. Prior to joining Joan Clarke Consulting, Dr. Clarke worked as the executive director of the Uniting Care Prahran Mission from 1989 until 2005, and she also served as a lecturer at The University of Melbourne and a director of research and policy at Anglicare.

Dr. Clarke was a teacher in public policy and international relations in the Political Science School at The University of Melbourne from 1977 to 1985. She took up the position of director of research and social policy at the Mission of St. James & St. John, now Anglicare, focusing on children and family issues, from 1985 to 1989. Her many publications in this role include "Welfare Forecasts." In 1989, she accepted the position of executive director at Uniting Care Prahran Mission, an agency comprising of 120 staff members and 200 volunteers with a range of services for people with mental illnesses. Under her leadership, the Uniting Care Prahran Mission evolved and grew into a nationally and internationally recognized organization featuring research, accredited training in rehabilitation technologies, and library services integrated with on-the-ground rehabilitation services. Each year, more than 2,000 people with mental illnesses use Prahran Mission rehabilitation and support services, including mothers in need of parenting skills, young adults undertaking accredited educational courses for employment, and older adults training to re-enter the workforce, as well as artists, musicians, homeless people and people undergoing sex reassignment.

Dr. Clarke founded the Centre of Psychosocial Rehabilitation for Training and Research. She was awarded a medal by The Order of Australia Association in 2003 in recognition of her research. She was also awarded a Centenary medal in 2002 for services rendered in Stonnington, and the MHS Inaugural Award for her exceptional contribution to mental health services in Australia and New Zealand in 2003. Dr. Clarke recently retired from her role as executive director, but continues to train managers and workers in the mental health field in clinical and community settings. She also works nationally and globally as a consultant on organizational and management issues, specifically in the area of mental health. She was a member of the Victorian Ministerial Advisory Committee on mental health and is now a member of Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health; both of these memberships are statutory appointments by the Victorian Minister for Health. She is a three-term member of the editorial committee for the community mental health peak body VICSERV's journal "Newparadigm." She ran a conference on "Postcolonialism, Mental Illness and Prisons" in May 2013 at the Institute of Postcolonial Studies in Melbourne. See www.ipcs.org. Her greatest career achievement was changing government policies to improve services for those with mental illnesses.

Looking back, Dr. Clarke attributes her success to her passion for the availability of better services, support and rehabilitation for those with severe mental illnesses, particularly those committed to prison or forensic institutions. She became involved in her profession because her mother's mental illness inspired her to work for others with mental illnesses in order to enable them to recover, achieve personal and professional goals, live independently and experience spiritual development.

Dr. Clarke received a Ph.D. in politics and psychology from The University of Melbourne in 1985, in addition to a Master of Arts, a Bachelor of Arts, and a Bachelor of Education. In addition to her degrees, she is an accredited teacher, an accredited trainer in psychiatric rehabilitation technologies, and an accredited management consultant. She is a member of the Victorian Council of Churches, as well as The Institute of Postcolonial Studies, and she is a former member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Mental Health. In recognition of her talent and dedication, she received an Inaugural Award for Exceptional Personal Contribution to Mental Health from the Australia and New Zealand Mental Health Association Inc. in 2005. In 2003, she received a medal from The Order of Australia Association, and in 2002, she was presented with a Centenary Medal. In years to come, Dr. Clarke plans on researching the continuing effects of colonialism on mental health services and attitudes, particularly the increasing numbers of those with severe mental illness in prisons.

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