Jo Brown

Whilst working in Royal Perth Hospital Intensive Care Unit she completed her Post Graduate Certificate in Clinical Nursing (Intensive Care) in 1999. Following this study, she took a break from nursing to start a family.

​

Despite her time away from nursing to attend to her young family, over the years, Johanne accumulated a wide scope of nursing experience working in both the private and public hospital sector, covering medical, surgical, intensive care, orthopaedic trauma, coronary care and gastroenterology, and post-operative recovery room nursing.

 

Through her nursing experiences, she came to realised how the many stressors we face during our day contribute to a state of dis-ease of the body, eg stress, anxiety, physical ailments, etc) often brought to the fore by the pressures and expectations experienced during the day at work. She noticed the irony in being a health care worker, you are there to care for others, but recognised how the one providing the care was often running (literally at times!) on sub-optimal levels of care themselves, purely because it appeared there was simply “no time to self-care”

 

“The quality of relationship we have with ourselves, influences the relationship we have with each other, which in turn, impact the health and well-being in all workplace environments. Self-Care is an essential determinant for a vital and profitable health care system and any workplace environment”

 

With her focus on self-care as a nurse, she has realised that delivering healthcare need not necessarily be a one-way street - that caring for another need not be at the detriment of oneself. 

 

Through her own development of self-care, Johanne recognised that there is an undeniable link between the health and well being of an individual and how this has an impact in family, community and work. This inspired her to complete a Post Graduate Certificate in Public Health in 2016. This study solidified her understanding that there are many personal and social determinants to health, and how the health of one impacts the health and wellbeing of community, of state, of nation and global health.

 

Her interest and insight into self-care in the workplace led her to team up with her brother and nurse, Matthew Brown and nursing colleague Elizabeth Dolan, to develop Core Care Consultancy, a preventative health initiative that through workplace presentations and forums, demonstrates how ‘self-care’ is the foundation of true health.

 

Being a woman, mother and running a household and family has brought particular interest in women’s health, in particular, the relationship between the modern day 24/7 woman and the imposition this lifestyle has on a woman’s wellbeing.

 

"Most of us are without any true settlement and connection to our own stillness and steadiness that is naturally there within our body. This inevitably results as a disharmony in a woman’s body."

 

Consequently, behaviour patterns develop such as anxiety and lack of self-worth to varying degrees that many of us have come to accept as ‘just a part of life’. All of these factors have an impact on our self-care, health and relationships - relationships with others but most predominately with the relationship a woman has with herself.

 

Johanne’s whole person approach to health, wellbeing and self-care inspired her to gain qualifications in complementary body therapies (Massage, Chakra-puncture, Connective Tissue Therapies) and further  completing a Diploma of Counselling and Diploma of Breast Cancer Nursing in 2020.

 

Johanne currently works in two part-time jobs as an anaesthetic nurse at Hollywood Private Hospital and as a practice nurse for a women’s health medical specialist.