Western Australia’s 2021 Australian of the Year, Professor Helen Milroy AM, has received her Membership of the Order of Australia (General Division) in an investiture ceremony at Perth Government House.
Professor Milroy, a Palyku woman and among the nation’s leading mental health researchers and psychiatrists, was recognised with the honour in late January.
After the Tuesday investiture ceremony, Professor Milroy said the Order of Australia was recognition of the value of her work.
“The best investment we can make is in our children,” she said.
They are our future, they will be our leaders, they will care for us when we are old. I’d like to see greater investment not just in health, but social and emotional wellbeing, and the cultural aspects of care.
Professor Milroy is Co-Director of Embrace and an Honorary Research Fellow at The Kids Research Institute Australia, where she primarily investigates childhood trauma. She also serves as the Stan Perron Chair of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Western Australia and he Child and Adolescent Health Service (funded by Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation).
Also an award-winning children’s author and illustrator for her successful ‘Tales from the Bush Mob’ series, Professor Milroy has spent decades improving the mental health and wellbeing of children in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
From 2013-2017, Professor Milroy served as a commissioner for the Australian Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. She has been on multiple state and national mental health advisory committees and is currently a commissioner with the National Mental Health Commission.
Professor Pat Dudgeon AM, a Chief Investigator alongside Professor Milroy of the Transforming Indigenous Mental Health and Wellbeing Project at the University of Western Australia, also received the Order of Australia in the ceremony.
Western Australia’s Governor, Chris Dawson APM, who visited Embrace staff in early 2023, presented medals to the new Members of the Order of Australia.
Professor Milroy receives her Membership of the Order of Australia from WA Governor Chris Daw