Paul Higginbotham author

Chief Executive Officer & Co-founder, Earbus Foundation of WA Paul Higginbotham is a teacher of the deaf who commenced working in the field of hearing impairment in 1982. Paul holds a master's degree (Hons) in organisational leadership and opened and ran a language centre in Tokyo, Japan from 1991 to 1996. In 1997 he was appointed Principal of a school for deaf children in Perth and in November 2004 he became the CEO of a renamed Early Intervention Centre in Perth, a position he held until January 2013. During a successful 15-year tenure, Paul oversaw a $15 million rebuild of the centre's campus; increased annual student throughput from under 100 children a year to over 11,000 per annum; added programs and services to reach every corner of Western Australia; and built a reputation for cutting edge excellence. Paul was also instrumental in lobbying state and federal politicians through the establishment of the Australian Collaboration on Hearing and Education (ACHE). Paul served on the WA Newborn Hearing Screening Committee from 1998-2013; chaired the WA Special Needs Advisory Committee (SNAC) from 2003-2005; is a member of the WA Deafness Council Executive Committee; and in 2012 was the recipient of the Harry Blackmore Award for outstanding leadership in the field of childhood hearing impairment. He was a founding member of the Six Centre Alliance in 2003, which later became First Voice, an Australia-NZ alliance of early intervention centres specialising in childhood deafness and has presented at numerous state, national and international conferences. Paul is dedicated to helping vulnerable kids learn through listening across the state of Western Australia through the work of Earbus Foundation, which will celebrate 10 years in 2023. Since commencement of outreach services in 2014, Earbus has delivered more than 100,000 occasions of care to Aboriginal and at-risk kids in regional and remote WA.