Brooke Walters

Brooke Walters is the founder of ConsciousNest, a grassroots festival harm-reduction and support service she has operated without government funding since 2014. She is also the Project Coordinator at Hi-Ground and has served as a supervisor at Queensland’s fixed drug-checking sites, as well as a past employee of The Loop Australia.

With qualifications in social work, arts therapies, events management and the creative industries, Brooke is committed to creating innovative approaches to education and support that are colourful, engaging, fun and progressive.

Her social work practice is grounded in critical feminist, post-modern and social justice frameworks, and as an AOD worker and peer she identifies as a fierce narco-feminist, committed to challenging conventional and harmful narratives surrounding substance use by centring stories of pleasure and healing. Brooke’s work weaves together her passions for grassroots community projects, harm reduction, youth advocacy, mental health support, creative therapies, pleasure, fun and the healing potentials of psychedelics.

In 2024, Brooke received an Outstanding Contribution Award at Queensland’s Network of Alcohol and Other Drug Agencies Conference for her work in harm reduction. At the 2023 Harm Reduction International Conference, she joined other state representatives of festival harm-reduction services to present on the history of crowd care within the Australian context.

Brooke is a member of the Queensland Festival Safety Coalition, the National Peer-Led Nightlife Alliance and the Pill Testing 4 Queensland Alliance.

Connect: http://consciousnest.info/ & https://hi-ground.org/