01/11/2025
I am thrilled announce that I am the winner of the ACAMH 2025 David Cottrell 'Education of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Professionals' Award".
The Association for Child and Mental Health is a UK based charity that aims to raise standards in the understanding and management of child mental health issues. Their membership comprises a diverse group of clinicians, practitioners and world-leading child mental health researchers, working across an array of child and adolescent mental health domains.
The award acknowledges my vast work in this field, and I am incredibly honoured to be recognised by such a prestigious organisation.
My career journey began way back in 2010 when my first program called RAGE (Re-navigating Anger and Guilty Emotions) won an award by the NSW Crime and Violence Prevention Awards. RAGE is a strengths-based and solution-focused, six-week adolescent anger management program that assists teenagers to express their anger in non-violent ways. This program was written by myself and my former colleague, Carol Musgrave in 2006 and since then it has been and still is, a much sought-after program across Australia.
After RAGE won this award, it was clear the wider nation needed this training, and so my journey began. I have travelled across Australia year after year, training community service workers, clinicians, teachers and law enforcement officers how to run the program.
In conjunction with delivering this training, I also began writing other programs to help kids with bullying issues, ADHD, depression and anxiety management, and notably, breaking the cycle of adolescent violence against women. These programs were received like water to a dry land. The great need for skills in managing these issues was evident, and it humbled me to hear how it was making a difference.
These programs were not just written from academic or clinical research, they were rooted in my own experience of growing up with many disadvantages and violence, including an unsolved, violent crime perpetrated against my father that traumatised my whole family. I drew on these childhood experiences that have shaped who I am today.
No one chooses trauma. But I believe we can choose our response. Our hurts and struggles become our testimony; there can be beauty from ashes.
I am so grateful to know that my programs have helped many teens and their parents and carers, as well as the many professionals who work with youth. This award is not just a reflection of my efforts, but a reflection of those who stood beside me along the way. I would like to thank my good friend Beverley Aubrey, who took the time to nominate me for this award. And a huge thank you again to the Association for Child & Adolescent Mental Health (ACAMH).
My journey will continue, and I hope to take these programs internationally. In this troubled world, people need to know that there is light.
