Meet the Speakers presenting at How to Tell
My reality of late disclosure
Why Tell - What the History and Research tells us
Courtney du Toit
Courtney is the principal lawyer at boutique legal service, CDT Legal, specialising in Donor Conception and Fertility Law, and Non-litigious Family cLaw. As Australia’s only Donor Conceived Lawyer, she is perfectly placed to advise on legal issues surrounding creating families through Assisted Reproductive Treatment (ART) technologies. Courtney advocates to protect the rights of the children born through ART and to ensure that the best interests of the child remain the paramount consideration in accordance with the law, preparing Known Donor Agreements.
In 2019, Courtney presented at the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: Children’s Rights in the Age of Biotechnology at the United Nations HQ in Geneva.
Courtney has previously served on the VANISH Committee of Management and VARTA’s Reference Committee.
Strengthening family bonds through communication
Sarah is a clinical and health psychologist who has been working in the field of assisted reproduction and perinatal area for the past 20 years. She is an ANZICA registered counsellor in private practice and is also the manager of counselling, donor and genetics services at Newlife IVF. Sarah has a passion for assisting people with third party reproduction and navigating the emotional experiences of fertility.
Sarah has presented and published at national and international conferences, and has assisted in over 100 surrogacy teams across Australia.
Ian Smith
Ian was a sperm donor in the mid 1980’s. He has met two of his donor-conceived offspring and welcomes the possibility of meeting others
Ian works extensively with people who have lived experience of donor conception: sperm and egg donors; donor-conceived people, and; recipients of gamete donations.
Ian is currently undertaking doctoral studies in the La Trobe University Law School – his work focused on the socio-political influences on law reforms enacted in Victoria that retrospectively removed anonymity from sperm and egg donors. Ian actively brings his personal connection to and interest in donor-conception topic to his research work.
Dr Sarah Nowoweiski
The HOW - starting and continuing the conversation with your child
Rita Alesi
Rita is Counselling, Donor & Surrogacy Manager at Monash IVF and has also been in private practice for over 30 years, with a special interest in counselling related to 3rd Party Reproduction (Surrogacy and Donor Treatment). We’ll have more on her bio soon!