Helen Smith Email and Phone Number

Working for an Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisation which advocates for the local Aboriginal community as well as delivering a range of community services. I am responsible for the development and implementation of corporate policies to support the functioning of VACSAL, supporting the sourcing of funding and resources to further our aims, as well as preparing papers and submissions to fulfill our advocacy role.

Provide policy advice and whole-of-government perspective for the government of the day.

As the Manager of Governance and Planning for a local government body I ensure that we are achieving the objectives of the organisation in an ethical, transparent and sustainable way. I work with our Council and communities to ensure we have effective processes for gaining feedback and making improvements to the way we work. The MacDonnell Shire Council covers 13 remote Indigenous communities so it is imperative we have strong governance, planning and communications to improve service delivery across such a great area.

As a School Council Training Officer I provided governance training and advice to School Councils across the Alice Springs and Barkly regions of the Northern Territory. This helped to build the capacity of School Councils to become empowered and increase the engagement of the local community.

At the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet I worked in a number of strategic policy areas, such as Commonwealth-State Relations, Indigenous policy and Education policy. There I provided high-level advice to the Prime Minister and to other Commonwealth departments on policy and process.