We have been here before with many, many years experience.
Meet the co-founders and consciously selected team members who deliver a high standard of service utilising theory and experience in practice and life. We believe the best service is provided through the matching of practitioner to the need of the referral and have a team with individualistic styles, passions and skills.
We acknowledge the important role that carers and professionals within the out of home care system play in creating change for children and young people. Collective Caring is able to provide services to aid professionals and carers.
Hayley Toon
Co-founder
B. Psychology B. Criminology and Criminal Justice
Additional training and qualifications: Therapeutic Crisis Intervention, CARE, Diploma Management, Diploma Coordination, Diploma Community Services Child Protection & Youth Work Strengthening Families Framework of Practice, Three Pillars of Transforming Care, Circle of Security.
Hayley has been working in the child protection field for over 16 years using a strength based, trauma informed, narrative and attachment framework. As a frontline worker both with carers and in-home with vulnerable families, Hayley developed a passion for practicing in an experiential and genuine manner. Combining this with her experience coordinating and managing teams, Hayley can provide both a direct and supervisory approach.
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Hayley is holistic in her approach and has a passion for mindfulness in parenting and practice, believing in intention and purpose in all interactions. As a mother herself, Hayley understands the everyday hassles that can come with parenting and approaches all situations with a desire to understand and explore solutions. She has skills working in complex settings, exploring the family as a system, the multidimensional needs of the placement and the feedback of stakeholders involved. Hayley feels strongly about education for all individuals to equip them with the best tools and strategies to meet the complex and ever-changing needs of children in out-of-home care and create an environment based on open narrative and self-awareness.
Kat Baulch
Co-founder
Ba Social Work, M. Management. Cert IV Workplace Training & Assessment.
Additional training and qualifications: Managing Vicarious Trauma, Recognise and respond appropriately to domestic and family violence, Safe & Together Model, Common Risk Assessment Framework (CRAF 3), Infant Mental Health.
Kat’s connection to the out of home care system began more than 90 years ago when her Nanna was placed in an orphanage and subsequently her Nanna spent most of her childhood moving between foster placement’s. After hearing about the stories of her Nanna’s early years in the out of home care system, Kat finished her Bachelor of Social Work and began her career working in foster care in Victoria.
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Kat has been working in out of home care, hospital and health care settings and domestic violence for the past 17 years. What underpins Kat’s work is her desire to provide children in out of home care a better childhood than her Nanna had. Kat is passionate about supporting carers so that they are able to create stable, caring and supportive homes for children in need.
Kat is highly adept at establishing positive and professional relationships with people from diverse backgrounds and experience. In addition, Kat is skilled and experienced in public speaking, training, health care and leadership with demonstrated experience in developing evidenced based training material as well as using adult learning pedagogies to deliver engaging training sessions.
Outside of Collective Caring, you will find Kat on weekends spending time with her young family, attempting to train for various fun runs as well as trying to complete the never ending task of painting an old Queenslander home.
Kristen Benson
Senior Assessor Brisbane, Moreton Bay and South East Region
M. Child & Adolescent Welfare
Additional training and qualifications: Therapeutic Crisis Intervention. Trauma Informed Practice, Attachment Theory, Advanced supervision, Diploma in Youth Work, Program Management.
Kristen holds a Masters in Child and Adolescent Welfare and has been working in the field of Social Work for over 15 years, both in Australia and India. With extensive experience in therapeutic care and working with vulnerable and disenfranchised young people from a variety backgrounds, Kristen’s passion and focus is on attachment theory and implementing trauma- informed programs within a community context. Kristen has worked extensively with young people and children who have experienced complex trauma, in the context of therapeutic residential care and therapeutic community settings.
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Kristen spent five years in India implementing and managing a home for orphaned, abused and abandoned children and is extremely passionate about providing all children in the world the best care possible, as well as the tools and supports to navigate all stages and challenges of life.
With an emphasis on early intervention and the benefits of relationship-focused care, Kristen has supervised, managed and trained Carers and staff in a residential setting for more than ten years.
She also has vast experience drawing on a range of trauma-informed theories and frameworks, to assist those working with traumatised children and young people to make sense of trauma-based behaviour, and the powerful dynamics that working with trauma elicit in people.
Outside of work Kristen is mum to two little treasures who have taught her to live without sleep. Travel, adventure and the ocean fill her soul and she can always be found planning the next journey, whether it’s travelling to a new land or building a tiny house in the bush. She is happiest with her family by the ocean, paddle boarding or immersed in her yoga practice and teaching. Sharing life and as many raw and magical moments with her treasured friends is the icing on the cake.
