2025 Excellence in Leadership - Established Leader

Adele King

Adele is the Nurse Unit Manager of the Intensive Care Unit at Rockingham General Hospital where she is passionate in providing very high standards of care to vulnerable patients. She is equally passionate in caring for the needs of her staff to ensure they not only have the required clinical skills for their job, but the resilience and emotional intelligence to support their well-being. Recent recruitment and staffing challenges have seen her provide opportunities to novice practitioners by facilitating the development of strong and robust training and support. As a South Metropolitan Service Human Factors (SHFT) ambassador, Adele recognised many of her very junior workforce was daunted by their new environment and as such focused on developing a ‘support’ group for staff, new and old, providing a safe space to discuss any issues. Overcoming many challenges and barriers, a monthly debriefing session was trialled providing a culturally safe space to discuss tough shifts, experiences, and concerns. Recognising it takes the entire team to support each other and maintain high standards of care, Adele encouraged all staff to attend the debriefing sessions, including the multidisciplinary team.  Such is the success of the sessions many now attend in their own time with plenty of positive feedback, high engagement, and greater job satisfaction within the team. This in turn has led to improved patient outcomes. Adele’s motto is “do small things with great love every day”. She is proud to see her team grow and develop and has found it incredibly rewarding and humbling to watch her new nurses evolve in to confident, skilled and empowered professionals.

Janice Forrester

Janice has lived and worked in the Kimberley for decades and is the Co-ordinator of Nursing for the Community Health clinics, managing various senior nursing regional positions. She is a transformational leader who passionately advocates for primary healthcare and the importance of preventative health having previously travelled to Africa to lobby for affordable access to anti-retroviral treatment for children. Janice’s lived experiences, care and knowledge of families and family groups across the region provide the strong foundation for her cultural awareness and sensitivity that ensures her patient’s cultural needs are met. She is aware that as a nurse she has the trust and privilege of helping people through difficult times in their lives and has found it particularly touching working in palliative care, spending time with clients and hearing their life stories and reflections. She feels privileged that her patients chose her to share their story with and allow her to see them as a person and not just as a patient. Janice also makes time for every staff member and is highly motivated and driven to ensure everyone is recognised for their individual achievements. Janice has developed multiple community relationships and connections which aid organisation and community partnerships and have successfully resulted in increasing the local Aboriginal workforce. With community need at the forefront of any program or collaboration, she currently supports the Strengthening Aboriginal Health and Indigenous Australians’ Health Program to compliment Aboriginal health in the Fitzroy Valley and other remote locations. Janice is a true champion of primary health and the value and commitment she displays ensures a cohesive team approach to improving health in the Kimberley.

Jemma Weidinger

Jemma exemplifies outstanding leadership by consistently inspiring her colleagues through her clinical excellence, dedication, and collaborative approach. In her own words, Jemma has had the “courage to take a risk” along her career journey at Perth Children’s hospital made possible by learning for some “brilliant nursing, medical and allied health colleagues” and “powerful role models”. Her successes include establishing the Nurse Practitioner (NP) role in ED, establishing the NP service in Dermatology, and now working as the NP for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia. This makes her stand out as there are very few NPs who have excelled in three very different fields of clinical excellence. All Jemma’s roles demonstrate her belief in service above self, outstanding adaptability, commitment to lifelong learning, and capacity to excel in diverse areas of practice to deliver the best outcomes for patients. The co-designed models of care implemented have not only resulted in significant waitlist reduction and timely access to specialist care for children, but they have also improved clinical standards and created inclusive and compassionate workplace cultures that are patient-centred and sustainable. Jemma’s leadership extends beyond her own achievements as she displays an unwavering commitment to mentor other NPs following in her footsteps by nurturing their development while sharing her expertise and modelling best practices. Her ability to empower colleagues and prioritise patient outcomes ensures her impact is both immediate and enduring. In her capacity as an advanced clinical practitioner, Jemma’s success is seen through her ability to build relationships, positively influence, and work collaboratively across her specialisations, where she has a reputation for growing trust and teamwork. Jemma feels fortunate to have experienced many rewarding interactions with patients and families and recognises that doing the simple things well can have a profound impact.

Nicky van Someren

Nicky is the Nurse Co-Director of the Medical Division at Perth Childrens Hospital and consistently demonstrates outstanding role modelling as a thoughtful leader who cares about her staff. She is very proud of this role and the staircase she has climbed to get here. Nicky is always drawn to a challenge, so 2024 was the year of YES for her where she participated and volunteered in all events presented to her. Once a month she dons her work scrubs are spends a day in the clinical area listening, coaching, and understanding the issues nurses are experiencing. As a result, Nicky has instigated extra supports to assist junior teams and has joined the CAHS Mentoring Program as a Mentor. Recognising ED as a department facing high pressure and acuity, Nicky has advocated for and organised extra support and training to assist nurses in the ED following traumatic events and bereavements. She also willingly meets with families to resolve concerns and meets with worried parents to reduce their stress. Nicky is passionate about keeping children and babies with their families, especially if they have complex needs. She is therefore amazing at forming partnerships, liaising, and communicating with many external departments to ensure continuity of care for patients. This was demonstrated in her most touching experience which was to support a ventilated child swim with dolphins in Florida as part of the ‘Make a Wish Progam’. Nicky is a CAHS Culture Champion and is always lobbying for her staff being a pivotal lead on the work with the implementation of a supernumerary resus team in the ED and the implementation of Nurse-to-Patient Ratios. She is an amazing role model, being calm, thoughtful, considerate, and humble about her achievements. Nicky is always keen to be involved and provides thoughtful opinions in executive meetings using data to support her viewpoint. She is considered a shining light in the chaos of high activity and acuity, accommodating flexibility where needed to support her team and make a difference every day to the staff by the way she works and leads.