Background & Approach

A passion for social justice and providing support to those in need has led Melinda to the field of social work, which she has practiced over the past 14 years. Melinda completed her Bachelor of Social Work degree in 2006 at the University of South Australia and has worked mostly in community health and acute health settings. Having developed a keen interest in working therapeutically with individuals, in 2017 Melinda completed a Masters in Social Work Counselling at the University of New South Wales, where she further developed her counselling skills and knowledge base.

Melinda has worked with a broad range of client groups, with extensive experience in women’s health. This includes community health settings specialising in counselling around domestic violence and sexual assault; as well as a range of other co-existing complex mental health and psychosocial issues. In the acute health sector, Melinda worked for over 8 years at the Royal Hospital for Women, in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Maternal Fetal Medicine, providing counselling to women and couples facing adverse outcomes and difficult decisions for their pregnancy or newborn baby. This includes specialised experience in bereavement counselling for perinatal loss; postnatal depression, anxiety, adjustment disorders, acute stress disorder and post traumatic stress disorder.

Melinda draws from a range of theoretical underpinnings and psychotherapy approaches, including a postmodern-feminist perspectives, narrative therapy and post-Milan systemic therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy and mindfulness. With these frameworks in mind, Melinda believes that, as social/relational beings, a therapeutic relationship is a sacred space where connection is a powerful precedent to positive change.