Meet Jacinda Roberts, our new Lecturer in Allied Health at the Centre for Remote Health! Jacinda arrives from Flynn Drive Community Health Centre (Alice Springs), where she served as a dietitian/public health nutritionist. Specialising in paediatrics and public/preventative health projects, she brings invaluable experience. Thrilled to have her expertise enriching our team, dedicated to enhancing healthcare in rural and remote communities.
What is your role and what does your work focus on?
I’m still trying to nut this out definitively (!) but it is half teaching and student supervision and half research and stakeholder/partnership engagement (which is the area which is still a bit blurry!). But it’s day one for me at Flinders so I’m sure that this will become more evident in the coming weeks.
Where did you work before joining CMPH?
Before joining CMPH, I was at Flynn Drive Community Health Centre, which is also in Alice Springs. I spent almost 12 months with the Central Australian Aboriginal Congress prior to this, where I was providing pure clinical dietetic services. But was in Alice Springs from 2012 to 2015 as a remote outreach dietitian before returning to Melbourne for five years to do a broader role in public health, health promotion and clinical dietetics. But, as with many, had the calling to return to Central Australia so returned in early 2020 (just before Melbourne COVID lockdowns, which was a lucky coincidence!).
What journey brought you to this point in your career?
One of my favourite parts of my dietetics roles has been student supervision and facilitating learning opportunities for students from urban backgrounds – to experience and understand the complexities of prioritising health when living remote, particularly for our Aboriginal population, and bridging the disconnect between their formal education and the lived realities of health care consumers. I came to Central Australia with that belief I see in students, that providing people education is the key to people managing their health, only to realise just how naïve this was, within months of working in remote Aboriginal communities, where they’re dealing with a multitude of other issues, such that prioritising health is an absolute luxury. And it’s amazing to see how students doing placement in Central Australia come to this same realisation and evolve their health care practice and their understanding of the complex factors that impact on people’s capacity to prioritise their health. So coming onboard with Flinders, where I can have more opportunities to do this within my role is something I’m really looking forward to.
What is something you love most about your work?
It’s much too early for me to be able to answer this but I am most looking forward to the direct student interactions that will come with this role and, hopefully, the opportunities to challenge some of the preconceived ideas they may have about healthcare from their tertiary studies and their own lived experiences.
How do you like to relax or spend your spare time?
Ironically, relaxing for me is to run, swim or do something active! I live in quite a boisterous household (four teens/preteens and my partner!) so solo active activities like running and swimming become an opportunity to have dedicated time to myself. Almost like meditation as there are no screens, others to talk to or external distractions.