Project worker on the Ministerial Council on Drugs & Inter-Governmental Committee Drugs Workforce

Coralie Ober is Islander by birth with kinship ties in the Aboriginal communities of Cherbourg, Palm Island, the Torres Strait Islander community of Saibai and Vanatu in the Pacific Islands. Coralie began her professional life as a registered nurse followed by gaining wide range skills, one of which includes teaching. Her work has extended from nursing to welfare to teaching / lecturing, facilitating training workshops across a broad spectrum of disciplines, writing curriculum for Undergraduate studies at university and being a presenter of Indigenous Issues on rural and remote television broadcasting.

Coralie has worked a Guidance Officer in Secondary schools and has also worked in Queensland Corrective Services. It was during this phase of her professional life, and having to work with the issue of deaths in custody, that she began to explore more fully trans-generational trauma and its ramifications on Indigenous people today. Coralie’s post graduate studies / interests lie in Group Process in the Treatment of Trauma and Crisis in Indigenous Communities.

Community Development/Capacity Building in Indigenous communities is the basis of her work with WHO in the Global Project on Indigenous Peoples and Substance Use. Coralie is currently employed as a Research Fellow Queensland Alcohol & Drug Research and Education Centre (QADREC) University of Queensland in the School of Population Health. Prior to joining QADREC, Coralie was employed as the Principal Adviser, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Programs Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Services Queensland Health where one of her major project was the development of a Queensland Health Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Framework for Action and currently the development of the Indigenous Risk Impact Screen and Brief Intervention.

Coralie was also a member and Chair of the National Drug Strategy (NDS) Reference Group for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples responsible for the development of The NDS Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Peoples Complementary Action Plan 2003–2006. Coralie is also a member of the Indigenous Reference Group for the Alcohol and Drug Council of Australia (ADCA).

Coralie’s current major project work is the development and implementation of a work force development training and capacity building for the Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Alcohol and Drug Community Workers in Queensland. This project work is part of the Ministerial Council on Drugs & Inter-Governmental Committee on Drugs Workforce Agenda.