Helen Matthews

Life is a journey that is better when filled with people who make you laugh and smile, who support you through any challenges you face, and who love you just for who you are, not for who they want you to be.

My name is Helen (she/her/they) and I work on the stolen lands of the Wurunderji peoples of the Kulin nation. I am a non-binary, gender, and sexuality fluid person, with a lived experience of addiction, trauma, homelessness, undiagnosed autism, and other experiences that inform who I am and the work I do. I want to be able to support other people who might be going through some of the things I have experienced throughout my life by sharing my journey. To help governments and other systems to understand the struggles and lived experience perspective, rather than the coming from the privileged perspective of not having experienced these struggles and trying to develop supports that “might” work. By sharing my life experiences I hope to help those who are in the privileged position of having the power to make change, to make useful and practical change, not just change that looks good on paper.