Ellen-Jane Browne

My name is Ellen-Jane Browne and I am the Latrobe Health Assembly’s Executive Officer. I have been working with the Latrobe Health Assembly since early May 2020, but have been actively involved in its establishment and the work of the Latrobe Health Innovation Zone since the beginning of 2017.  I joined the Assembly from the Department of Health and Human Services where I had been manager of Placed Based Programs for Inner Gippsland and Principle Advisor for the Latrobe Health Innovation Zone.

Prior to these appointments I had worked in the public and university sectors in a variety of senior management roles, including Manager Consumer, Carer and National Relations and Manager Corporate Integrity, Information and Resolutions with the former Departments’ of Human Services and Health. In the university sector I held a number of roles including Academic Register, Director Systems and Complaints, and Faculty Executive Manager at RMIT, and Centre Administrator and Tutor in political science and sociology at Melbourne University.  My early career was spent across the Victorian Government Departments’ of Education, Agriculture, Premier and Cabinet, and Fisheries and Wildlife.

I have tertiary qualifications in sociology, political science and public administration from Melbourne, Monash and RMIT Universities… all of which were obtained as a mature aged student after my first stint with the Victorian public sector.  

Having been a key participant in the establishment of the Latrobe Health Innovation Zone I welcomed the opportunity to work with the Latrobe Health Assembly as it continues its evolution as Australia’s only Health Assembly in Australia’s only Health Innovation Zone.  Collectively we have built something that is unique in an Australian context and for this the Assembly, its members, and the community can be very proud. I look forward to working with our community as this work unfolds.

Going forward, I am confident that we are in a fantastic position to not only support our community, but as an organisation, that we can lead the Latrobe Valley during recovery from COVID-19 and beyond, to be a community that is healthier, more resilient, and a place that everybody is proud to call home. Our Strategic Plan outlines how we might do this, however we can’t do it alone.  For 2021 we are hoping to strengthen our relationships with community, government, services and industry and I look forward to sharing the journey. Beyond 2021 I envisage a Latrobe Health Assembly that truly has a say in how health and wellbeing can continue to be improved in the Latrobe Valley and where community members are equal partners in the shaping of their, and their families, future.