I have a big mash up of extensive experience working in the frontline with people struggling with mental health challenges, family upheaval, grief and loss support, and post traumatic stress responses. My approach works in with your other management plans and providers to ensure you a part of well-rounded, holistic team tailored to you.
Prior to leaving my ambulance role, I was diagnosed with PTS. It took a toll on me from every angle and I thought there was no way out. While that’s a story for another day, the important part to take away is that when I made the decision to become unstuck and fight my way forward, taking ownership of myself and my reactions, things shifted.
Studying NLP and hypnotherapy helped me move through my own trauma and grief. I went from being acutely unwell to complete recovery and have not had symptoms for almost three years now. It wasn’t easy, and there were times it would have been easier to run away but I kept plodding.
I confronted the hard stuff (mostly myself and my own learnt behaviour patterns), I learnt what I could control and focused my energy there instead of on the things I couldn’t.
I learnt that I had the capacity to become well and flourish after months and months of thinking I was broken and a lost cause. Slowly but surely I rewired my brain to respond differently and it became easier. My trainer, mentor and now amazing friend Lisa was my support on that road and the learning and growth I gained in that time are what I bring to my practice. I get it. I’ve been at the bottom of the hole. I’ve had unhealthy coping mechanisms. I’ve made bad choices and more, but I’m still here. I’m happy, well and thriving and you can too.
I worked for approximately 10 years in the university sector in vocational, undergraduate and postgraduate programs as a lecturer, coordinator, curriculum developer and mentor. My specialty fields during this time were obstetrics, paediatrics, communication and mental health. I was working in my academic role while working on-road paramedic shifts with students and delivering professional development content to peers.
Towards the end of my ambulance career, I went part-time and also worked as a family violence case manager in Gippsland, then as a parent educator for court-ordered parents and disadvantaged families. This role also involved delivering pre-natal educations sessions to new dads-to-be at LRH as part of the standard 4 week pre-natal parent education program. I moved on to become a specialist family violence clinician, running a cognitive behavioural program for male perpetrators of family violence who were also fathers, and loved every minute of it. I was able to make positive change in the lives of children by working with their fathers on their own trauma and behaviour patterns.
After some time off I then fell into my current role of Program Developer and Coordinator in a peer-led program for adults with cognitive disabilities. The goal of the program is family violence prevention, but also to uphold the rights of adults with disabilities to have the same experiences as everyone else in community. The peer educators who deliver the content with me are adults with lived experience of disabilities who are trained as facilitators and in trauma-informed practice. We provide psycho-education on topics like safe sex, sexual reproductive health, consent, recognising and responding to unsafe behaviours, rights, responsibilities and pathways for referral to appropriate services for individual needs. Our goal is to educate and empower people to have a voice, and to understand their rights in the world. This is the same ethos I bring to my work at Oaktree. Everyone deserves to feel safe and be heard. Everyone deserves to have a voice and the space to be themselves.
Waiting lists for paediatricians, OT, speech therapy, counselling and more are extraordinarily long; this is not the fault of the providers, but it means that some families are waiting months or more to even get a first appointment, let alone an assessment or NDIS funding. Many families are left out in the wilderness fending for themselves in the meantime, trying multiple strategies that don’t work, becoming exhausted, demoralised and resentful. Family units struggle with the pressure and lack of understanding of their child’s unique wiring and circumstances. There is no bridging support specifically tailored to these circumstances to support families while they wait. Families need support now. They need tools and tips and tricks to help them get through the hard days and continue to progress until they eventually get seen.
Often the expensive assessments and reports are just the beginning. They open the door but need to be followed up by more assessments and reports, application for NDIS funding, searching for services close by and appropriate to needs, and it can be a stressful, expensive, heartbreaking time. My hope is to provide some interim support and strategies to see families through to those appointments. To ensure families feel seen and supported, and that they feel there is hope for their situation.
I have experience working in my current capacity with adults and children. I have assisted primary aged children understand their brains and develop accommodation plans for school. I have helped children with severe anxiety related to trauma learn to recognise and manage themselves and reduce the impact of triggers, and feel more in charge. One client came to me with decades of anger and sadness that became disabling at certain times of the year. Using timeline therapy, they managed to remove the emotional ties and reactions to significant events in their life and process the events and feelings. Often I do an initial consult and questionnaire with clients and they are able to notice immediate shifts in their thinking and start making change. If the main challenge has been knowing where to start, or what the actual underlying issue is, that first session can often provide clarity and a circuit breaker and a second appointment is not necessary.
Parenting amazingly wired children is HARD. When you don’t have the right knowledge and support, t can bring up feelings of resentment, failure, sadness, regret and more. It wears away at families, it erodes parent-child relationships and can impact a child’s sense of self-worth and their self-esteem. I want to be the circuit breaker for those challenges. I want to provide hope and ways of changing perspective. I want children to thrive and parents to feel confident they know the right decisions and paths to take. I want families to understand and support each other, and develop ways of communicating and accepting each other that strengthen bonds. I want gentle parenting to be a no-brainer because everyone involved knows why it’s important and can meet each other where they are at. I want children to feel safe expressing themselves at home and feeling safe to approach their parents or caregivers with tricky stuff without fear of punishment or judgement.
I want all children to be safe. Period.
I was a Nanny in my early 20s working with young children and having responsibility for their development and safety. I went on to study then work in nursing and from there I started as an Advanced Life Support Paramedic in Victoria in 2000. I worked for AV for almost 22 years in various roles including on-road emergency response; emergency planning; professional development educator; clinical instructor for new paramedic students in their first few months on road; clinical management of the community assessment centre during the Hazelwood mine fires; first-aid instruction to community and schools; phone triage, and obstetrics training across regions.
