About Us
‘It’s a Mind Field’ (IAMF!) is a 13-week pilot audio, multi-media and community engagement project for and by Australians with lived experience of mental health challenges.
Caz, Chris and Leon begin each new episode with a chat with a special guest, and together we broach a topic to help us navigate through the tricky world of life with mental health challenges.
Later in this pilot season we will discuss issues like ‘Accommodation & Homelessness’, ‘Youth Mental Health’, ‘Faith & Spirituality’, and most seriously of all, ‘Suicide’.
In ‘Club Mind’ we hear three experts by experience speak together about how the issues raised in the interview affect them in their daily lives.
Finally, each week we present ‘Out of the Box’. In this segment, our hosts chats with another special guest about something ‘Out of the Box’.
Podcasts are available from this site with additional material and useful links, and longer versions of our interviews are also available here.
Our Production Team
Caroline Savransky (Caz)
Producer & Presenter
Producer and presenter Caroline has been in broadcast media on and off since 2008, she has a background in Psychology studies, works as a mental health caseworker.
Caz adds a bucketload of sass and charisma to It’s a Mind Field! She has an undying passion to combine her background in broadcasting with intimate knowledge gathered from navigating the mental health landscape.
Chris Jaeger
Producer & Presenter
Chris is a podcast producer, peer support worker and intrepid navigator of the mental health universe.
He studied a graduate diploma in radio and podcasting at AFTRS in 2019.
Earlier this year, Chris’ passion for podcasting and producing met with his love for working in the mental sector in a plot twist some critics label as “surprising”; the two have been ‘going-steady’ ever since.
Leon Fernandes
Producer & Presenter
Leon is an artist, adventurer, and enthusiast with a solid background in community development, social justice, and activism.
He is a member of, and advocate for several out-of-the-box tribes including queer communities, illicit drug users and psychologically diverse citizens.
Leon is passionate about opening authentic conversations about mental illness, madness, and suicide.
Adam Spivakovsky
Project administrator
Adam has extensive experience in the establishment and management of public sector programs, hence he has been brought into IAMF to assist with administration.
Originally a native of Melbourne, Adam currently resides in Canberra, where his day job involves strengthening the resilience of Australia’s telecommunications in times of natural disasters, such as fire and flood.
In his spare time, Adam paints landscapes and has recently branched out to detective fiction.
Jeff Furolo
Executive Producer
Jeff is a health broadcaster, advocate and activist.
Jeff created, produced and presented the award-winning pilot season of ‘Baby Boomers Guide to Life in the 21st Century’ in 2019, an audio-based multimedia Health & Lifestyle program for Australians in later life. Baby Boomers Guide is now in its second season.
Our Advisory Group
The producers of ‘It’s A Mind Field!’ are advised during this project by a group of experienced, recognised and highly effective advocates in the field.
Fay Jackson
Fay is the founder of Vision In Mind, the General, Manager of Inclusion for Flourish Australia and was the Inaugural Deputy Commissioner for the NSW Mental Health Commission. She is an outstanding advocate for people with the “lived experience” of sever trauma and consequent psychological distress.
Fay is an inspiring public speaker bringing humour, pathos and enlightenment to both people with lived experience and service providers. She has appeared on ABCs Q&A and OnePlusOne. She works tirelessly for the wellbeing of people with mental health issues and psychosocial disabilities. She sits on multitudes of peak state and national committees and councils.
She is an international speaker and is the recipient of many awards including the Meritorious as device to Community Medal. She is funny, passionate and shoots strait from the hip.
Douglas Holmes OAM
Douglas has over 24 years’ experience in the consumer workforce. He has held a variety of positions, including Consumer Participation Officer at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, member of the New South Wales Consumer Advisory Group Mental Health Inc (now known as Being), board director of Neami National and founder of SUPER CRO, a consumer-led charity.
Doug is the co-founder and General Manager of MH-worX, a consultancy that aims to ‘transform recovery practices in the mental health sector’.
Tim Heffernan
Tim is an experienced consumer peer worker and is the Mental Health Peer Coordinator at COORDINARE, South Eastern NSW PHN.
Tim has been a member of the Commission’s Community Advisory Council since its establishment in 2014, and a past chair of Being (NSW Consumer Advisory Group) and the NSW Public Mental Health Consumer Workers Committee.
He is the Deputy co-chair for the National Mental Health Commission’s Peer Workforce Development Guidelines Steering Committee.
Dr Richard Schweizer
Richard is a consumer advocate and Policy Officer at the Mental Health Commission of NSW. Diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 23, Richard is a keen public speaker about mental illness.
Richard is also a serial student, having completed degrees in Arts and Law, a Masters in Journalism and a PhD about the sociology of schizophrenia.
Dr Fiona Orr
Fiona is an Adjunct Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney and a Registered Nurse with clinical experience in inpatient and community mental health services.
Fiona has extensive experience as a mental health nursing academic, is currently supervising four PhD students, and received an Australian Universities Award for ‘Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning’.
Her research interests include the mental health impacts of COVID-19, the co-design of education interventions with experts by lived experience to develop nursing students’ empathy, and the health and well-being impact of horticultural therapy.
She is a Board member of the Mental Health Services Learning Network Inc (TheMHS) and was the previous past Deputy Chair. She currently serves on the Governance and Mental Health Content committees of TheMHS and is their representative on the Steering Committee of the Museum of the Mind, Sydney.
