Pain Champion and Disability Advocate
“Tara is at the forefront of this fight, especially for those with chronic illness and pain… she is a global change maker when it comes to disability.”
– Elizabeth Wright, Conscious Being magazine, UK
Tara Moss is a prominent advocate with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) – a rare disease marked by constant burning pain which rates on the McGill Pain Scale as more painful than childbirth or amputation of a digit. She was able to get her condition into complete remission in 2023 after nearly 8 years of debilitating pain that impacted all aspects of her being, including her mobility, causing her to require a wheelchair. Now in remission, she continues to bring advocacy and visibility to issues of disability and chronic pain, the need to improve treatment and support, and integrate multidisciplinary care and complementary therapies to treat the whole person. In 2020 she accepted the honorary role of Pain Champion with Pain Australia and in 2021 she was chosen as a Global Change Maker by Conscious Being magazine for her disability and chronic pain activism. She is a 2022 recipient of the Honorary Citizen Award for the City of Victoria for her work on accessibility rights. In 2023 she also joined the PWLE (People With Lived Experience) committee of the Canadian Pain Society to continue her advocacy and was named as their first ever Pain Champion at their annual scientific meeting in Banff, in front of over 500 luminaries in pain research and treatment.
Tara – or Rae, as she is also known by her middle name – is a bestselling author of 14 books, a mother, a wife and a dual Canadian/Australian citizen, and currently resides in her hometown of Victoria, BC, the unceded territory of the Lkwungen speaking people, and the Songhees, Esquimalt, and WSÁNEC First Nations, where she is a recipient of both the Order of Lambrick Park, and the Honorary Citizen Award, the highest formal honour awarded by the City of Victoria. She works as an author, advocate, public speaker, and a certified holistic practitioner offering treatments that assisted her in her own healing journey, and a Life Celebrant or Funeral Celebrant, supporting her local community.
Praise:
“Thank you again for being our guest speaker last night! Your presentation was wonderful. I especially appreciated the ‘self-care’ piece as so many people forget about that.” – Wendy Cox, Executive Director, Victoria Disability Resource Centre
“You and your work [on accessiblity] were one of the absolute highlights of my time here.” – Bronwen Hudson, Content Marketer, Royal BC Museum
“Thank you again for joining us! We’ve heard such positive feedback [on your presentation] from our membership.” – Jenna Wright, Spinal Cord Injury BC
