Adela has a career spanning 52-years, during which she has worked in the child protection, child & family welfare & out of home care fields for both the Victorian state government and the non-government sector. 

During her career Adela has designed and been involved in the ‘start up’ leadership and management of significant therapeutic service initiatives funded by the Victorian state government. These include the ‘Take Two” Intensive Therapeutic Service and the Victorian government’s successful pilot therapeutic residential care program, Hurstbridge Farm. 

In October 2024 Adela was awarded the inaugural Centre for Excellence in Child & Family Welfare Industry Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to Out of Home Care. 

Cath is a Researcher, Psychotherapist, Author, Speaker, and Doctoral candidate looking at the real harm children suffer in a world of technology, which is advancing quicker than many adults can keep up with.
 
Cath has a background in Engineering in the Army, IT, and Computer Tech of over 25 years, and over a decade of working with children and adults directly around issues relating to the internet, from Bullying to Porn viewing, from cybercrime to cybersecurity and more.
 
Cath writes about issues such as the impact of tech on the developing child, the impact of cyber trauma and the issues of immersive technology on eyes, brains, and bodies.
 
Cath runs a company educating professionals about child safeguarding around tech and digital spaces, and she teaches therapists how to be 'safe AND secure' when using tech to ensure they protect their clients.

Nicola  is a Lecturer, Clinical Supervisor and Social Care Consultant, and has worked with children and families in community and residential settings for 24 years. Nicola’s work has included overseeing the provision of residential and community-based services to children and families involved in child protective services.  Nicola also works intensively with foster carers to support their provision of care to children and young people. 

Nicola consults to senior managers in organisations nationally and internationally, and provides individual and group supervision to social workers, social care workers, forensic teams, and frontline workers at all levels in community and hospital settings. Nicola works clinically in frontline practice with foster families. 

Nicola is a visiting lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, Munster Technological University Cork, and the Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation Trust.

Graeme is an international health development consultant who has worked in over 25 countries throughout Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and in the countries of the former Soviet Union. For several years he was a technical manager on a major USAID project based in Washington DC where he managed and oversaw multiple teams of consultants supporting Global Fund grants around the world. 

Prior to his international development career, Graeme worked for 18 years in health care management in several states of Australia. He started his professional career, however, working for several years in the late 1970s at The Cotswold Community, an experimental therapeutic community for maladjusted children in Wiltshire, UK.  While he did not continue working in that field after returning to Australia, he often reflects on his learnings from that period in pursuing a career in the management of caring organisations.

John was formerly a UKCP registered Psychotherapist and a full member of the British Psychotherapy Foundation (BPF).

John was also the Chair of Trustees of the Gloucestershire Counselling Service and Trustee of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust and the Mulberry Bush Organisation.

Between 1985 and 1999 John was the Principal of the Cotswold Community

a pioneering therapeutic community for emotionally unintegrated boys.

Thereafter, between  1999 and 2014 John was the Managing Director of Integrated Services Programme (ISP), the first therapeutic foster care programme in the UK.

Kiran founded Udayan Care in 1994. Since then Udayan Care has delivered programs at national and international level, with a focus on family strengthening and care reform.  Under Kiran’s leadership, Udayan Care now operates in 36 cities across 15 states in India and has international chapters in the USA and Germany.  Kiran developed the LIFE (Living In Family Environment) model for group homes, initiated aftercare programs, and launched the Udayan Shalini Fellowship, which has supported over 16,000 girls in higher education. Kiran also established 24 IT and Vocational Training Centers, training over 30,000 youth. Kiran led India’s first care leavers study, resulting in new programs and the formation of the country’s first care leavers’ network, as well as a global network of care leavers.  Kiran is a recipient of many prestigious awards, including the National Award for Child Welfare - India's highest commendation for a non-profit child welfare organisation.

Lisa is a qualified psychosexual therapist with over a decade of experience

in private practice. Currently, she is also a PhD researcher. Her research focuses on

developmental shame, and compulsive sexual behaviour in adult men, leading to the development of her innovative Shame Containment Theory (SCT). Her clinical work and research have cultivated a strong interest in the impact of childhood experiences on adult behaviour. Lisa is the author of Jake and his Shame Armour, a children’s book on shame.

Lynne is a former senior manager in Health and Social Services, having held both operational and strategic management responsibilities for mental health and services for children and families during the 1970’s to 1990s, a time of political unrest in Northern Ireland’s history.

Since establishing her business consultancy almost 20 years ago, Lynne has had major successes in helping organisations and senior managers to get better results. Her CORE Leadership Programme simultaneously targets the Top Team as well as managers at all levels in organisations to bring about changes in attitude, culture, confidence, performance and outcomes.  

In the words of one CEO, ‘Lynne has an amazing ability to unlock individual potential and bring out the best in people and in organisations’. 

Sally has a Master of Social Work, and a Graduate Diploma in Family Therapy. Sally, commenced working in residential care in 1985, then followed her passion for strengthening families through working intensively in family preservation services.  In 2004 Sally established Connecting Families, a therapeutic Reunification and Family Preservation service, which has grown to 17 practitioners.  

Sally was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to work in the UK with the Resolutions Approach - Working with Denied Child Abuse.  

Sally provides training and consultation to Government and Non-Government organisations and remains a strong advocate for vulnerable families. Sally has been integral in leading the development of a Partnering for Safety approach to child protection through training and consulting, and is passionate about family led decision making and bringing the child’s voice into child protection work. 
 
 

For two decades, Simon experienced a wide range of care models in disability, mental health, special education, out-of-home care and Aboriginal childcare services. 

This included caring for deeply traumatised children in both community-based and state-run residential care homes.

More than 10 years of this time was spent immersed in the well-established therapeutic milieu workplaces of The Mulberry Bush School in the United Kingdom, and Lighthouse Foundation in Australia, having been CEO for more than five years at the latter. 

Simon now draws on this rich career experience, together with the latest research and evidence-based approaches, to empower organisational leaders, teams and frontline workers to better manage their own wellbeing and deliver optimal outcomes.

While his work supports a broad range of clients, Simon specialises in Out of Home Care, Mental Health, Homelessness sectors.