Karen Castle
Senior Assessor and Guardianship Assessor Sunshine Coast
B. Social Science (with distinction); Dip. Counselling & Communication (recipient Academic Excellence Award); Member Queensland Child Protection Practitioners Association.
Additional training and qualifications: Facilitator Strengthening Families Framework for Practice; Safe and Together Model – Core Training; Safe and Together Model – Intersections: when DV perpetration, substance abuse and mental health meet; Common Risk Assessment Framework (CRAF 3); Non-violent Crisis Intervention; St Luke’s Innovative Resources in Practice; ICARE – conducting forensic interviews with child victims in accordance with the legislative and best practice requirements; Step by Step Registration #SBS230854; Dyadic Developmental Practice, Psychotherapy & Parenting.
Karen has over 21 years of experience working within the out of home care system in many varied roles. Starting out as a caseworker for children placed in out of home care, and later in her career holding several leadership, practice development, and management positions.
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Karen was also part of the team that was tasked with implementing the recommendations from the Not Now Note Ever – Putting an End to Domestic and Family Violence in Queensland report, where she helped set up and embed practice in the Domestic and Family Violence High Risk Teams across the Brisbane and Moreton Bay areas.
One of Karen’s areas of interest is the connection between adverse childhood experiences and adult health, and processing stress. Her practice is truly trauma informed, and her framework draws upon the many somatic trainings she has completed in modalities such as yoga and the Non-Linear Movement Method.
She is skilled and experienced in engaging with people from different backgrounds to her own and respects the privileged position that learning about others brings. Karen enjoys training, mentoring, and coaching and takes a creative, innovative approach to anything she does.
Karen’s sees her work as a ‘calling’ and believes that being down to earth and approachable in her practice will help bring out the best in those she works with. Karen’s work is in high demand, as she travels right across Australia including working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in rural and remote areas.
In her spare time, you might find Karen enjoying fresh seafood lunches with her partner, spending weekends on her property around the bonfire with her extended family, or walking her French bulldog, Bowie.
Claire Mulcahy
Independent Assessor South East Region (Gold Coast)
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Sonja Jackson
Independent Assessor Brisbane, Moreton Bay and South East Regions (Bayside and Logan)
B. Psychology, Grad. Dip. Education (Middle Years) Additional training and qualifications: Therapeutic Crisis Intervention, Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Families, CARE, Three Pillars of Transforming Care, Nurtured Heart Approach, Love Bites, Cert IV Training & Assessment, Cert IV in Community Services Advocacy, Cert IV in Child, Youth and Family Intervention (Family Support).
Sonja has worked with children, young people, and families for the past 16 years, working as a Child Safety Officer and a Foster & Kinship Care Practitioner. Her experience in the child protection and foster care system has allowed her to work across the areas of case management, child placement, recruitment, training and assessment. Sonja also has experience working as a Teacher Aide and has a Graduate Diploma in Education, taking on additional work as a Relief Teacher.
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With extensive experience working in out-of-home care, Sonja embraces a trauma-informed practice to deliver family centric support to children and young people. Understanding that all behaviour has meaning, has allowed Sonja to work along parents and carers to assist them in recognising a child’s individual needs and provide strategies for the child and family. Sonja believes that all children and young people can succeed, given the right opportunities and tasks within their zone of proximal development.
Sonja is a mother to two young girls and understands the demands and joys that come with raising children. Sonja and her family enjoy getting away and exploring nature.
Holly Mace
Independent Assessor Brisbane and Moreton Bay Region
Ba Social Science Majoring in Psychology, Diploma of Justice Administration
Additional Training and qualifications: Cert IV in Training and Assessment, Safe and Together Model, Therapeutic Crisis Intervention for Families, Youth Mental Health First Aid, Sanctury Framework Model, ICARE – conducting forensic interviews with child victims in accordance with the legislative and best practice requirements
Holly has worked with children, families and child protection services for 10 years. Holly ‘s experience includes Intensive Family Support, Fostering Support, Child Safety and she has progressed her career into leadership positions.
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Holly is passionate about early intervention, maintaining and supporting healthy and safe family relationships for vulnerable children. Holly works to ensure children’s best interests and life long wellbeing is at the forefront of working with families. Holly understands the complexity of caring for children who have experienced trauma and present with a high level of need and the additional understanding required to support the entire family. She has vast experience of adapting support to suit the needs of the family whether that be in home support with parents, reunification or long-term out of home care. Holly is compassionate, warm and approachable who prioritises building professional relationships. She has a non-judgemental approach with a desire to take the time to understand life stories and how these experiences have led to children and families needing additional support. Holly enjoys developing and delivering research based trainings to staff, carers, and parents and assisting families to improve daily stressors and meet their goals.
