Kate is an Educational & Developmental Psychologist who works with children, adolescents, their families, and teachers, as well as young adults to build their capacity to engage in education and manage their mental health and wellbeing. Kate has a kind, warm and friendly style which encourages people to become comfortable quickly. Kate strives to help clients develop an understanding of themselves and build confidence to manage their mental health needs. She enjoys working with a range of presentations including anxiety, depression, selective mutism, building self-esteem and self-confidence, parenting support amongst other things.
Additionally, Kate provides support to feel confident and informed with their parenting. She has been a Breastfeeding Counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association and is a trained Circle of Security – Parenting and Classroom facilitator. Kate uses mindfulness strategies and progressive muscle relaxation in her work and advocates for attachment-based approaches, using all these alongside Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) for therapy across all ages and has supervised provisional psychologists in their training since 2008. She applies her therapeutic skills to her work as a supervisor, focusing on building a strong and connected relationship with clients of all ages.
Kate is client-centred and uses attachment-based approaches in therapy. She supports clients to develop mindfulness strategies and uses progressive muscle relaxation to help manage everyday challenges. Alongside Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT), Kate believes in lifelong learning and developing skills and strategies appropriate for each client. She has recently done some training in Schema Therapy and is always looking to expand her toolbox. Kate uses practical and play based activities when working with children, finding creative ways to build connections and provide intervention according to the individuals needs and goals.
Throughout her career Kate has worked across a range of educational settings, supporting children, adolescents, their families, and schools to manage mental health, behavioural and developmental challenges. Psychological assessment is Kate’s key area of interest and expertise, and she supports staff in the clinic and in the school with assessment questions and training. Kate has been a member of the Victorian Department of Education (DET) critical incident response team, navigating the challenges of responding to complex critical incidents, and was previously a Professional Practice Leader with DET supporting allied health staff across teams with policy and practice issues.
Kate has been supervising provisional psychologists since 2008 and has been at Cairnmillar since 2020. Kate supervises across all Cairnmillar Clinics and on external placements in schools, private practices, and other organisations across 5+1, internship and clinical psychology programs. In addition, Kate does the occasional assessment with clients in the clinic to provide students with opportunities to observe clinical work in practice.
Therapeutically Kate has worked primarily with children, adolescents, and young adults to develop an understanding of themselves and build confidence to manage their mental health needs. She enjoys working with a range of presentations including anxiety, depression, selective mutism, building self-esteem and self-confidence, parenting support amongst other things. Kate has been a Breastfeeding Counsellor with the Australian Breastfeeding Association and advocates for supporting parents to feel confident and informed with their parenting, using Circle of Security and attachment-based approaches alongside Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) for therapy across all ages and to inform her work as a supervisor.
Kate is Director of the newly formed Australian Educational & Developmental Psychology Association (AEDPA) whose mission is to advocate for her area of practice endorsement and support the public to access the most appropriate service for their needs.
