Advocacy Lab

Fiona D’mello is a final year Public Health Masters student who participates in the Advocacy Lab. Ad-Lab Director, Rachel caught up with her to find out about her experience so far.

Rachel: To start, could you tell us a little about yourself. Why did you choose to study public health?

Fiona: I am completing my final year of the Master of Public Health (Extension) program at UNSW. My background is in clinical medicine, research and medical education, and I have particular interests in mental health, addiction, complexity and design in healthcare. I have always been drawn to the bigger picture, and I came to realise that I wanted to have an impact upon healthcare beyond the individual. I’ve previously taught aspects of public health to pre-clinical medical students and really wanted to learn more about this discipline. I decided to enrol in the MPH program so I could develop the knowledge and skillset needed for my future career in the public health space. 

R: What has your experience with the Advocacy Lab been so far?

F: When I was completing PHCM9793 Public Health Advocacy and Communications last year, an EOI was sent out for students who wished to be involved with the Advocacy Lab. Of course I answered, and I have really enjoyed my time thus far connecting and working with academics and fellow students on contemporary public health issues. Sometimes, these issues can be so large and complex that it can be hard to know where to start as an individual. Working with the Advocacy Lab is a tangible way of starting where you are, and making a small, positive contribution to these important problems.

R: What was it like writing a submission to a Federal Inquiry? Could you describe the process through which the workshop was organised and what you did in the workshop?

F: I had zero experience in writing government submissions, so when the Advocacy Lab said that there would be a 3-hour workshop on doing so for the Inquiry into the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia, I jumped at the opportunity. 

Prior to the workshop, we were provided some literature on submission best practices in submission writing, as well as submissions already made to the Inquiry by leading researchers (some also at UNSW), as exemplars to guide our work. In the workshop, we got to know each other and worked out how our ideas could shape the submission, in line with the Terms of Reference (TOR) from the Inquiry. We took writing breaks, then swapped our drafts with each other. After each writing break, we had time to reflect together about what was easy and what was challenging about this process, which made for a great, collaborative learning experience. In the days after the workshop, we could make edits to the sections we drafted and share feedback. The draft submission was then reviewed by senior academics and refined further, and after a final review by us as a group, it was submitted to the Inquiry. It was wonderful to see the submission finally being published after all of our hard work. 

R: What did you learn through the experience? What was your favourite part?

F: I learned about the challenges of shaping outrage about an issue into something impactful, and how important it is to have clear, tangible policy asks. The easy thing to do is to list all of the things that are wrong with the status quo - which is important and certainly what we did in the initial stages of the workshop - however, to have impact on future health policy we to the workshop guided us in developing policy recommendations. 

I also learned that my unique perspective was valuable, and that it was OK to have knowledge gaps about the issue. As a submission team, we all had different levels of experience, and we could collectively play to our own strengths and perspectives, which made for a stronger submission overall. I loved collaborating with people from different sectors who had a range of experiences and knowledge that I did not; this tapped into my enjoyment of transdisciplinary work, and together we created a submission that will hopefully be influential. 

R: Why did you feel it was important to get involved in the Advocacy Lab’s harm minimisation work?

F: Alcohol and other drugs have a significant impact upon health, including but not limited to preventable injuries, hospitalisations and deaths, as well as contributing up to 14% of the total disease burden in Australia. When I worked as a junior doctor in the alcohol and other drugs (AOD) sector, alongside many passionate colleagues from various healthcare disciplines, I could see how much more was needed to support patients needing help. Demand far outstrips the availability of AOD services. This also was exacerbated by issues of accessibility, such as people living in rural and remote locations, far away from where we delivered care. Passion and dedication of staff shouldn’t be the only things holding up AOD services. I felt that becoming involved in this Advocacy Lab activity was one way that I could contribute to addressing this important issue.  

R: Thanks for sharing your experience, Fiona. You’ll be finishing your MPH at UNSW later this year, congratulations! What advice would you give to those starting out?

F: Many MPH students have an incredibly busy schedule, as I certainly did when I commenced my studies. Nonetheless, there are many opportunities, both big and small, that present themselves during one’s studies, and I would highly recommend taking them on if possible. My participation in the Advocacy Lab is one example, but another was the opportunity I recently had to complete a Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) placement via the PHCM9143 Internship course. This was a fantastic way of gaining public health experience on a real-world project, while also getting course credit for doing so. 

Most importantly, have fun with your studies, and use the program to learn as much as you can. I decided not to choose a specialisation stream and stayed broad in my learning, which has led me to deliberately choose courses on topics I didn’t know much about, such as health economics and implementation science. Doing so has since provided me a language to engage with aspects of the health system that I didn’t have access to before, and this has made for a really enjoyable learning experience. 

