Dads on the Inside

With special guest:

• Edward Mosby

Ed Mosby is in the words of the Queensland Premier a “well-renowned Psychologist”. Ed has a background working as the Therapeutic Team Leader for Helem Yumba a Central Queensland Healing Centre located in Rockhampton.

Using all his expertise and experience in the area of behaviour change Ed developed the Dads on the Inside program to help the inmates at the Capricorn Correctional Centre to turn their lives around.

All the participants in the Dads on the Inside program were asked if they were willing to use pictures as well as words to tell what they learned in the program and how they feel about the future as fathers to their children. It has to be recognised that many of these men have difficulty with literacy but in this way they were able to express their real feelings. An example from one of the participants:

Just being supported to yarn about my kids or being a dad makes me feel like giving it a crack again (i.e. trying to be in the children’s lives again).

Ed has found that the prospect of having a positive influence on their children is a powerful driver for the dads who find themselves incarcerated perhaps not for the first time. We talk to Ed about the men he meets in the correctional facilities, the differences in the way Indigenous and non-Indigenous men react to the program and the benefits that flow to the families and the community.

This is a unique opportunity to find out some of the great work that is being done in the area of Indigenous mental health. Ed is a warm and engaging personality. When you hear him in the radio program you will understand how he can motivate others to get up from a low point in their lives to set some goals, kick some goals and become valued members of our society.

Edward Mosby

Ed Mosby is an Indigenous Psychologist with his own practice Wakai Waian Healing based in Central Queensland. Ed was born on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait and raised in Taroom in South West Queensland. He is experienced in the fields of Indigenous and non-Indigenous mental health issues and Indigenous family violence. For a number of years Ed facilitated and developed the Gatharr Weyebe Banabe program (in Darumbal language meaning Aboriginal man’s life change). Following that he embarked on the design and implementation of a program connecting incarcerated fathers with their children Dads on the Inside.

Ed was appointed as a Member of the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) Advisory Panel on Domestic Violence, the federal government’s national taskforce on domestic and family violence. He is also a graduate of the Royal Military College of Australia Duntroon and a Major in the Army Reserve.

Song selection by our guest: Growing Up (Sloane’s song) by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - feat. Ed Sheeran

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