About Jennifer Holmes
The Adams-de Crespigny- Harvey Oration for 2014, ‘Speak Up’ was delivered Jennifer Holmes.
Jennifer was born near the beautiful Clare Valley in South Australia. She trained as a nurse at Burra and the Royal Adelaide Hospitals in the mid-1970s.
Like many drug and alcohol nurses Jennifer had a previous nursing specialty. She was an oncology nurse in Melbourne. Significantly she enrolled in a Graduate Diploma of Health Counselling to better equip her to talk to dying women; the young women in their 30s dying from ovarian cancer that she was nursing on night duty.
But things were about to change. Jennifer completed her psychiatric nursing course and accepted a job as a nurse counsellor in Sydney. It was with the Drugs in Pregnancy Program at the King George V Hospital and the year was 1987 and so began her career as a drug and alcohol nurse.
Around this time Jennifer attended a meeting for Drug and Alcohol Nurses and immediately felt at home with these like-minded individuals. She has been with DANA ever since as treasurer, as president and these days as the legal public face of DANA; our public officer. She has seen DANA move from a NSW organisation to a national organisation to an Australasian organisation. Her contribution has been honoured by her award of life membership back in 2005.
Jennifer has a Master of Health Science (Health Informatics). She is also a Credentialled Drug and Alcohol Nurse (CDAN) and chairs the DANA Credentialling Advisory Committee. She has been a project manager for the implementation electronic health records in community health. She has major an interest in health outcome measures including the implementation of the Australian Treatment Outcome Profile (ATOP).
These days Jennifer is the Clinical Service Manager of the Sydney Medically Supervised Injecting Centre.
Follow this link to read 2014 Speak Up Oration (Jennifer Holmes)