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Jo, a woman with Down syndrome is smiling at her support worker Wendy who is looking at Jo and has dark hair and glasses

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Jo Page and Wendy

Published ABC News| MAR 21, 2023
Anne and husband John had to become self-trained therapists when Jo was born in the isolated town of Newman in Western Australia.
With the nearest family more than 12 hours away in Perth, Mrs Page said it was a tough start in life for Jo, with access to only one doctor.
She said the doctor knew very little about disabilities and it was during a time when Down Syndrome had a &#8220;revolting&#8221; name.
Her family soon moved across the country to Birchip in western Victoria, but Jo still had to travel more than an hour by bus to reach therapists in St Arnaud.
&#8220;People thought that we were pretty crazy doing that when she was two-and-a-half, but she slept all the way and didn&#8217;t do her any harm.&#8221;
Even getting Jo into school proved to be a challenge.
&#8220;The hierarchy, who I had to approach didn&#8217;t think it was perhaps the best choice that we should be doing,&#8221; Mrs Page said.
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&#8220;You had to deal with that, and more or less kind of educate them.&#8221;
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With a population of less than 1,000, Birchip has more than it&#8217;s fair share of community support for the Down Syndrome community.
Mrs Page said every shop owner knew Jo&#8217;s name.
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&#8220;That&#8217;s not got to do with any training or being a therapist, that&#8217;s a nice, lovely person that appears either as your neighbour or someone that has just the most amazing heart,&#8221; she said.
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&#8220;It&#8217;s a beautiful moment when you find those people that come into you into your life and are so supportive, and they&#8217;ve been there all Jo&#8217;s life.&#8221;
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Mrs Page said her family realised early on it was up to them to find out what services and support were available.
It is a lesson they try to impart on young families who also have children with Down Syndrome.
&#8220;When there is a diagnosis, you&#8217;ve got that grief component, no one deals with that except the families,&#8221; Mrs Page said.
&#8220;The world falls apart, no one really support you with that grief part.
&#8220;So sometimes that lingers for families for a long time.&#8221;
According to National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) statistics, more than 12,500 people in Australia list Down syndrome as their primary or secondary disability.
Carer Solutions chief executive Jane Morrell said people in regional areas struggled to find the right support, despite it being the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability.
&#8220;Whether it&#8217;s you having a disability yourself or a family member, you want to be in the driver&#8217;s seat and be able to make those decisions for yourself but that choice is taken away when you&#8217;re going down the road with a traditional provider,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;If they&#8217;ve got an existing relationship with someone, that&#8217;s half the battle.
&#8220;So it&#8217;s really important that you have that connection and that and that level of trust, with someone who&#8217;s coming in and out of your home, especially with anything to do with personal care.&#8221;
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Jo is wearing a magenta coloured blouse and is seated next to her support worker Wendy. Jo's parents Anne and John are standing behind them. Everyone is smiling at the camera

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With the theme of ‘cracking the code, this year’s International Women’s Day is all about using innovation and tech to break down barriers for women across a range of industries.
I know from personal experience that women with an innovative idea can face a huge range of challenges in order to have their ideas seen and heard &#8211; especially as young women.
At the age of 31, I faced a huge number of challenges trying to pitch my business idea to a room of executives within the disability sector. My idea to design a system that could be led by the participant or their nominee, not the provider, hadn’t been attempted before. The idea was met with scepticism by many and downright disbelief by others. I regularly felt judged and underestimated simply for being a young entrepreneur.
Merely being taken seriously was my first hurdle. I needed to impress &#8211; and that was before I even attempted to prove that my business concept was viable.
My business idea was seen as far-fetched and out of the box, especially since innovation and change were not always embraced within the disability sector (especially pre-NDIS). It took time and effort &#8211; ten years, in fact, to explain my vision and make people understand that my idea can and does work.
Imposter syndrome is pretty common in the workplace, especially for those who set high standards for themselves. However, for many entrepreneurs, those moments of doubt can escalate when you leave meeting after meeting, wondering whether you’d be taken seriously or just dismissed as another person trying to ‘fake it till you make it’.
We must work extra hard to overcome those voices &#8211; whether they’re coming from external sources or from within our own internal self-talk. Despite all these challenges, I persevered and built a successful business that has changed the way the disability sector operates.
I’m well aware that I’m just one story among a sea of others. I’ve often seen people who don’t possess a ‘bulldog’ attitude be interrupted, spoken over and undermined. In order to drive lasting change, we must challenge the assumptions and internal biases that lead ourselves and others to back women and other marginalised groups into a corner.
Innovation and technology have been put front and centre this International Women’s Day. But in order to drive true innovation across a range of sectors, we need to keep having difficult conversations about the reality faced by women and marginalised groups when they attempt exactly that.
My hope is that the discrimination and rejections I faced just a decade ago aren’t quite as harsh for the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs. I hope they’re able to recognise discrimination for what it is, call it out and stop it in its tracks.
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By Jane Morrell Published in TechDay| MAR 8, 2023

