Alyson Brown

I began my career as a secondary teacher in the Northern Territory, and the young people I taught continue to shape how I think about policy and reform. I believe every young person deserves the opportunity to belong, participate and succeed, and that education systems must recognise individual strengths and respond to individual needs.

My career has since taken me across alcohol policy, disability, housing and public health, where I have held senior leadership roles at the intersection of policy, evidence and service delivery. My work in alcohol policy taught me the value of prevention and early intervention and the importance of looking beyond individual programs to understand how systems shape outcomes.

My recent return to education has brought my career full circle. My work in student wellbeing and inclusion has highlighted the disproportionate representation of students with disability in suspension data. Rather than focusing on how a student needs to change, I want us to ask what we can do differently at a system level and how we can act earlier to prevent challenges from escalating.

My Churchill Fellowship will take me to Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Iceland and Bhutan to explore approaches to inclusive education. I will examine how legislation, policy, early intervention and inclusive practice work together to better support all learners. I am particularly interested in what smaller systems such as Iceland can teach us, alongside Bhutan’s distinctive focus on wellbeing and happiness. Each is a piece of the puzzle; my Fellowship will explore how these elements work together to create more responsive and inclusive education systems.

I will bring this learning back to the Northern Territory and Australia through a practical policy playbook, translating international findings into implementation lessons so that every student can thrive throughout their educational journey.