Resume

A social worker for 35 years Paula has considerably experience frontline Child Protection and Out of Home Care. Paula who had co-authored two nationally recognised training and assessment packages and has consulted to Government Departments NGO’s, Peak Bodies across Australia.

A creative and innovative thinker, Paula has developed a range of resources and training packages which reflect her sophisticated understanding and practice wisdom and expertise in both Child Protection and OOHC. A former Senior Social Worker in the Child Protection Unit in Westmead Children’s Hospital, in this role she undertook complex assessments, and provided a range of therapeutic interventions for children and their carers including one to one coaching designed to build competence and confidence in carers, and parents.

A warm enabling facilitator and mentor Paula has mentored workers and managers and is in constant demand to develop resources, facilitate learning and provide mentoring.

Paula has been published several times, in 2013 she and her long standing colleague Dr Marilyn McHugh were published in the UK (McHugh, M. & Hayden, P. (2013) “Australia and New Zealand: Assessing Parenting Capacity in Kinship Care” in “Understanding Kinship Care”. Edited by David Pitcher published by Jessica Kingsley) Paula has presented at numerous conference both nationally and Internationally in April 2015 she presented alongside Professor Fiona Arney (Director, Australian Centre for Child Protection) at the International BAPSCAN conference in Edinburgh Scotland April 2015.

In 2011 Paula co-founded an Aboriginal Organization with Aunty Sue Blacklock AM and Gillian Bonser (supported by Karen Menzies and Clayton Blacklock) they developed new, innovative culturally strong and safe resources designed to assess Aboriginal Kinship and Foster Carers and reduce the numbers of Aboriginal kids in care. These tools have won National and International acclaim and are in use across Australia.