Responding to uncertainty: A compassionate approach to practice

Mary Freer has contributed to Australia’s healthcare system reform in a variety of executive and leadership roles over the last 25 years. She has worked closely with health improvement leaders in many countries across the world to bring about global improvements to our health and social care systems. In 2016, Mary was awarded a Westpac Bicentennial Foundation Social Change Fellowship. This enabled Mary to travel throughout Europe and the US meeting with leaders who are committed to creating a more compassionate healthcare system. From this Compassion Revolution was born. Mary has been the Executive Producer of six international Compassion Revolution Conferences and has built deep connections with compassion practitioners all over the world. In 2021, Mary published her book Compassion Revolution: *Start Now; *Use What You Have *Keep Going. In February 2025, Mary was awarded a Rockefeller Foundation – Bellagio Centre Residency to support her to design a global toolkit for self-compassion.

Dr Elly Quinlan is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Tasmania, where she teaches and supervises in postgraduate psychology training. Her work focuses on ethical and reflective practice, professional decision-making, and how psychologists navigate complex interpersonal and systemic contexts. Elly’s research and teaching are especially concerned with the realities of practice that are often difficult to name, including uncertainty, discomfort, and the emotional demands of professional work. Her clinical experience includes work with young people experiencing trauma, attachment disruptions, grief and loss, sexual abuse, disability and neurodivergence. She is particularly committed to neuro-affirming and trauma-informed approaches. Elly is interested in helping practitioners recognise uncertainty as a normal and meaningful part of practice, rather than as a sign of inadequacy or failure.

Professor Michelle Lazarus is the Director of the Centre for Human Anatomy Education and Deputy Director of the Centre for Scholarship in Health Education at Monash University, in Australia. Her work focuses on building a resilient and capable society which can navigate and respond to the uncertainties and complexities ever-present in our natural world. She is an award-winning educator having received the Australian Universities Teaching excellence award, and multi-book author having written the “The Uncertainty Effect: How to Survive and Thrive through the Unexpected” and “The AI (R)evolution: Valuing Country, Culture and Community in a World of Algorithms” among others.

Dr Mandy Truong is a Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, working in the areas of evidence synthesis and knowledge translation and focussing on a range of topics related to child and family wellbeing and service delivery. Mandy has experience in qualitative, mixed methods and evidence synthesis research and has published extensively on topics including: racism/anti-racism, family and domestic violence, Indigenous cultural safety, child development, suicide/self-harm and mental health and wellbeing. She is an Adjunct Research Fellow at Monash Nursing and Midwifery, Monash University and a board member of the Multicultural Centre for Women’s Health.