Jane is sitting on a couch, with arm resting on the back, looking over her shoulder and smiling.

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Jane Morrell

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<h3 class="nm-post-hd1">“I Wanted A Seat At The Table, So I Learned To Act Like A Man”</h3>
As a female entrepreneur, I’ve been acutely aware of being the only woman in the room more times than I can count. I’ve watched with relief over the years as the push towards workplace gender equality has led to more women on company boards and a push towards pay equity.
But despite these baby steps, I can’t help but feel that a crucial part of the conversation is being lost among the numbers and statistics.
For a long time, the only way I could gain a seat at the table was to dig deep and embody the same ‘male energy’ as the group of men already sitting there.
When I was first trying to get my business off the ground, I experienced this pressure every time I met with peers and other businesses within the disability sector. I was 31 years old and had spent a year researching and designing an innovative service model that would transform the way people could employ disability support workers within Australia.
I was passionate and confident that it would change the game, despite change not always being embraced within the sector. My idea was seen as far-fetched, so as I walked into every meeting, I would prepare myself to match the strong, dominant energy that I knew would be in the room. I acted unphased when told ‘you’re dreaming – this is too hard’ or ‘this is never going to work’. I would drive away, meeting after meeting, feeling anxious about how I’d been perceived. Not because of my performance, but because I hadn’t been myself.
Whether we want to admit it or not, many entrepreneurs feel this way. The pressure to put aside our authentic qualities to be taken seriously is often the only way forward in the competitive, often cut-throat business world. We walk into boardrooms reminding ourselves to show no sign of weakness or vulnerability. Sure, some people may find this comes naturally to them. For me, though, it went against my natural instinct. My authenticity, empathy, and passion – all the things that make my business so successful now in hindsight – were put on the back burner.
A decade later, this is still an experience that intrigues me. As I’ve opened up about my own journey – to friends, colleagues, and fellow entrepreneurs – the more I’ve discovered that this is something that resonates with many – women, members of marginalised communities and… men.
Gender aside, my questions are – why can’t we be encouraged to lean into our own, unique energy? Why are we spending so much time worrying about who we think we need to be, to make the best impression? And why aren’t authenticity, empathy, and trust valued on the same level as our business acumen?
I have a feeling that we’d all find ourselves being better leaders, better business partners, and more successful entrepreneurs if we simply embraced the qualities that naturally came to us.
As the conversation around workplace gender equality continues, my hope is that we’re all encouraged to challenge assumptions and learn that there is no one way of being that ensures success. At every turn, we should be encouraged to lean into our true energy.
Making physical space for women and marginalised groups in business isn’t enough – we need to make space for all the valuable, authentic qualities they bring with them, too.
<a href="https://www.womenshealth.com.au/i-wanted-a-seat-at-the-table-so-i-learned-to-act-like-a-man/">Read the full article in Australian Women&#8217;s Health</a>
By Jane Morrell 
Published in Australian Women&#8217;s Health | MAR 7, 2023

Jane is wearing a white shirt, gold earrings and is looking at the camera with a gentle smile.

