Developing a Culturally-Based Social and Emotional Wellbeing Program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians in Prison

ICPA 2025 Presentation by Michael Doyle and Luke Grant (PID044)

Authors

Michael Doyle

Head of First Nations Health, Edith Collins Centre, University of Sydney, Australia

Associate Professor Michael Doyle is an Aboriginal Australin man from the Bardi nations and is the lead for Indigenous health research in the Discipline of Addiction Medicine at the University of Sydney. Michael has worked in Aboriginal health since 1998, first in health service delivery roles and then he moved into research in 2008. Michael is a mixed-methods researcher, and his PhD (completed in 2018) was the first PhD focused on prison-based rehabilitation programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.

Michael is a member of the Australian Government’s Institute of Health and Welfare’s Prisoner Health Data Committee which provides oversight of national prisoner health data. Michael is an active member of the Aboriginal community and has served on Aboriginal community controlled organisation boards. He is the co-chair of the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council’s Human Research Ethics Committee (AH&MRC HREC), which reviews all health research ethics as related to Aboriginal people in New South Wales.
Michael’s research outputs since 2018 include publishing 41 peer reviewed papers including nine as first author. He is an Associate Editor for one of the world leading journals in AoD, Addiction, and a Deputy Editor for the Drug and Alcohol Review which is Australia’s leading journal in the field. In his day-to-day work as an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney, Michael leads a team of five staff and has three postgraduate students.

Luke Grant

Deputy Commissioner, Corrective Services New South Wales, Australia

Luke Grant joined Corrective Services NSW in January 1991 progressing through senior operational roles in prisoner education, programs, and classification. He was appointed to the role of Assistant Commissioner Inmate Management in 2000, with primary responsibility for prisoner rehabilitation in NSW, became Assistant Commissioner Corrections Strategy and Policy in December 2012 and Deputy Commissioner in 2020.

In his current role Luke has oversight of all correctional policy and strategy for NSW, rehabilitation, correctional research, staff development, culture and wellbeing, media, digital technology and prisoner classification.
Luke has provided expert testimony before numerous parliamentary inquiries at the state and federal levels and represented Australia in international forums as an expert on countering violent extremism and the human rights of prisoners.

He championed partnerships and research collaborations between the corrections industry and universities for the last two decades and has co-authored more than 45 articles in peer review journals.

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