For nearly 30 years, Deb Rouget has been involved in the lives of people with disability and their families. She has gained much practical experience and wisdom about imagining and designing supports that enable people with intellectual disability to live in their own home with a range of personally tailored supports.

Through her work at Belonging Matters, Deb has led a number of initiatives including the Building Community Networks project, which facilitates Circles of Support, 19 Stories of Inclusion and Talks That Matter.

Currently she is leading the National Alliance of Capacity Building Organisations’ (NACBO) My Home, My Way project. She also mentors and consults with people with disability, families and others in regard to community and belonging.

Rod Davies has committed his life to supporting people with disability to be included, in charge of their own lives and have services tailored to them. Inclusion, self-direction and a person-centred approach are not just words, these values drive all that he does. Rod started his career over 20 years ago providing support to a young man with cerebral palsy that he went to high school with. Years later he is delighted to be CEO of One2One, which provides the same man with individual living support.

In the intervening years, Rod worked as a co-resident support worker, assisted in a quality of life study of people with disability in Sri Lanka and Tanzania and completed a degree in disability studies. He also worked as a local area coordinator and further developed his passion for live-in support arrangements.

Before moving to One2One Rod worked for 10 years as a senior manager for an individual living support provider and became a key thinker and practitioner of live-in support arrangements in Australia.

Jaquie Mills is the parent of 4 sons, 2 with disabilities. Her eldest son, Eli,  has complex communication needs and requires a high level of support day-to-day. Eli is 30 and has been living in his own home with support housemates for 12 years. This individualised arrangement means Eli shares his life in a reciprocal relationship with his housemates, offering everyone enriched experiences and enhanced lives.

Jaquie’s understanding of individualised living began when visiting Canada in 2006 and meeting with Vela Microboards Canada, and people with disability and their families who were leading the way in creating personalised living arrangements.

Jaquie is also managing director of Microboards Australia, an organisation that  is a leader across the disability sector in supporting people, families and services to approach support from a truly person-centred approach

At time of recording, Marita Walker was a Strategic Advisor at the NDIA and had been leading the policy development of Individualised Living Options over the preceeding 2 years.

In her previous roles as Trial Site Manager of  Perth Hills and prior to that CEO of Perth Home Care Services, Marita was involved in the design and implementation of  individualised arrangements and the issues that arose when transitioning to the NDIS.