for young people:

I really enjoy being able to help young people who have gone through hard times in their lives, who might not be feeling ok in their mind and body because of these hard times.   I love working with young people so much that I have done this work for lots of years.  I think that it is exciting to work with young people because they are growing so much that it is possible to help amazing changes to happen.  I have gone to university to learn lots of ways to help people to feel better; I learnt a way of counselling that helps people to remember the things that they are good at and to do these good things more so that hard things feel less.  After university I kept learning more ways of helping through my work with young people, young people teach me new things all the time.  I learnt about how important caring relationships are for feeling good in your mind and body and so lots of the work I do is trying to help the caring relationships that young people have to feel stronger.  Sometimes I like to invite an important adult in the young person’s life to come along to counselling with them, if the young person, adult and I think that this will be helpful.  I know that every young person is special and different and so I will try lots of different things until I find what helps the most.  I like doing activities that are fun and helpful at the same time, like telling stories, or doing some yoga, sports or dancing, art or music. 

for adults:

I am passionate about supporting the recovery journeys of young people who have been impacted upon by trauma and related mental health issues, I have committed the last seventeen years of my professional practice to this field.  I find working therapeutically with young people to be inspiring as there is so much capacity for positive change through the neuroplasticity of their early developmental stages.  I am an experienced social work practitioner, graduating with a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Tasmania in 2009; through these studies I was trained according to the Solutions-Focussed and Strengths-Based model of counselling, an approach which continues to inform my practice.  Since this time, I have completed extensive training in the field of Interpersonal Neurobiology; in particular, I have specialised in understanding the neurobiological impacts of attachment related, developmental trauma and therapeutic approaches that support recovery.  Accordingly, I privilege using a range of Attachment Based Therapies within my therapeutic work such as Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, Attachment Focussed Family Therapy and Theraplay.   Further to this I recognise that each young person that I support is unique, requiring therapeutic approaches that are responsive to their individual needs; I utilise whatever modalities are helpful to a young person.  I am skilled in delivering Narrative Therapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Mindfulness Practice and Creative Therapies.