Advocacy Lab Director, Rachel Rowe caught up with Andrew Jolly a few months after they met through an Advocacy Lab workshop

Rachel: Hi Andrew, I’d love to hear about your journey into public health. What led you to study at UNSW?

Andrew: I signed up to public health with a vision of supporting better access to prostheses and orthoses across Oceania. After 10 years or so working as a prosthetist/orthotist in rural and remote parts of Australia and the Pacific (Samoa and Kiribati), I realised I wanted to better understand how health services are resourced and managed from a population perspective. The Master of Health Leadership & Management and Master of Global Health have been a brilliant mix, both challenging and strengthening my knowledge and thinking. The learning has helped me (alongside a few colleagues) to kick off a new venture under the name TAARO – Technical Alliance for AT and Rehabilitation in Oceania. Taro is a widely available food source across the Pacific (and many parts of the world) growing even in the sandiest/saltiest soils – we’ve chosen the name as a bit of a nod to the concepts of access, equity, and resilience.  

R: What drew you to get involved with the Advocacy Lab?

A: I really enjoyed studying the Public Health Advocacy and Communications course – it deepened my understanding of what effective advocacy looks like, and fired me up. I appreciate that the School of Population Health doesn’t just teach advocacy, but participates in it – and as one of the best universities in the country, UNSW has a powerful platform to instigate change. 

R: You participated in an Advocacy Lab workshop recently, can you tell us about that?

A: There was a call for expressions of interest in one of my lectures - the Advocacy Lab was preparing a response to the Federal Government’s Inquiry into the health impacts of alcohol and other drugs in Australia. I jumped at the chance to work alongside other students and academics. If you’re anything like me, there’s a chance you’d gone through high school and uni thinking – ‘essays are not practical, when will I use these skills in real life?’.  The Advocacy Lab collaboration was an exercise in applying the essay-writing skills of critical thinking and evidence-based argument building in real world practice.

The submission workshop brought together a group of students and staff to rapidly brainstorm, research, and draft a submission in just 90 minutes! After the workshop, different people took on sections of the submission to refine and senior staff at the School provided review. It was a well-organised, fast-paced, and practical experience.  

R: Had you written submissions to government before and how about the rest of the folks in the workshop?

A: I did have some experience, but not everyone in the student team did – and we came from diverse professional backgrounds, which was really cool. I had recently wrapped up work as a health manager with an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (ACCHO) in Central Australia. The ACCHO is strong and active community advocate, and in my role I had the opportunity to represent the organisation in parliamentary enquiries for access to NDIS and Oral Health care for Aboriginal people in Central Australia.

R: What did you learn through this process with the Advocacy Lab?

A: I took a lot of notes on how you facilitated the workshop. Your facilitation channelled the views and opinions of fired-up students like me into a practical, evidence-based submission, where everyone’s point of view was heard and our ideas refined. I appreciated the respectful and collaborative vibe, and found it particularly inspiring working with my peers, and hearing their views on the topic.

R: Thanks, I really appreciate that feedback. How did the experience align with your work, study and other activities?

A: In my early coursework through UNSW, I went through a bit of a paradigm shift in learning about the social determinants of health. Whilst it really expanded my view of health, it also felt like addressing social determinants of health is often removed from the traditional day to day clinical work we do as health professionals. The Advocacy Lab brought the social or upstream factors together with clinical practice. I think it was an important practical opportunity to advocate for action on inequity and injustice – particularly given the problematic ways that alcohol and other drug use can be framed as individual problems. This work reframed the issue, highlighting systemic factors, and the important role of systems, policies and services that cut-across health, social, housing, and other sectors.  

R: What’s the “extra” experience that you feel you can get by being involved in Ad-Lab campaigns? One of our campaign streams for 2025-26 is harm minimisation, what other things would you be interested in working on within the campaign?

A: Being involved with Advocacy Lab means applying the knowledge and perspectives you’re gaining through your coursework to something real-world and meaningful. Group assignments sometimes get a bit of a bad rap, but collaborating with other students and academics in Ad-Lab’s work was a real highlight of my studies at UNSW. I’d love to see future campaigns focus on rural and remote communities, as well as advocacy that strengthens Australia’s role supporting our neighbours in the Pacific Island region. As the Ad-Lab evolves it’d be fantastic to see partnerships and collaborations with ACCHOs and other community-led organisations in this work. 

R: We would love to see those kinds of relationships blossoming too. Now that you’re almost finished your degree, what advice would you give to those starting out?

A: I’d say to the postgrads reading this: channel the eager energy of the ‘mature age student’ who was always up the front of the class in your undergrad – it’s not cringe, it’s cool to be keen! Engage with your fellow students, lecturers as colleagues and peers, and soak up all of the experiences you’re gaining along the way, and jump on any opportunity to launch into real-world impact. The Ad-Lab is one of those great opportunities.