Kate Swaffer
Kate Swaffer | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1958 (age 62–63) |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Education | Master of Science |
| Alma mater | University of Wollongong |
| Occupation | Author, Academic, Campaigner for Disability rights |
| Years active | 10 |
| Known for | Dementia and Disability Campaigner |
| Awards |
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Kate Swaffer (born 1958) is a campaigner for the rights of people with dementia and older persons globally, and for dementia to be managed as a disability,[1] to ensure equal access to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). She was awarded Australian Of The Year for South Australia in 2017,[2] which as recognised by Ita Buttrose on Studio 10, and the 2018 winner of the Global Leader, AFR 100 Women of Influence in Australia.[3] Swaffer is also a humanitarian, and an international speaker with Saxtons.[4]
Swaffer was diagnosed with dementia shortly before her 50th birthday in 2008.[5] Subsequently she completed a Bachelor of Arts in Writing and Creative Communication and a Bachelor of Psychology. She has completed a Master of Science in Dementia Care (2014) and is also one of eight co founders[6] of Dementia Alliance International, a global advocacy and support group for people living with dementia which was launched on 1 January 2014.[7]
Swaffer was born in a farming community on Eyre Peninsula in 1958. She is married, and has two sons. Her first career was nursing, having worked in dementia and aged care and then operating theatres; she is also a retired chef having run her own hospitality businesses for ten years. She subsequently worked in health care sales.[8]
Swaffer is the only Australian to have been a full member of the World Dementia Council and is an elected-board elected board member of Alzheimer’s Disease International, serving her second term. Her (incomplete) PhD at the University of Wollongong and University of South Australia focused on economic stigma. She is an Honorary Associate Fellow with the Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health, University of Wollongong, a Fellow of The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), and an International Fellow at the University of East Anglia. Kate completed a Master of Science in Dementia Care with a Distinction in 2014.
Notably, in her human rights work, Swaffer is the first person living with a diagnosis of dementia to give an invited keynote speech at an agency of the United Nations, the World Health Organisation (WHO), at the First Ministerial Conference on Dementia in March 2015, where she demanded human rights, access to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) for all people with dementia, and a balance in research between care and cure on the global stage. These demands were included in the WHO Final Call To Action, and human rights were included in the Global action plan on the public health response to dementia 2017 - 2025, adopted at the World Health Assembly in May 2017.
Swaffer is an influential activist for human rights in aged and dementia care, for dementia as a disability, and has always stood up for social justice as an advocate or in volunteering roles, and still volunteers for the homeless in South Australia, and the Bereaved Through Suicide Support Group (SA) Incorporated.
Swaffer is also a widely published academic, author and poet. Her first book on dementia, What The Hell Happened to My Brain?: Living Beyond Dementia, and her second dementia book Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or another dementia, co-authored with Associate Professor Lee-Fay Low were both released in 2016, the latter currently being updated for an international audience. Swaffer's first two volumes of poetry were published in 2012 and 2016.
Swaffer has played a vital role in creating the new narrative of dementia globally, as well as empowering new dementia advocates, also inspiring and has actively supported the development of numerous new national or local Dementia Working or Advisory Groups. Swaffer is passionate about the power of research, having become a researcher herself, but strongly believes in common sense, which may not always have evidence-based research to support it.
Swaffer has also been instrumental in bringing human rights to the fore in dementia and aged care, including recognition in practice for dementia being recognised as a disability through published articles and books, presentations and global campaigning. Since 2010, Kate has given more than 1000 invited key note presentations on a number of topics, not only in the field of dementia and human rights, but on disAbility, discrimination, stigma, dementia-enabling design principles, language, Inclusive Communities, Prescribed Disengagement®,[9] Models of care, Information Technology, Advocacy and Activism, dementia policy (local, national and global) and loss and grief.
Education[]
PhD Candidate, University of South Australia, School of Justice and Society (Withdrawn), 2018-2020
PhD Candidate, University of Wollongong (2016 FT, then LoA, 2017- July 18)
Master of Science, Dementia, (Distinction), University of Wollongong, 2014
Bachelor of Psychology, University of South Australia, 2010
Bachelor of Arts, Writing and Creative Communication, University of South Australia, 2009
Certificate of Small Business Management, Business SA, 2005
Graduate Diploma in Grief Counselling, University of Ballarat, 1989
Chef Diploma: “Australian Cuisine with Cheong Liew”, Regency Park TAFE, 1987
Nurses training, Whyalla Hospital and Cleve District Hospital, SA, 1975-1977
Awards and Honours[]
Ambassador, StepUp4DementiaResearch, Australia, 2019 - current
Winner, Global Leader, AFR/Qantas 100 Women of Influence, 2018
Winner, Australian of The Year, South Australia, 2017
SA Parliamentary Motion (60) by the Hon Kelly Vincent MLC, 2017, unanimously accepted recognising my local, national and global work in dementia
The Sir Keith Wilson Oration, Australian Gerontology Association (AAG) SA, 2017
Listed in the Who's Who in Australia, annually since 2016
Winner, Alumni Award Social Impact Award University of Wollongong, 2016
Finalist, Social Impact, Westpac/AFR 100 Women of Influence, 2016
Finalist, Australian of The Year Award, South Australian, 2016
Winner, National Disability Awards: Emerging Leader in Disability Awareness in Australia, 2015
Inaugural Winner, Dementia Leader, University of Stirling International Dementia Awards, 2015
Inaugural winner, Dignity in Care Achievement Award, Outstanding Individual Contribution to Dignity in Care, 2015
Winner, Bethanie Education Medallion Award, 2015
Winner, University of Wollongong, AAG Community Engagement Award, 2015
University of Wollongong, Alumni Award Social Impact Award, Runner up, 2015
University of Wollongong, Master of Science (Dementia Care), Distinction, 2014
Website Creating life with words: Love, Inspiration and Truth, archived in the PANDORA Collection of the State (SA) and National Library of Australia, 2012
Dementia and the Arts, Also A Mirror, ECH Inc. and Urban Myth Theatre of Youth and Kate Swaffer, South Australia, 2012
Patron for The Visitors, a play about Younger Onset Dementia, Urban Myth Theatre Group and ECH Residential Aged Care, 2012-13
Bachelor of Psychology University Merit Award, University of South Australia, 2008
Lifetime Golden Key Membership, University of South Australia, 2008
References[]
- ^ [1]
- ^ "2017 South Australia Australian of the Year Award Recipients Announced". Australian of the Year. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
- ^ [2]
- ^ Saxtons
- ^ "Kate Swaffer". Honour roll - Australian of the Year Awards. National Australia Day Council. 2017. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
- ^ [3]
- ^ "Kate Swaffer". 2016 Alumni Award for Social Impact. University of Wollongong. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
- ^ "Kate Swaffer". 100 Leaders Project. . 2011. Retrieved 15 February 2020.
- ^ [4]
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