A LITTLE MORE ABOUT YOU

■

Social innovation work isn’t just intellectually complex, it’s profoundly multidimensional work.

You’re often stewarding community trauma alongside organisational resistence, your own triggers while creating safety for others, hope for change alongside systemic barriers, and power dynamics that operate below the level of awareness in bodies, not just structures.

Training in methods and frameworks is important, but the real challenge of navigating the psychological and somatic reality of our work requires additional support.

I’ve watched brilliant practitioners burn out without reflective space, leave the work because they lacked therapeutic support, become cynical navigating power dynamics alone and question themselves without a soundboard and skilled guidance

Practice support and supervision bridges this gap, offering the reflective space, therapeutic understanding and practice wisdom that social innovators need to do this work sustainably.

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME

Recognition 2016 - 2017

I was deep in Victoria's family violence reforms - leading complex policy work, centering survivors' voices, managing a team, raising two teenagers alone. The work mattered profoundly. We were trying to transform systems that had failed so many people.

And then I noticed: I was experiencing vicarious trauma.

As someone with my own history of sexual abuse, the stories I was holding were activating unresolved patterns. I don't think this is uncommon - many of us are drawn to change the systems that have harmed us or those we love.

But I was doing intense transformation work without the support structures that exist for social workers or therapists. I was falling through the gaps.

Around the same time, I noticed something else: the systems I worked in operated from profound disconnection. We'd design "human-centered" solutions while cut off from our own bodies. Talk about community needs while forgetting we were community too.

How can we make truly human-centered decisions from that place?

This recognition sent me toward formal training in Process Oriented Psychology to better understand the psychological and somatic dimensions of transformation work - for myself and for the field.

TWO DECADES OF PRACTICE

My developmental journey

My journey in systems change began in local government. At Darebin City Council from 2006 to 2014, I learned to navigate bureaucracy while maintaining integrity to community-led change. At Central Goldfields Shire from 2020 to 2024, I served as Manager of Community Engagement, rebuilding trust through trauma-informed approaches and sitting in the fire of community conflict.

Between those roles, I co-founded and led Peer Academy from 2014 to 2018, training hundreds of Victorian government staff in facilitation, co-design and place based approaches and contributed to the state's first Innovation Strategy. This taught me how to build movements and nurture emerging fields of practice.

My state-level systems work has included Family Safety Victoria and my current practice lead role supporting Victoria's Social Inclusion Action Groups with the Department of Health. This work has involved policy reform, cross-sector partnerships, co-design with 600+ stakeholders, and centring lived experience and Aboriginal knowledge.

STEPPING IN TO RIGHT ROLE

Qualifications and training

After 20 years leading from the front, I've recognised something: my real gift is the behind the scenes work of tending other practitioners.

At my 50th birthday, people I'd mentored years ago said they still ask themselves "what would Kylie do?" when facing complex situations. They weren't remembering frameworks - they were carrying a way of being with complexity.

That's what people need. Not more methods. But someone who can help them see patterns they can't see alone, hold paradox and uncertainty without collapsing, stay present when triggered, navigate power with awareness, process the emotional weight, and reconnect with purpose when exhausted.

My qualifications and training includes:

  • Professional training in Process Oriented Psychotherapy, ANZPOP

  • Deep democracy practitioner, Level 3, Lewis Deep Democracy Method

  • Conflict resolution practitioner, Resolution Institute

  • Advanced diploma in group facilitation, Group Work Institute

  • Graduate diploma planning and environment, RMIT

  • Bachelor social science (participatory social action research major), RMIT

  • Diploma in community development, Swinburne University

I’m a licensed somatic psychotherapist with Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA).

Beyond the formal stuff, I’ve mostly learnt with and from all the generous leaders (subject matter experts and organisational and community leaders), practitioners and peers I’ve sat in circle with over 20 or more years.