Natalie Harris is an author, speaker, advocate, and founder whose work explores an important question: What comes after survival?

A retired Advanced Care Paramedic, Natalie brings lived experience from the front lines of emergency medicine to conversations about trauma, identity, meaning, purpose, and rebuilding a meaningful life after adversity.

She is the founder of Beyond Survival with Natalie Harris™, an emerging reflective framework exploring the space that can come after stabilisation and survival—when the immediate crisis has passed, functioning has returned, but questions of identity, meaning, purpose, curiosity, and contribution remain.

Through writing, education, and speaking engagements, Natalie invites individuals and organisations to consider not simply how we recover or return to who we were, but how we might evolve into who we are becoming. Beyond Survival is currently expanding through educational programming, presentations, organisational partnerships, and opportunities for formal research and evaluation.

Natalie is also the founder of Wings of Change Peer Support, a national peer-support initiative for first responders, and the author of Save-My-Life School: A First Responder’s Mental Health Journey, featuring a foreword by six-time Olympic medallist Clara Hughes. She is co-author, with psychologist Dr Jonathan Douglas, of Growth After Trauma: Beyond Save My Life School.

Her advocacy contributed to the passage of Ontario’s PTSD legislation, Bill 163, and Canada’s federal PTSD legislation, Bill C-211. She also testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health as part of the national conversation surrounding PTSD and Canada’s public safety personnel.

A former Barrie City Councillor, Natalie has dedicated much of her career to public service, advocacy, peer support, and creating conversations that challenge how we understand trauma and what may become possible afterwards.

She holds a Bachelor of Health Sciences from the University of Victoria and has received numerous recognitions for her service and advocacy, including the King Charles III Coronation Medal, the John Graves Simcoe Medal of Excellence, and recognition as a Canadian Woman of Impact.