Ministerial Advisory Council on Disability - Independent adviser to the WA Minister for Disability Services - Keeping government informed

Ms Helen WRIGHT

1st Term: 1/1/2015 – 31/12/2016

Ms Helen Wright is the Visiting Optometry Coordinator for Lion’s Outback Vision at the Lion’s Eye Institute. In this role she coordinates primary eye health services to people living in the remote north west of Western Australia. Ms Wright has lived in or been associated with the Kimberley since 1992. She has first-hand experience of both disability and ability having two daughters, the youngest of whom has a complex and disabling medical condition.

Ms Wright spent three years running a disability service agency in the Kimberley, so understands the “disability industry” from a provider’s as well as a consumer’s perspective, and also brings to the table a rural and remote perspective.

In more recent years Ms Wright has chosen to focus more on health and community related issues. She was the Chair of the local District Health Advisory Council (DHAC) for nearly five years and supported her husband in his role as Chair of the Kimberley Development Commission and as Deputy Shire President of the Shire of Wyndham East Kimberley.

Having moved to Perth in January 2013 Ms Wright was asked to join the National Rural Health Alliance Project Reference Group for the NDIS. She also attended the Roundtable Conference on Disability in Rural and Remote Areas (pertaining to the role out of the NDIS) at Parliament House, Canberra.

Ms Wright has valuable experience and represents the views of both carers and families, especially those from rural and remote areas.