Our Board

Phil is the inaugural Chair of the Board of Directors of Emerging Minds (previously the Australian Infant Child and Adolescent Mental Health Association - AICAFMHA) which was formed as a company in June 2000. Phil led the process for the formation of AICAFMHA from the original conference held in Adelaide in February 1995. Phil is actively involved in the Emerging Minds' National Workforce Centre for Child Mental Health together with ongoing advocacy for child and adolescent mental health with a stronger emphasis on the importance of interventions commencing in the early years of life. A clinical psychologist by training, Phil also has extensive management experience in both community and hospital settings. For many years, he held the position of Chief of Mental Health at the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide and currently holds an Executive position within the Women's and Children's Health Network. In 2004, Phil was awarded the Public Service Medal (PSM) for his services to child and adolescent mental health.  

Ms Hawkins is the partner of a parent who experienced many years of extreme and enduring psychosis. They have three children together. Prior to giving up work in 2010 to focus on her husband's and family's recovery she was a project management consultant in the private sector and a strategic advisor for a federal government agency. She is a Graduate of Boston University's Global Leadership Institute's Recovery Class of 2013. She is currently a Trustee with the Psychosis Australia Trust, Co-Chair of the National Mental Health Consumer and Carer Forum, President of the Western Australian Association For Mental Health, Vice-President of Mental Health Carers Australia, and a Board Director for Helping Minds, Community Mental Health Australia, and the Recovery College of WA. She is also a Commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission. Her interest in trauma-informed, family-inclusive understandings of mental health drives a passion for implementing system reform through genuine co-production between lived experience expertise and service delivery expertise.

Dr Fiona Wagg is Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist of 25 years experience with particular expertise in infant mental health, eating disorders, early onset psychosis, somatisation disorders and inpatient child and adolescent psychiatry. Dr Wagg is currently Director of Advanced Training in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Health Education and Training Institute (HETI), a post she has held since 2019. In this role Dr Wagg participated in the redesign of the Formal Education Course for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Advanced Training in NSW. She has an ongoing role in teaching and supervising these trainees. Dr Wagg has extensive clinical experience, including 20 years’ experience in clinical leadership and service development during which she has been committed to developing integrated systems of care for young people and families across the infant, child and youth sector. She is and has been for many years involved with professional responsibilities within the RANZCP. She has research interests in infant mental health, neurodevelopment, clinical interventions, data linkage and health economics.

Dr Elisabeth Hoehn is the Medical Director and Consultant Child Psychiatrist for Queensland Centre for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health. Elisabeth has more than 30 years’ experience in child and youth mental health, including clinical service delivery, service management and development, quality enhancement and outcome evaluation. She is passionate about perinatal and infant mental health service development, family-centred and community-based care, collaborative practice, training, and advocacy. Elisabeth has been instrumental in the conceptualisation, development, and implementation of the mental health continuum of care for parents in the perinatal period, infants, young children, and their carers in Queensland.