Keynote speakers

Kelleigh Ryan is a descendant of the Kabi Kabi people of South-East Queensland and the Australian South Sea Islanders on her mother’s side. Kelleigh is a AHPRA registered psychologist with a private practice in Brisbane, working with Indigenous and non-Indigenous clients healing from Trauma. Her passion lies in finding solutions that work for healing from trauma, across cultures, lifespans and environments. Kelleigh is co-founder and owner of The Seedling Group, a 100% Indigenous owned company providing psychological consultancy, evaluation and Culturally Safe Trauma Informed Practice Training for healing, with organisations, communities and individuals.

Kelleigh is the co-founder and Director of The Seedling Collective, an Indigenous owned and operated Employee Assistance Provider with a trauma informed approach to supporting Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers through counselling and supervision across Australia.

In 2015, Kelleigh was appointed a position on the Aboriginal Clinical Governance Advisory Committee Aboriginal Health & Medical Research Council (AH&MRC) 2015 of New South Wales. She is proud to be the first Aboriginal Psychologist appointed as a Clinical Assessor on the Psychologist Panel of Assessors for the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (QCAT) in (2015-2020).  Since 2016 Kelleigh has had the privileged to be co-convenor of the APS Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and Psychology Interest Group.

In 2019 Kelleigh was honoured with the Indigenous Allied Health Australia’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” and in 2021 Kelleigh was awarded the membership of Fellow to the Australian Psychological Society (APS) for her work in strengthen the field of psychology and the APS through her expertise and contributions to research, practice and policy.

In 2023 Kelleigh co-authored the book Cultural Safety in Trauma-Informed Practice from a First Nations Perspective: Billabongs of Knowledge. Palgrave Macmillan.

In 2023 Kelleigh received recognition for her work through nomination to the position of Industry Fellow in the Faculty of CI, Education & Social Justice, Centre for Justice, at the Queensland University of Technology QUT.

Kelleigh held the position of Co-Vice Chair on the Australian Indigenous Psychologist Association Board (AIPA) for two terms and now serves on the AIPA Board.