Melissa Clarke
Strategic Director
First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence (FNAAFV)
Melissa Clarke is a Ngarrindjeri, Kaurna and Wirangu woman and a nationally recognised justice reform leader with more than two decades of experience across policing, government and Aboriginal community-controlled organisations. She is currently Strategic Director of First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence (FNAAFV) – the community-controlled, national peak body that represents the Family Violence Prevention and Legal Services (FVPLS) sector.
A former South Australia Police officer, Melissa has held senior roles including General Manager at the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services (NATSILS), Director of Aboriginal Services at the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement, and General Manager Youth Justice Strategy, Policy and Reporting with the South Australian Department of Human Services.
Her work focuses on shifting systems upstream by strengthening early supports — from education and family support to culturally led prevention and community-controlled services — addressing the structural inequality, intergenerational trauma and systemic racism that drive early justice contact.
SESSIONS
Day 1
10:10
Panel: Shifting the system upstream: Preventing justice contact before it begins
If early contact with the justice system is driven by structural inequality, intergenerational trauma and systemic racism, how can governments and justice institutions intervene earlier to prevent First Nations people from entering the system in the first place?
Explore how upstream, cross-portfolio prevention (i.e. family support, therapeutic services, housing stability, education and employment) can reduce first-time justice contact
Ragina Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, Australian Indigenous Governance Institute (AIGI)
Thalia Anthony, Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney
Melissa Clarke, Strategic Director, First Nations Advocates Against Family Violence (FNAAFV)