Executive Manager Survivor Services, Rachel Last

Rachel has worked at IGFF for almost a decade providing Case Work, Community Development and Education Project Management. She has contributed over 30 years of voluntary service supporting the Australian movement for justice and recognition to all religious institutional abuse Survivors. Rachel supported the development of In Good Faith Foundation as a nationally recognised and sustainably funded ‘specialising’ support service. In her current role as the Advocacy and Redress Manager, Rachel enjoys working with diverse clients; from all walks of life and understanding their life experiences and individual needs. She has lobbied successive governments and institutional hierarchies on behalf of Survivors, with shared concerns. She has also organised and run community forums and education events to greater develop Survivor support and professional care understandings. Rachel’s collaborative approach to advocacy, assists IGFF clients with enhanced access to therapeutic care and justice pathways. She continues to develop her work practices from a deep commitment to human rights and respect for the Survivor’s journey.

Leader of the MVC – Jim Boyle

Jim received an Electrical Engineering education at University of Melbourne and contributes his organisational competency to IGFF as a Board Director and a leader of the MVC. As a secondary survivor, Jim is a tireless advocate for survivors of religious institutional abuse, their families and communities presenting to a conference ‘Sexual Abuse in Religious Contexts’ held at the University of NSW in 2008. Jim has provided submissions to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry and the Royal Commission, making active contributions to the research and documentation compiled by IGFF.

CEO, Clare Leaney

Clare has worked at IGFF for nearly a decade, assisting individuals, families and communities to engage with the Royal Commission and Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry. She has extensive consultative experience providing written and verbal testimony to both State and Federal Government Inquiries, legislative and policy reviews, organisational restructuring and child safe standards. Graduating from the University of Melbourne with a background in Humanities, Clare possesses extensive case management, community development and engagement experience with governance and organisational oversight experience. She is driven to provide an accessible support service to survivors, families and communities impacted by institutional abuses. Clare is privileged to have shared in the recovery journeys of many survivors and is committed to enhancing public awareness of the needs of institutional abuse Survivors.

Secretary, Head of Governance, Phil Lindenmayer

Phil has recently joined IGFF to assist with further strengthening the Foundation’s governance and helping develop strategies for continuing growth and development. Phil has over 30 years of experience in Commonwealth government and the private sector, with a focus on complex commercial, procurement and contracting projects, governance, risk management and business transformation. The last decade of this experience was as a Senior Executive, followed by three years of consulting back to government.

COO, Head of Government Relations, Joe Stroud

Joe Stroud has come onboard as our Head of Government Relations. He has spent the last five years working in Federal Politics and has a background in Community and Political Organising. He has extensive experience as a senior Campaign Adviser and was most recently Campaign Director for the Federal seat of Maribyrnong. Joe has a BA from Monash University.

Caseworker, Hannah Aroni

After completing her BA/LLB(Hons), Hannah worked as a judges’ associate and legal researcher at the Victorian Court of Appeal and the Family Court of Australia before completing her Masters in Social Work. She is passionate about the pursuit of individual and communal justice and wellbeing. Hannah has experience in roles focused on advocacy, education design and delivery, counselling, and service reform, with a particular specialisation in disability. Hannah is also a Board Member of Pathways Melbourne, an organisation which provides peer support and practical resources to people leaving or changing their relationship with their personal Jewish faith or religious community, and one of the few non-autistic Co-Directors of A_tistic, a majority neurodivergent-led arts, education and consultancy collective dedicated to spreading understanding of autism and neurodiversity. She is dedicated to supporting survivors with a focus on collaborative, accessible approaches adapted to each person.

Caseworker, Ingrid Koutsodontis

Ingrid recently joined the IGFF team in December 2019. She has an interest in mental health, and providing advocacy and support for our most vulnerable people within the community. She has a Diploma of Community Services, and has been actively involved with school community committee groups while her children attended school. Ingrid has housed exchange students, volunteered at centres for the poor, and most recently volunteers at a retreat, helping children from disadvantaged countries that require life saving medical treatment. She also has experience in family health support.

Associate, Angela Sdrinis

Angela has an Arts/Law degree and is the Founder and Director of Angela Sdrinis Legal, specialising in Comcare and institutional sexual abuse claims. Angela is a passionate advocate for the rights of children abused in care and was a Director of IGFF between 2014 and 2016. She has been instrumental in developing a settlement protocol in claims involving the State of Victoria and other non-Government organisations with multiple submissions on institutional abuse to the Senate inquiry into Forgotten Australians, the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into The Handling of Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations, and to the Royal Commission into institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

Associate, Reverend Alexandra Sangster

Reverend Alexandra’s commitment to healing through justice is central to her spiritual support role at IGFF. She has provided pastoral care to members of IGFF’s community including clients, MVC members and supporters, core staff and associates. Following the completion of an Arts degree majoring in international Development Studies, Alexandra played a significant role at the Carlton and Atherton Gardens Housing Estates, where she worked breaking down barriers dividing residents and local community. She is currently the Uniting Church Minister at St Andrew’s Uniting Church, Fairfield.

