Paul Dessauer is a lived/living experience worker and the CEO of Peer Based Harm Reduction WA, a consumer-led not-for-profit, and the state’s largest provider of health & harm reduction services for people who use drugs. Paul has >26 years’ experience working at PBHR WA delivering and coordinating needle & syringe exchange programs, outreach health & harm reduction services, overdose prevention & take-home-naloxone programs, and peer education projects while also providing consultancy to researchers and policy makers and delivering workforce development to other front-line agencies. Paul previously worked as a Drug and Alcohol Officer for the State-wide Specialist Aboriginal Mental Health Service; as an educator and consultant for the Transnational Institute (in China and Myanmar); and as a trainer for the Burnet Institute. In 2002 Paul was awarded an ADCA Australia Day Medal for Harm Reduction and in 2025 he received the AIVL Jenny Kelsall Lifetime Achievement Award. Paul holds a conferred Adjunct Senior Lecturer position at the School of Medicine, University of New South Wales.

Joël has over 15 years of experience in non-profit management and program delivery, focusing on peer-led services implementation and key populations policy and research in Australia, Europe, Asia, and The Pacific.