AASW Mental Health Symposium 2022 | Panel: Revolutionising SW Private Practice & Presentation: Social Policy and Advocacy

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Recording from AASW's 2022 Mental Health Social Work and Contemporary Practice Symposium

• Panel | Revolutionising Social Work Private Practice. Are we ready for anticipated future demand? – Dr J.R. Baker, Dr Joel Cullin, Prof. Sharon Lawn
• Special Presentation | AASW Social Policy and Advocacy – Angela Scarfe, Rachel Reilly, Dominic Szeker

AASW Credential: Mental Health

Presenter details

Dr J.R. Baker is the Chief Executive Officer of Primary & Community Care Services Ltd (PCCS) and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Health at Southern Cross University. J.R. has over 20 years’ experience in health service planning, commissioning, management, education, and research.

He has consistently introduced industry leading service improvements that keep the client at the centre of change, pushing PCCS to become an Australian leader in social prescribing, complex care coordination and link work services, including 10 years of experience delivering social prescribing services across NSW and Queensland.

Professor Sharon Lawn

Prof Sharon Lawn is a researcher in the College of Medicine and Public Health at Flinders University, South Australia and was previously Director of the Department of Psychiatry there prior her role as lead Mental Health Commissioner, SA in 2020-21. Prior to these roles, Sharon was a senior social worker in mental health services in SA for 12 years and worked in community disability and aged care for 10 years before that.

Currently, in addition to her part-time university researcher role, Sharon is Chair and Executive Director for Lived Experience Australia Ltd, a nationally awarded mental health consumer and carer advocacy organisation.

She also sits on the Board of Mental Health Australia and the Australian Self-Care Alliance. She is particularly passionate about addressing physical health and mental health comorbidity, stigma and coercion in care, and exploring the person’s and their family’s experiences of seeking and receiving mental health support.

Dr Joel Cullin (BSW, MMH(Psychotherapy), PhD) has worked in private practice for over fifteen years. As an adjunct to his practice, Joel holds a Teaching and Research position in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at the University of Queensland where he teaches Advanced Mental Health Practice.

Joel has also taught courses in human development and child protection, as well as theory and practice of family therapy. Joel completed his undergraduate training in Social Work in 1998, a Master of Mental Health (Psychotherapy) in 2005, and a PhD in 2009. Joel entered private practice in 2005, after several years working in an array of public and not-for-profit contexts including adult mental health, child and youth mental health, child protection (in the United Kingdom) and community family therapy.

From 2009 onwards Joel’s practice (Brisbane Family Therapy Clinic) has been full-time. Joel has seen at least thirty client appointments per week over this period, he has had a long waitlist, and his diary has been closed to new clients for at up to a year at a time. Joel is a regular provider of professional supervision and consultancy, and he has delivered more than forty seminars, workshops and other training events to practitioners and agencies over the past fifteen years.

Joel is first and foremost a practitioner, however, and he has accrued some twenty-thousand hours of therapy provision/interviewing with individuals, couples, and families.

Joel is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with the Australian Association of Social Workers, and a Clinical Member of the Australian Association of Family Therapy.