Associate, Linda Tilgner

Linda is a registered Counselling Psychologist with a Masters in Counselling Psychology from Swinburne University. She is a founder and Co-Director of integrative Psychology and works closely with IGFF on research and best practice community education seminar delivery. She has extensively researched institutional abuse and has expertise in responding to institutional misuse of power and control within communities. She works therapeutically with survivors of institutional trauma and has coordinated an individual and group therapeutic response to survivors of a spiritual organisation in Victoria.

Ambassador, David O’Brien

David studied Law at Monash University and was admitted to practice in 1996. David’s main areas of practice include land valuation and compensation, equity, property, planning and environment law, as well as general commercial litigation. From 2010 to 2014, David represented Western Victoria in the Legislative Council of Victoria and was a member of the Victorian Parliamentary inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations. He is a strong political and social advocate for survivors of institutional abuse and represented clients approaching the Royal Commission.

Ambassador, Graeme Sleeman

Graeme is the former Principal of Holy Family Primary School, Doveton with a strong commitment to the education and protection of children. As an ambassador for IGFF, Graeme is a leader of the MVC community, frequently contributing to meetings as a guest speaker. Since 2012, Graeme has been contributing to IGFF submissions and was a public witness to the Victorian Parliamentary inquiry and the Royal Commission. Graeme is a passionate advocate for primary survivors and families of religious institutional abuses, recognising the work of whistle-blowers in drawing attention to this critical social issue.

Ambassador, Richard Jabara

Richard’s long-term advocacy over the last 15 years demonstrates his outstanding commitment to advocating on behalf of survivors. In choosing to share his story as a survivor across all avenues of media, Richard has empowered many others to speak out. His public relations, media communications and political lobbying background has assisted in many of IGFF’s successful campaigns for survivor justice and institutional reform. Contributing to the MVC over many years, Richard has also worked with IGFF and other survivors to establish a Memorial at Xavier College. He was a Founding Board Director of IGFF.

President, Matthew Quoi

Matthew Quoi joined the IGFF Board in 2020. An experienced commercial executive, with expertise in strategic development, general management and digital transformation. Mathew has held senior positions within a number of international organisations and global brands, with a focus on sustainability, corporate communication and business development.

Caseworker, Vanessa Blazey

Vanessa comes from a counselling background, and has also worked with children and in the aged and disability sector. Her case management approach is one of a collaborative, goal focused and practical welfare style. She is an empathetic caseworker who very interested in human rights, and ensuring the client is equipped and informed to make the best decisions to suit them. Vanessa is highly knowledgeable in suicide crisis support, and drug and alcohol work. She has been involved in the social work field as a volunteer and employee. She enjoys baking, creative writing, dogs and being in nature.

Senior Administrative Officer, Shyamala Benakovic

Shyamala joined the In Good Faith Foundation team in February 2021 as our administrative officer. She comes to IGFF with experience in not-for-profit organisations, governance, office management, operations and administration. She current looks after all the administration needs of the organisation and supports management and staff with IT and administration.

Caseworker, Thea Schroedel

Originally from Germany, Thea has completed her B.A.  in Social Work and further education in Trauma Counselling. Managing asylum seeker camps and providing Case Management formed her interested in human rights and social justice and lead to her volunteering for different projects in Latin America and Myanmar, Asia. Since arriving in Australia September 2019, Thea has worked in the youth homeless sector in a crisis accommodation setting and commenced with IGFF on 1 February 2021. Thea enjoys being creative and spending a lot of time in nature.

CFO, Srini Vasan

Srini has recently joined IGFF as a CFO, ensuring finance and finance-related functions are carried out in accordance the IGFF Strategic Plan and further strengthening the Foundation’s governance and helping develop strategies for continuing growth and development. Srini has over 30 years of experience in corporate Australia with global and multinational companies in financial services and retail sectors. His expertise includes providing specialist management services including governance, strategic planning, financial management, risk management and IT and transformation projects. His last assignment has been in a senior management capacity with a national retail chain. He is also involved with an NFP organisation as a member of the Audit committee.

Vice President, Penny Savidis

Penny has been practising law for almost 20 years assisting hundreds of clients who were abused as children in State care, private and State schools and in religious and other institutions.

Penny has contributed to submissions to the Victorian Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Organisations and to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Before its introduction, Penny appeared before the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs into the National Redress Scheme and argued the scheme should be broadened. She has also provided a submission to the second anniversary review of the Scheme in 2020.

Over the years, Penny has volunteered with a number of Community Legal Centres, including seven years with the Asylum Seekers’ Resource Centre Night Clinic. She has also co-presented the ‘Done By Law’ radio show on 3CR community radio.

Penny also practised in employment law for about 15 years. She was an Advisory Board member of the University of Melbourne Law School Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law (CELRL) between 2014 and 2020, and a member of the Law Institute of Victoria’s Discrimination subcommittee (2004-2009) and Employment & Workplace Relations subcommittee (2009-2019).

Board Member, Jonathan Pickering

Jonathan recently joined IGFF as a Director, with strong skills and experience communications and government engagement, having worked across government and campaigning in many varied capacities. In his current role as a Senior Consultant in Communications for Advisory service RPS Jonathan provides strategic communication advise to large scale infrastructure projects across transport, water and local government.

Jonathan also brings a passion in helping empower and advocate for vulnerable communities and has a Bachelor of Arts and Economics from La Trobe University.