Indigenous alcohol and drug-related problems will be the focus of a seminar hosted by Central Queensland University on Friday 21 June.

CQU’s School of Social Work and Welfare Studies organises a series of seminars each year titled Practice and Research in Regional and Rural Communities. Staff and students are invited to attend this year’s first seminar in the series.

Queensland Health’s Principal Advisor for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program ATODS, Coralie Ober will be the keynote speaker at the seminar – videolinked from her Brisbane office.

Ms Ober will discuss indigenous alcohol and drug issues in relation to the national and state scene. She will outline the strengths of Queensland Health in clinical management and how communities can work in partnership with the department.

Information will be presented on various indigenous programs that are operating around the State including the Indigenous Injecting Drug Use Project which works with Indigenous people who access public spaces.

Ms Ober is an Islander by birth. Her Aboriginal kinship lies with the DOGIT communities of Cherbourg and Palm Island and her Island kinship is with Saibai Island in the Torres Strait and Vanuatu.

As well as working for Queensland Health, Ms Ober is a registered teacher and nurse and has previously worked at guidance offices at secondary schools around the State. She has worked in Corrections and was appointed to the position after the Kennedy Review into Corrections.

Ms Ober is currently completing her PhD thesis, but work commitments overtake study. She was seconded to the World Health Organisation to work on the Global Project on Substance Use and Indigenous People, which she is still involved with, and was seconded last year to work with the team of the Fitzgerald Cape York Justice Study.

Ms Ober chairs the Indigenous Reference Group for the Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia (ADCA) and is a board member of the ADCA. She is also a part of the National Dug Strategy Reference Group for Indigenous People; the Reference Group for the development of the National Curriculum for the Training of Frontline Workers; and the Advisory Committee for the Indigenous Crime Prevention Project in North Queensland.