Kate Swaffer

Kate Swaffer is a humanitarian, and an independent scholar and author. She is an award-winning campaigner for the rights of people with dementia and older persons in Australia and globally including being named 2017 Australian Of The Year in South Australia. Kate is an Ambassador for the Australia Day Council (SA) and for Step Up For Dementia Research in Australia. Kate has a Master of Science in Dementia Care, a Bachelor of Psychology, a BA, a graduate Diploma in grief counselling, and is a retired nurse. She is an activist for human rights and disability rights, and a highly published author and poet, and current CEO and a co-founder of Dementia Alliance International. Kate is actively involved globally in reframing dementia as a disability, and for human and legal rights for all people with dementia, including for dementia to be managed as a disability, and equal access to the CRPD. She is an elected board member of Alzheimer’s Disease International, a past elected member of the World Dementia Council, and an International Fellow, Impact Research Group, University of East Anglia. Kate continues to work with the WHO and others, and is a peer reviewer for two academic journals. Her Submission and Witness Statement to the Australian Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is the only one out of more than 10,000 that asked for redress.