Eddie Bartnik

Mr Eddie Bartnik was appointed as Strategic Adviser to the National Disability Insurance Agency between 2014 – 2019 and Chair of the Agency’s National Mental Health Sector Reference Group. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is regarded as the biggest social policy reform in Australia since Medicare and is projected to support at full Scheme in 2019/20 a total of 460,000 Australians with disabilities and their families and carers with an annual budget of $22bn. Mr Bartnik provided national level expert advice on mental health/psychosocial disability, Local Area Coordination and community capacity building and International leadership development.

Prior to this, Mr Bartnik was Western Australia’s first Mental Health Commissioner for the period 2010-14, the first position of its kind in Australia. He led mental health reform and oversaw the commissioning of public, private and community sector mental health services to over 46,000 people with a budget in excess of $652m. He joined the mental health sector from his previous position as Acting Director General of the Department for Communities in WA, following a long career and various director positions with the WA Disability Services Commission.

Mr Bartnik has worked extensively and published across Australia and overseas in areas of human services reform, Local Area Coordination and individualised funding and personalised support. He is Fellow of the Australian Institute of Management, a Fellow of the Australasian Society for Intellectual Disability and Chair of the Sponsoring Countries Leadership Group for the International Initiative for Disability Leadership. In 2018 he was a Salzburg Global Fellow. He currently works as an independent consultant in disability, mental health and community services.

Mr Bartnik holds Masters degrees in clinical psychology from the University of WA and educational studies from the University of Tasmania and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He has been a governing Council member of Edith Cowan University since 2012 and is currently Deputy Chair of the Quality, Audit and Risk Committee. Mr Bartnik chairs the Clinical Governance Committee at 360 Health and Community.