April + May, 2024

In collaboration with The Push Up Challenge, Sam developed and delivered 23 workshops designed to increase skills in mental health awareness. Close to 400 Student Ambassadors from all over Australia joined a 90-minute, interactive and online program to learn how to have a mental health conversation and how to manage their own mental health.

As a part of this program roll out, Sam also delivered a single interactive, Q+A session answering curly questions about mental health sent in by Student Ambassadors.

Participant feedback involved:

“It was really insightful hear all the different things that people do struggle with but don’t always know”  

“I loved being in a space that felt safe and confidential as it is something young people do not regularly experience.”  

“it was an awesome workshop!”

2020 – current

Sam provides mental health support to Youth Advisory Groups and Youth Advisory Councils, who are engaged by not-for-profit organisations and governmental departments to discuss issues, policies and themes relating to Group/Council members.

Support for members of the Youth Advisory Groups and Youth Advisory Councils involve collaboratively engaging group members to remain mentally supported and healthy during their contributions to meetings with not-for-profit and government departments.

Additionally Sam provides consultation with organisations and government departments regarding meeting engagements, involving pre-briefing facilitators ahead of scheduled meetings, debriefing with teams, discussion and teaching regarding trauma informed practice.

2018 – current

Sam creates and delivers specialised psycho-educational workshops under the title “What I Think I Know”. Each workshop is designed in collaboration with the consulting client or organisation, and presented with current, evidence-based research pertaining to the workshop focus.

Workshop attendees include students, teachers/educators, allied health workers, GPs, families, parents, across various settings, including high-schools, workplaces (Primary Health Network) and community groups.

They encompassed crucial topics such as:

• fostering mentally healthy young people,
• working psychologically and culturally aware with First Nations youth, their communities and families
• hosting Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander youth in your family
• knowing, tuning and responding to young people with lived experience of trauma
• supporting your child seeking mental health support
• addressing chronic pain with clinical hypnosis
• priming and language in psychological interventions

Sam’s expertise lies in creating psychologically validated group-works, with relevant empirical research, to address an area of psyco-education, psychological interest or training.

2014 to 2020

Sam was employed to work two days per week in community health centres in the inner-suburbs of Melbourne. In this role Sam provides support to adults & adolescents with a range of presentations.

He initially started in the Inner North West Melbourne Medicare Local, in Parkville from April 2014, and in 2015 moved across to the North Richmond Community Health Centre where he delivered Care in Mind Targeted Psychological Support until 2020.

Now Sam continues to deliver Care in Mind sessions remotely, by either telehealth or telephone.

For each client, Sam undertakes individual mental status assessments and devises treatment goals with clients, working to focused psychological strategies.

Due to care-team collaboration, Sam liaises with other health professionals (speech pathologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, AoD counsellors, social workers and GPs) on staff for practice issues and counselling support. Further, he liaises with external referrer’s (GPs and other referral services such as VOCAT) to complete assessments, undertake treatment and to uphold appropriate referrals.