Pete Smith is a registered psychologist with 25 years’ experience in clinical and forensic settings. He is a descendant of the Gamilaroi Nation, the people of the rivers and plains of northwest New South Wales, with cultural connections to the Walgett community. He is a member of Australian Indigenous Psychologists Association (AIPA) and as a representative of AIPA he is also a member of the Australian Indigenous Psychology Education Project (AIPEP) that seeks to decolonise psychology curricula throughout Australia and to embed Indigenous knowledges and values within the university sector.
He has been presenting cultural competence/responsiveness workshops, to mental health professionals around Australia for fourteen years, and recently completed his PhD at University of New England, researching Cultural Responsiveness and ways that mental health can be more culturally safe for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients. He is presently Senior Lecturer Indigenous Australian Health at UNE.
