Our People
The Hear and Say Centre is now entering its 15th year of operation and is staffed by highly qualified clinicians with extensive experience in working with deaf children and their families to achieve a proven world-leading 93% clinical success rate that allows these children to enter mainstream schooling and the wider community. In addition, the Centre also has seven years experience in training clinical professionals from tenoverseas countries as well as Australia and New Zealand.
Brief profiles on the key Hear and Say Centre clinical, medical and management staff and consultants to be involved in the Hear and Say WorldWide project are outlined below. In addition, appropriately trained local clinical and medical staff have also been identified in our international project destinations to assist in the roll-out and ongoing management of our training and service delivery.
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Founder and Managing Director
Mrs. Dimity Dornan A.M. Ba.SpTh; F.S.P.A.A; CpSp; Cert. AVT®
Dimity Dornan founded the Hear and Say Centre in July 1992. Dimity is a Speech Pathologist and Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist who is currently on the Board of the Alexander Graham Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language. Dimity is also a past Board member of Auditory-Verbal International (6 years). In June 1998, Dimity received the Order of Australia for her work with children with hearing loss. In 1999 she also received the AMAQ Award for Distinction for Services to Medicine. Dimity was named 2003 Queensland Australian of the Year and 2005 Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year. Read Dimity's CV here.
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Business Development Manager
Sarah Davidson LLB, MBA, GAICD
Sarah has worked with the Hear and Say Centre in a strategic planning and business development capacity since 2004. Her professional background involves practice as a solicitor and in-house legal counsel, running a successful direct marketing and sales business as well as experience as a management consultant. Sarah’s professional qualifications include a Masters of Business Administration from the University of Queensland (UQ), admission as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Queensland and High Court of Australia and graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors course.
In 2005 Sarah received the Wilson HTM - MBA Director's Award for Academic Excellence and Leadership at the UQ Business School's Top MBA Awards. Sarah also captained the 2006 UQ Business School postgraduate team to a first place win in the national Boston Consulting Group Business Strategy Competition. In 2007 Sarah was awarded a 2008/2009 Vincent Fairfax Fellowship.
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Executive Manager
People, Strategy and Planning
Chris McCarthy
Chris is a highly experienced and skilled project manager with a strong background in facilitating change as part of capability development, strategic acquisition and operational implementations. These skills are complemented by demonstrated leadership qualities, extensive communications ability and an innovative approach to project management. Chris is a dynamic professional who has a proven ability to achieve real outcomes for key stakeholders in a time critical environment.
Chris’ twelve years in the Australian Army has given him extensive operational experience in the logistics, human resource and change management fields. His ‘hands on’ approach to leadership combined with a flair for managing relationships ensures that he produces whilst maintaining an outcome focus.
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ENT Surgeon
Dr Bruce Black MD; FRACS; FRCS(Ed); FRCS; Professor (Otolaryngology) University of Queensland, Brisbane; Chairman - Department of Otolaryngology, Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane; Senior Implant Surgeon, QCIC and a Director of the Hear and Say Centre, Brisbane, Australia
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Clinical Manager
Jackie Brown MB.Ed, Deip Teaching, Cert AVT®
Jackie is a qualified Teacher of the Deaf and became a Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist in 1997. She has been working with young children with hearing loss and their families for over 30 years, with the past 14 years in an Auditory-Verbal program. Jackie is one of the editors of St. Gabriel’s Curriculum(2001 and Second Edition 2005). She was instrumental indeveloping IEP GOAL Writer and was one of the three writers of this computer software program which has been designed for creating Individual Education Plans for children who have a hearing impairment (birth to six years).
Jackie’s current role is as Clinical Manager at the Hear and Say Centre, with a particular responsibility for mentoring future Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapists.
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Research Lead
Gabriella Constantinescu B.Sp Path, Hons
Gabriella comes to the Hear and Say WorldWide team with a clinical background in speech pathology. She is completing her PhD qualifications at the University of Queensland in telehealth applications for the assessment and treatment of Parkinson’s disease. Her research interests also include literacy, cleft lip and palate related disorders, cochlear implantation and hearing impairment.
Gabriella is an active volunteeer with the international not-for-profit organisation, Operation Smile, that provides free life changing surgeries for children and adults in under-provileged countries. She has travelled to Peru, Ethiopia and China as part of this team. The combination of Gabriella's extensive volunteer and clinical expertise provides a balanced and considered view of the operating environment for Hear and Say WorldWide ensuring the development of practical solutions with real life outcomes.
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International Fundraising Manager
Simon White
Simon came to Hear and Say Worldwide from a corporate background where he ran national and international corporations. His most recent role was as CEO of an international charity fundraising company servicing major charities in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
His skills include the development of high level corporate partnerships and international partnerships sourcing support for Hear and Say Worldwide projects.
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