The Healthy Minds Geelong Board

Our Board

The board is made up of six local leaders from various backgrounds.

Peter Derbyshire

Pete is a big advocate for mental health and the Founder of Healthy Minds Geelong. He’s also the Managing Director of Derbyshire Homes. He has always been passionate about changing the stigma associated with mental wellbeing and trying to make access to mental health services easy.

Pete experienced a tragic journey with the loss of his father Noel and daughter Freya in the past few years. In trying to leave a legacy for his daughter, the Freya fund was established which has greatly helped HMG create a bright future.

Outside of running Derbyshire and HMG you’ll find him playing guitar, surfing down the beach or chasing after his little girl Charli (or one of his ten nieces and nephews). That or talking about the doggies 2016 Premiership. It’s still relevant.

Kylie Grotheer

Kylie is passionate about the Geelong community and in particular, mental health. Kylie was a participant in the 2014 & 2016 Leaders for Geelong program and as a result was part of a group that founded Healthy Minds Geelong.

Outside of HMG Kylie is the team leader of the PWS Wealth Advisory team. Kylie graduated from Deakin University with a Bachelor of Commerce. She is a fully qualified Certified Practicing Accountant (CPA) and has a Diploma in Financial Planning. Kylie is committed to ensuring her clients achieve their personal and financial goals and improving their overall wellbeing. Kylie specialises in many areas including Self-Managed Superannuation Fund (SMSF) consulting and retirement planning.

Outside of work, Kylie enjoys yoga, travelling and spending time with her family and friends.

Prof. Chad Whelan

Chad Whelan is a Professor in Criminology at Deakin University, where he teaches and conducts research across many areas of criminology, as well as contributes to the Master of Leadership in the Deakin Business School. He is the Associate Head of School (Teaching and Learning) and holds other academic and strategic leadership roles in this area at Deakin University, and is a member of the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation.

Chad Whelan conducts research across several areas, but principally focuses on applying a network perspective to complex crime/security problems and law enforcement responses to those problems. He has received numerous research grants worth over $3.75m on these and related problems and has over 50 research publications.

Outside of work Chad places a high importance on ensuring he’s looking after his wellbeing – primarily by spending time with this young family.

Jo Betz

Jo Betz is a savvy businesswoman having co-founded the digital wedding publication Ivory Tribe and she is a highly-sought after marriage celebrant – having officiated over 450 weddings.

Jo is also the author of ‘Grief – a guided journal’ and a passionate advocate for giving grief a voice in our community after the sudden death of her husband in 2017. Whether it’s reliving her own story of grief and loss when public speaking or guiding people to explore their own grief,  she continues to help others to find the good in grief and talk about this typically taboo topic.

Outside of work, Jo loves nothing better than getting away, heading out on a hike, enjoying a glass of wine and being a mum to her daughter.

Luke Outerbridge

Luke has been busy volunteering in the mental health space of Geelong where he co-founded The Man Walk – Geelong and he also co-founded the men’s mental health initiative, Right Mate. In these roles, Luke has been hosting mental health events and talks to community groups, sporting clubs and schools to promoting the need to look after yourself mentally and looking out for your peers. He also volunteers on the committee for the Geelong Young Professionals to host networking events in the Geelong region.

In his professional life, Luke is a Geelong-based graphic designer after moving from near Byron Bay in 2007 to established his own creative agency, Proxy Design.

Outside of work Luke loves spending time at the beach or enjoying a nice glass of red (or whisky) with friends.

Dr. Rachel Driscoll

Rachel is our resident General Practitioner, who currently works as a General Practitioner at Newtown Medical Centre and Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-op. As a medical professional she’s passionate about maintaining good mental health and appropriate mental health services for the healthcare profession. “A good health service is only as good as its employees”.

She also has a keen interest in developing communication skills through ongoing participation in communication workshops. Rachel believes that many of the complications in healthcare are due to poor communication and continuing personal improvement in this area improves health outcomes for patients.

She sees universal access to high quality healthcare as essential to a good functioning community and believes it is the responsibility of all health professionals to advocate for this. Rachel leads by example and engages in healthy habits and preventative medicine.

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