SHARC Board of Governance

Mustafa (Mus) Elkhishin

– Director

Mustafa (Mus) Elkhishin CMgr MIML Mus brings personal experience of addiction, and long-term recovery, alongside more than a decade of leadership experience across the health and community services sectors.

He is currently Head of External Relations at Lives Lived Well, one of Australia’s largest not-for-profit AOD service providers, leading strategic partnerships, government relations, stakeholder engagement, and organisational growth initiatives nationally. His professional background spans senior service delivery, commissioning, organisational leadership, and system reform. He has led large multidisciplinary teams, overseen significant government funded service portfolios, and secured investment in treatment, recovery, and community wellbeing initiatives.

A longstanding advocate for lived experience leadership, Mus helped establish peer-led AOD recovery networks in Central Queensland and has served on community Boards, advisory committees, and government reform initiatives. His connection with SHARC dates to 2017, when he helped facilitate its first interstate peer worker and organisational readiness training in Queensland. A Chartered Manager and QUT Leadership Institute Fellow, Mus is passionate about strengthening lived experience leadership, fostering collaboration, and ensuring good governance supports meaningful outcomes for individuals, families and communities.

Leo Sleinis

– Director

Leo Sleinis is an experienced Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) and Mental Health leader with a career predominantly focused in the youth AOD sector. Leo has worked across peer-led recovery programs, outreach services, harm reduction, out-of-home care, and Aboriginal health services.

Leo spent a formative period of his early career at SHARC as Program Coordinator of Recovery Support Services. Since, Leo has maintained a strong connection to the lived experience workforce by providing lived experience supervision through his private practice, Reflexive Focus Consulting, on behalf of SHARC.

Throughout his career, Leo has worked across a range of respected organisations including Berry Street, Peninsula Health, Youth Support + Advocacy Service (YSAS), and the Victorian Aboriginal Health Service. He is currently a Program Manager at Melbourne City Mission, where he leads a multidisciplinary team of peer workers and clinicians supporting young people experiencing crisis homelessness and complex mental health challenges in Melbourne’s CBD.

Leo brings forth diverse lived experience, having accessed AOD and mental health services as a young person and having prior involvement with the youth justice system. Subsequently, Leo brings his forth lived experience of recovery, hope and change. This lived experience informs Leo’s leadership and strengthens his commitment to recovery-oriented, peer-informed service delivery and to the communities he serves.

Leo has studied a Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) at RMIT University and holds additional qualifications in Community Services, Youth Work, and Alcohol and Other Drugs. His leadership is underpinned by principles of human rights, social justice, anti-oppressive practice, and critical perspectives on power.

Jack Wallace

– Vice-Chair, Director

In his professional roles, Jack Wallace has worked across community, government and research sectors to reduce the personal and community impacts of blood borne viruses, particularly viral hepatitis. Prior to his research career, he established Hepatitis Australia, the national peak organisation representing people living with viral hepatitis, serving as Executive Officer from 1998 to 2005. His earlier roles included managing a peer-based injecting drug user organisation in Queensland and working as Principal Program Advisor – Hepatitis C, for Queensland Health. At a personal level, Jack is committed to ensuring that the voice of lived experience and human rights informs a broad range of health, social and community interventions.

Bernard Hickey

– Convenor Governance & Remuneration Committee (GOVCO), Director

Qualifications: Psychiatrist. MB BS FRANZCP, Accredited Member of the Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatry (RANZCP)

Professional Experience: Bernard works in private practice psychiatry consults for The Hader Clinic Private Hospital, which treats severe addiction disorders and co-morbidity. Bernard works at Alice Springs Hospital in Alcohol and Other Drugs service inpatients and outpatients, and in Central Australian Mental Health Service. Bernard has worked in services with strong support and training programs for utilising lived experience. Bernard has also worked in Alice Springs for 9 years, so is very familiar with cross-cultural work, especially with First Nations people in Australia.

Lived Experience: 21 years in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction using lived experience support methods

Why did you join the SHARC Board?
To offer support and direction to a recovery support organisation which values lived experience in recovery from addiction disorders

Other Board Experience: NT representative on the Bi-national Faculty of Addiction Psychiatry Committee of RANZCP. Chairperson of Hader Clinic Private Hospital Clinical Board of Governance

Location: Lives in Alice Springs mostly

Hobbies/personal interests: Married with 2 adult children. Likes football, music, and poetry

Bella Anderson

– Director & Treasurer

Bella Anderson is a Registered Nurse (Mental Health) with postgraduate qualifications in Mental Health and Alcohol and other Drug approaches. She has held a range of professional positions in clinical/direct support services, management, education, and community advocacy work and has served on an International AOD Board and a Union Committee of Management. She brings rich professional and personal expertise to the Board, underpinned by her long-term lived experience of recovery and change.

Karen Lococo

– Director | Finance, Audit & Risk Management Committee (FARMCO) Convenor, Company Secretary

Qualifications: Master of Social Work (MSW), Graduate School of Social Service, Fordham University, New York, Bachelor of Science in Social Work, Sociology, and Counselling from Charter Oak State College, New Britain, and an Associate of Science in Drug and Alcohol Recovery Counselling from Manchester Community College.

Professional Experience: A dynamic and results-oriented senior leader with over twenty years of experience (USA and Australia) in social services, health, and community support, specialising in program management, trauma-informed leadership, and operational excellence.

Demonstrated success in leading major strategic initiatives that address complex social challenges, particularly within homelessness and supportive housing sectors. Known for building and nurturing stakeholder relationships, leading high-performing teams, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement to drive transformative outcomes.

Extensive experience working with senior State Government officials to determine policy, programs, and funding. Karen has had a rewarding and successful career with Sacred Heart Mission Victoria from November 2015 to January 2025 and has recently commenced a new role (Senior Manager Housing and Homelessness Support) at Wintringham.

Lived Experience: Long term lived experience of recovery from addiction. Additionally, many family members in recovery from alcoholism/addiction/mental health concerns

Why did you join the SHARC Board?
I am seeking a new challenge as Board Director in a not-for-profit organisation where I can leverage my skills and experience. I am committed to continuing to make a sustainable positive impact on social justice and inclusion and caring for the lives of those most in need.

Other Board Experience: Chair of the Southern Homelessness Services Network

Location: Melbourne

Hobbies/personal interests: Reading, travel, going to the beach, and I am a passionate supporter of the Melbourne Football Club

Nikki McCoy

– Director & Chair

Nikki McCoy is a Counsellor / Psychodramatist in long term recovery with specialist skills in trauma and addiction. Nikki has worked for 30 years in Aboriginal communities co-creating strong relational therapeutic models of healing. Nikki has extensive experience as a program Manager and leader in strengthening and development of First Nations languages and cultures. She co-leads a psychodrama Group in Alice Springs Correctional Centre (ASCC) for men, who have suffered significant trauma and who have been convicted of serious offences relating to violence. In 2024 Nikki published her thesis which describes an environment of safety and healing through overting the legacy of racism in community life and in the therapeutic relationship. It outlines the conditions for growth in cross-cultural collaboration. She is also on the Board of Indigenous Community TV.

BA Linguistics, Dip Ed, Masters of Counselling, EMDR Accredited Trauma Practitioner, Grad Dip Creative Arts Therapy, Grad Cert AOD, Cert IV TAE, Accredited Supervisor, Member ACA, EMDRAA, Associate Member AANZPA