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JANE Test3

Jane Morrell, founder & CEO of Carer Solutions smiling, sitting at a desk speaking with a person sitting in the foreground

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Jane Morrell, founder & CEO of Carer Solutions

<h4>When asked to write something about starting Carer Solutions ten years ago so many thoughts run through my mind….</h4>
Firstly, ten years. Wow. A decade crazy right?!
I started this journey as a 31-year-old who had absolutely no idea what lay ahead of me, truly. To use that wonderful term, we call hindsight I describe it as a complete surrender to an incredible opportunity and simply letting it take me away….
Take me away like a raft down a river sometimes &#8211; calm, serene and beautiful, picturesque and at other times manic and scary, wading my way through storm after storm through the roughest of waters. All the while never, ever giving up keeping my head above the water sometimes just! with the passion for what my organisation represents and seeing the impact I was making in the lives of people living with disability my only constant and driving force.
People pull out all the clichés when it comes to starting a business and as a business owner &#8211; budding or seasoned you’ve heard them all. And it takes a lot more than most will ever know or come close to understanding to operate a business, let alone a successful one.
I have always viewed it as my complete honour and privilege to be able to design, own and operate something that exists to improve the quality of one’s life. How much more fulfilled could a 9 to 5 get right? Not much more, let me tell you.
Nothing brings me more joy then sitting down with someone, speaking about how hard they are finding things and working with them toward a solution. It was in doing just this, which is what brought about my vision for Carer Solutions.
Understanding that people were completely over not having the ability to control their own lives in the disability sector &#8211; they had thoughts and distinct ideas on how they could live their best lives and were frustrated that no one (government or organisations!) were listening, actioning, or providing them with solutions that REALLY worked for them.
They wanted and deserved better. Better designed services that put them FIRST. I mean truly, put them first. Services designed around the individual, their individual needs and the INDIVIDUAL making their OWN choices.
Sounds ludicrous to say that a decade ago this level of choice and control didn’t exist.
But it didn’t and it made me mad. Mad and bewildered?!
Mad, bewildered, disappointed, and downright horrified &#8211; how could we live in country like Australia and not be treating and providing citizens of our society with different needs the services and supports they deserve? And access to things that “normal people” can access.
It made no sense.
It still doesn’t.
I had to do something and a decade ago I did, and my own life and the lives of the thousands of Australians that Carer Solutions services have impacted have never been the same since.
As I have said this decade, and most certainly the last couple of years haven’t been without its challenges.
During this global pandemic we had to pivot literally overnight to running our entire operation from each of our team members’ lounge rooms! a task that was initially quite daunting and difficult given we pride ourselves on face-to-face and being so accessible to our Partners. Thankfully, we have managed this successfully and it meant fundamental changes to our business model which in effect in means we are now more accessible to our community due to the pandemic, which is a definite positive.
Also, managing our growth as Covid-19 was unfolding and ensuring that whilst we had a new set of challenges to navigate that we remained steadfast in my commitment to ensure that the brand was the best possible representation of who we truly are.
This means from how we look and feel right through to the culture of the organisation ensuring we had not only the right roles in the business to manage our growth but that we are employing the right type of humans to represent Carer Solutions that is – high-performers that are innately connected to our unique approach and purpose.
This commitment to growth and ensuring we can scale our services and increase our impact translated into over 17 new roles being created and recruited for in the last twelve months and 6 new roles currently being recruited for. And, to top this off we are undergoing a beautiful rebrand and are just about to introduce the exciting, fresh new look to our community.
I consider myself one of the extremely lucky ones to have found my calling in life and it is with privilege and a grateful heart that I move forward.
And for this reason, I get out of bed every single day.
<h5>Around 4.4 million Australians are living with disability &#8211; thousands is not enough, I have a long way to go.</h5>
Jane Morrell
Founder &amp; CEO, Carer Solutions

Media & Events

ABC News: Community Support Helps Family Navigate Challenges of Down Syndrome

IWD 2023: The Reality of ‘Cracking the Code’ Within a Male-Dominated Industry

Women’s Health Australia featuring Jane Morrell

10 years is only the beginning