Dana is Aboriginal/Chinese and a descendant of the Ngarrindjeri people in South Australia and has a passion for working with Aboriginal people and communities.
Dana has over 20 years’ experience working across the public and not for profit sectors in the areas of health, families and child protection. She commenced her career as a Youth Community Development Officer in both the Adelaide Hills and the Murray Lands. In this role she worked with young people, many of whom were at risk, to create better environments for young people in their communities. Dana went on to work in a number of senior roles with the SA public sector in which she had responsibility for program management, service delivery, policy development and strategic planning and worked with The Australian Centre for Social Innovation (TACSI) where she held the role of Principal, Social Services, Systems & Aboriginal Policy and Director of the Family by Family program.
Dana’s current work includes supporting organisations to plan for the future and elevating the voices of living experience to make service and systemic change. In addition, Dana recently completed a two-year mindfulness meditation teacher’s course with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach and is committed to making this accessible to organisations and communities in South Australia and bringing a strong First Nations and Ngarrindjeri lens to mindfulness practice.