Education and work

I graduated from Monash University with a PhD/Master of Educational and Developmental Psychology (2017), after achieving first-class Honours (Psychology) in a Bachelor of Behavioural Neuroscience (2010). 

I like to engage with a lot of different professional activities, and I’m lucky/dedicated/supported enough to have crafted my work-life to be pretty balanced. And I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with some awesome people who’ve taught me excellent lessons along the way.

I worked on mental-health related quality of life projects for 8 years with the AQoL team led by Professor Jeff Richardson, at the Centre for Health Economics at Monash University. We asked the public what they thought of different health conditions, making sure to account for mental health. A lot of the current tools don’t weight mental health when they’re figuring out what a Quality-Adjusted Life Year is worth. We constructed an excellent tool that’s used internationally and I got to learn a great deal about the economics of health management. I analyse information at micro- and macro- levels to help government departments decide how to spend their budgets.

Under the excellent guidance of Professor Phil Riley, now at Deakin University, I ran the longitudinal Principal Health and Wellbeing surveys internationally for 9 years. I completed my doctorate using longitudinal data from my Australian school principals dataset, and was awarded a full pass with commendations in 2016. I studied emotions, emotional demands, emotional labour and relationships with burnout, job satisfaction and quality of life in a massive longitudinal dataset. 

I’m currently consulting for Phil and the team at REDI on the New Zealand versions of the Teacher Health and Wellbeing and Principal Health and Wellbeing projects. I have a deep understanding of occupational health and wellbeing, the need for organisations to provide support and a united voice for their members, and how to successfully run large-scale, long-term projects.

I work with individuals in private practice, as well regularly presenting to leadership groups, community groups and doctors on context-specific issues regarding psychology and wellbeing. Alongside, I provide corporate statistical services and presentations when I can. I engage a range of stakeholders, over many levels, in many sectors, in multiple ways.

Find out more – Zenith Psychology

Psychology and public health

I believe in unity, compassion and understanding. I strive to be inclusive, open-minded, incisive and useful.

While I adore them, my life hasn’t been all rainbows and unicorns. I’ve had my head down for some decades now, working hard to be who I am, do what I do, and do it as best as I can.

Uncertainty is rife. Our youth are experiencing serious mental health issues, our older adults dementia, and all suicide rates are rising at an alarming rate. Our educators are not coping with mental health demands and learning needs of students, our organisations are trying to cope with workplace bullying and productivity issues, the prison system requires more funding for evidence-based rehabilitation programs and training/help for staff.

We are the voice of the vulnerable and disenfranchised clients we see and the organisations we help.

 

 

– I believe our clients require more rebated sessions and I believe that there ought to be a greater push for service delivery to vulnerable Australians.

– I believe that our government is disinclined to spend more money on mental health. Over the years of Better Access spending has declined – they’re usually always looking for ways to spend less on everything, health included. In my role at the Centre for Health Economics I really got to understand that while the public want fairness, sharing and equity of spending for health services, governments (all of them) are inclined to utilitarianism and minimal spending. This is our current economic climate, our Liberal government would probably prefer to ditch Medicare altogether and so they look for ways to do this all the time.

– I do not abide by speech, decisions or actions based on fear and cognitive distortions – these set us fighting among ourselves.

Medicare Issues

1. 10 sessions isn’t enough.

It just isn’t, not usually anyway. Our clients deserve to be looked after and helped when they’re vulnerable. Not discharged after 10 sessions and sent on their way.

 

2. While a focus on mental illness is a national priority, it is not the only aspect of mental health, or indeed the only aspect in psychology.

Learning difficulties are not mental illnesses yet left untreated can lead to negative life outcomes. Dementia in ageing isn’t classified as a mental illness but imposes an unfair and significant emotional, physical, mental and financial burden on individuals and our healthcare system. Being bullied at work isn’t a mental illness but it can take a massive toll on both employees and employers. We need to ensure that the breadth and diversity of our practice is protected and supported into the future so that groups like these can be looked after well.

Diversity in our training courses has plummeted. Last year there were 90 programs delivering a clinical speciality and only 68 programs serving all the other areas of practice endorsement. Under the new APAC standards, the first 5 years at University will be the same for everyone. These standards state that to be registered for practice, a psychologist must be capable of a wide range of evidence-based skills including psychological assessment, diagnosis, intervention and continuing mental healthcare of clients.

 

3. Clients are being inequitably reimbursed by the two-tier Medicare system for psychological services.

Our clients need to be reimbursed equitably (same rebate for same service), and for more services (like developmental assessments). Better Access was intended to provide better access to mental health care for everyone. It’s a rebate scheme that gives clients some reimbursement for visiting a psychologist. And we’re all competent, registered, qualified psychologists. We’re practicing in the same system with the same expected and accredited standards determined by APAC.

But the public is currently being done a disservice. The Better Access service delivery model is skewed towards favouring services delivered by only one type of psychologist. This has kept government spending manageable but has had other, possibly unintended, consequences.

Inequities in rebates and our human Western tendency to value services by price differences have contributed to the current implication that one arena of psychological practice is always better than another. Variations in government rebates and policies suggest clear-cut differences in psychologists’ outcomes without supporting evidence. I’m not saying we’re all the same – we’re not, no group of professionals is entirely homogeneous but we’re more similar than different when we’re providing similar services to similar clientele. And this inequity disproportionately affects rural Australians who we know already experience difficulties accessing services.