Felicity Callanan
Independent Assessor Sunshine Coast and Central Queensland Region
BA/BSc, B. Social Work,Int Dip Humanitarian Assistance, Membership: AASW
Additional training and qualifications; Trauma Informed Practice, Therapeutic Crisis Intervention training, ASIST *Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training, Trauma and Behavioural Support training, Understanding Attachment Theory and Effects of Trauma on Children and Young People, Hope and Healing Framework for practice, Cultural Awareness Training, Train the Trainer Peer Group Supervision training, Psychosocial assessment and clinical supervision, Psychological First Aid training ,Skills for Psychological Recovery training,St Luke’s Strength Based Training, Triple P (Positive Parenting Program)
Felicity is a dedicated and experienced social work practitioner with a passion for making a positive impact in the lives of vulnerable children and families. She has specialised in the areas of child protection & child safeguarding, fostering & adoption assessment & support, and trauma informed counselling.
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Felicity has also made impactful contributions in areas such as gender-based violence, asylum seeker communities, and mental health. Her approach is grounded in strengths-based and trauma-informed principles, aiming to empower clients to set and achieve goals, enhance their overall well-being, and cultivate resilience. Moreover, Felicity’s experience in humanitarian assistance and disaster response underscores her ability to conduct rapid needs assessments and situational analyses in diverse and challenging contexts, demonstrating her versatility and commitment to making a difference.
Jade Burns
Quality Assurance Practitioner
B.SW; DIP TLSW; CERT IV TAE
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Collective Partners
Speak Teen
Davina Donovan
BA Psychology with Honours
Davina has extensive experience working with individuals, systems and communities effected by a range of social challenges including families involved in the out of home care sector, domestic and family violence and suicide. She has direct practice experience providing therapeutic interventions and case management to those involved in domestic and family violence including men, women, families and children.
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Davina has a passion for providing education and training to groups to increase awareness and empower individuals and groups to make systemic changes. For Davina, group facilitation and education and training to be the most powerful catalyst for change. Her work with The Psych Professionals, dhamma and co, and headspace School Support, and she was able to support these workplaces to make dramatic, long term, systemic and attitudinal changes.
When Davina is not working with Collective Caring you can find her running a number of successful gyms around Brisbane and encouraging the community to prioritise their wellbeing.
Workplace Respect provides integrated workplace support including domestic and family violence training, sexual harassment training, resilient workplace development, trauma informed approaches and policy and procedure development.
Workplace Respect recognises the importance of having a parallel focus of providing support to workplaces as well as the resources necessary to provide trauma informed support.
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Axis Clinic draws on evidence-based psychological approaches to support clients, and their team of mental health specialists are trained across a variety of modalities
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Including but not limited to:
- Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
- Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
- Motivational Interviewing (MI)
- Psychodynamic Ideas
- Schema Therapy
- Internal Family Systems (IFS)
- Solution Focussed Therapy (SFT)
- Mindfulness
- Emotion Focussed Therapy
- Circle of Security Framework
- Gottman Couples Therapy
- Trauma Focussed Therapies
Whilst supporting individual clients, couples and families, Axis Clinic are also experienced in completing high quality assessments for children, young people and adults. Clinic’s are located in New Farm, Highgate Hill Queensland and Tweed Heads, New South Wales and can be reached on (07) 3254 0333 or admin@axisclinic.com.au
Terebinth Tree Counselling and Consultancy Services
Rachel Whitton is a clinical counsellor and specializes in supporting children and families in diagnosis and presentations of Autism (ASDCS)
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Led by Steve Wood, a Social Worker with over 18 years supporting individuals, youth and families, the practice is founded on the belief that true healing begins in the heart and can be nurtured through connection with the earth.
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Steve supports individuals and families to reconnect with themselves, each other, and the natural world.
Drawing on a unique blend of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Emotion-Focused Therapy, somatic awareness, and compassion-based practices, Steve helps individuals reconnect with themselves, navigate life’s challenges, and create meaningful, lasting change. Whether working therapeutically, in child protection, or through consultancy, he brings authenticity, calm, and clinical expertise to every interaction.
Steve’s practice is deeply rooted in his commitment to empowering individuals and families. His ongoing passion for nature-based and adventure therapy offers a powerful, alternative pathway to connection, resilience, and growth. Heart Earth Alliance can be reached on 0493 303 950 or at heartearthalliance@outlook.com
At Anker Psychology, we believe in compassionate, evidence-based care tailored to women’s unique journeys. We’re here to help you navigate challenges, embrace your strengths, and nurture long-lasting wellbeing.