Donna Dark

Background

About Donna Dark

I am an expert in working on capacity and capability of people and systems to strengthen governance in aged care and disability organisations. My strength is my ability to assess and improve systems that support good governance at a service, tactical and/or strategic level. I have a talent for translating information between these levels and identifying gaps to help organisations be better versions of themselves. The work I do: business needs analysis and stakeholder engagement; deep dive audits, analysis of incidents and issues, change management, policy review, consumer focus groups and hands-on practical mentoring of any manager who find themselves needing to better understand how governance can work for them. I have held specialist governance senior management roles with large aged care and retirement living providers operating across multiple states and territories. This involved working across strategic, tactical and local levels to implement systems and transfer knowledge to people and teams in the areas of internal audit, risk management, policy governance, business continuity, record management and general insurance for aged care and retirement living organisations in New South Wales and Queensland. Since starting my own consultancy (Lighthouse Advisory Services) in 2016, I have completed a variety of projects with aged care, disability and primary health providers including: • Research and stakeholder engagement for Aged Care Approval Rounds • Board workshops in Corporate and Clinical Governance for Aged Care • Gap Analysis and remedial action plans for residential aged care and community services against the National Aged Care Quality Standards • Policy Governance Frameworks, roadmaps and specific policy development for disability and aged care • Patient engagement workshops for General Practices and a Primary Health network • Evaluation of commissioned small projects for a Primary Health network • High risk incident investigations (including elder abuse) In 2020, I commenced as a Workshop Facilitator for the Australasian Institute for Clinical Governance. I am also an advisor for MOA Benchmarking for their Disability program.