Sally started her working life for the Department for Community Welfare in 1985, working in state government run residential care facilities. After 8 years her resolve to work with families and children, with an aim of preserving families was strengthened. In 1993 Sally commenced working with a pilot program called Keeping Families Together. The objective of this service was to work intensively with parents to strengthen and support their capacity to provide safe care for their children. Between 1993 and 2004 Sally worked in Anglicare in Family Preservation and Reunification services in various roles including Social Worker, Senior Social Worker and Coordinator of the Family Connections program. In 2004 Sally left Anglicare and established Connecting Families. Her goal was to develop a quality service with practitioners who shared her values and a passion for achieving good outcomes for children with a focus on permanence and safety. During her time in Private Practice Sally has also held a part time role for 4 years as Senior Clinician at Yarrow Place and has been contracted by Anglicare, Fresh Start Program and Life Without Barriers to provide therapeutic support to foster carers, by Key Assets as an assessor and by Adoption Services to undertake Adoption Assessments.
Sally has a Bachelor of Arts -Community Social Services, a Master of Social Work and a Graduate Diploma in Family Therapy (Narrative Therapy). Sally’s commitment to continued professional development has continued since completing formal studies and she has completed training in Marte Meo (Practitioner level), Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy with Dan Hughes (Practitioner level), the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) through the Child Trauma Academy (Certified) and EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Sally has a keen interest in the areas of neurodevelopment and how to practically apply these principles to clinical and therapeutic work. Sally receives monthly supervision from Colby Pearce , Psychologist with Secure Start. Sally has had extensive training in Signs of Safety and is currently receiving monthly supervision In Partnering for Safety from Sonja Parker.
In 2011 Sally was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to “study how to reunify abused children home to their families with rigorous safety when parents deny the abuse”. Sally traveled to the United Kingdom and worked with the practitioners who developed the Resolutions Approach. Sally has a passion and interest in working to build networks within and around families to bring about safety for children. Sally remains passionate about working with vulnerable families and children to bring about permanence, stability, safety, and a sense of belonging and connection to self, family, community and culture.