I’ve long been fascinated and inspired by people’s stories and my purpose has always been in supporting people through difficult times. I started in people-helping as a registered nurse and I loved hearing my patient’s stories, always wanting more time to listen and support them. While living overseas I had the opportunity to study counselling and intern at a drug and alcohol treatment centre, which gave me skills to help people heal in other ways.
On returning to Australia, I utilised my skills in various types of community work including volunteer training, disability support work and specialist foster care. These experiences inspired me to study again so that I could become a registered counsellor and help people heal and grow in more targeted and individualised ways.
I noticed that many people are marginalised by their mental health concerns and experience prejudice and injustice. This leads to increased hardship and isolation, and many struggle to afford quality mental health care. I wanted to address this in my practice and ended up studying (yet again!) social work, which has opened doors for me to work with long-term unemployed and marginalised people at Substation33. I am also working towards my mental health accreditation to access a Medicare provider number, which will enable me to facilitate Medicare rebates for my clients. I hope to achieve this by late-2024.
Although I value my formal education, my lived experience of divorce, the deaths of too many friends and family, caring for family members with chronic illnesses (physical and mental), and raising my own and my foster children, has taught me more about people than any formal training could.
We are all humans first, and we are all prone to get stuck sometimes as we react in human ways to the inescapable difficulties of life. We all need support and a safe place to heal from hurt and to examine our own shortcomings so we can learn and grow.
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