Our people
Amaryll Perlesz is an Adjunct Professor at the centre and contributes to the centre's research activities. She retired from The Bouverie Centre after successfully managing the Research Program, supervising postgraduate research students, and participating in teaching, supervision, research and consultation functions in academic, clinical and organisational settings. Her areas of research interest have included: evaluation of family therapy training; family adjustment to acquired brain injury; the therapeutic relationship; family group work in mental health; and the ‘Work, Love, Play’ study which is a longitudinal study of gay & lesbian parenting in Australia and New Zealand.
Angie Nyland is a social worker and trainer at the Bouverie Centre and currently coordinates the Supporting Practice Leaders (SPLice) ice project which is a state wide project focussing on the enhancement of supervision practices in the alcohol and drug and mental health sectors through training and implementation support.
Angie has over 20 year’s experience leading teams and delivering outreach and centre-based counselling, casework and case management in the alcohol and drug, mental health, community health, Aboriginal health, youth and justice sectors. She enjoys working with organisations to strengthen and sustain strong supervision practice and is committed to enabling accessible and collaborative services that can improve the wellbeing of communities.
To contact, please email Angie Nyland.
Dr Anna Booth is a Research Fellow with a background in life-course epidemiology and developmental psychology, and a special interest in clinical and translational research with vulnerable families and the workforces that support them. Anna’s research has focused on infant mental health, attachment, parenting during adversity, family stress, family violence and maternal and child health.
Anna has worked in population-level cohort engagement and research management; program innovation and evaluation; trauma-informed workforce development; and in education and training. Anna is involved in clinical research partnerships with community service organisations that provide services for families experiencing conflict and violence, trauma and abuse, and social disadvantage.
View Anna's research profile.
Colleen Cousins is a psychologist, family therapist and educator. She is a member of the Academic team at The Bouverie Centre where she co-ordinates the Graduate Certificate of Family Therapy program, lectures and provides supervision to students undergoing clinical training. Additionally she works as a therapist at Bouverie with families impacted by trauma.
Colleen has considerable clinical experience in community, hospital and private practice settings including work in child and adult sexual assault services. Colleen has a keen interest in the application of individually orientated trauma treatment approaches within a systemic framework.
Dr David List is a Clinical Supervisor of the Masters in Clinical Family Therapy (Year 2). He is a clinical psychologist and family therapist with a specialty in couple therapy (both together and separated).
Aside from his clinical work, he has held numerous statutory positions, including President of the Psychologists Registration Board of Victoria, as a member of VCAT, the Multiple and Complex Needs Panel, and the Mental Health Tribunal of Victoria, amongst others.
Most recently, he was the Founding President of The Australian Association of Collaborative Professionals, leading the development of that form of collaborative dispute resolution in Australia. He is also a nationally accredited mediator. In those roles he has consulted to organisations with leadership mentoring, conflict resolution, and change management.
It is also his second involvement with training, teaching and supervising at Bouverie.
Elizabeth George is an occupational therapist and family therapist at The Bouverie Centre. She enjoys working collaboratively with families across all life stages. Her work with families is informed by her extensive clinical experience in the public mental health sector in a range of acute and community settings, with older persons, adults, and youth. Her main interests include exploring different approaches of supporting families who have experienced trauma, as well as working with families where a member has mental illness, group work, and professional supervision.
In her current role she works with families at Bouverie and provides training, consultation and support to clinicians and organisations.
Ellen Welsh is a project manager with experience across a range of sectors including information technology, software development, developmental psychology and attachment theory and trauma. Ellen has a particular interest in research translation in the health and community service industries and is experienced in applying a range of communication approaches, including self-paced, online, workshop and face to face mechanisms for engagement across healthcare, academia, community and education sectors.
She is currently completing her Masters in Biomedical Engineering but has found her new passion in social justice since starting at Bouverie.
To contact, please email Ellen Welsh.
Franca Butera, Senior Family Practice Consultant and Systemic Clinical Family Therapist, is a social worker and family therapist at The Bouverie Centre. She has 25 years’ experience as a clinician, trainer and consultant in a variety of settings including acute, rehabilitation and community health. She has extensive experience working with individuals, couples and families who have been impacted by trauma, mental health and disability including acquired brain injury.
Franca received the Anita Morawetz Scholarship, University of Melbourne in 1998 and the Anita Morawetz Research Prize, Victorian Association of Family Therapists for a Masters Thesis – substantial and scholarly contribution to the field of Family Therapy in 2000.
View Franca's research profile.
Greg U'Ren is a family therapist who has worked at The Bouverie Centre since 1998. His main work roles include workforce development, teaching in the Academic Program and clinical work with families at Bouverie. Greg was a member of the FaPMI (Families where a Parent has a Mental Illness) research team.
Greg has a collaborative and reflective approach to working with families which includes making sense of difficulties and empowering families to change patterns of concern in complex circumstances. His interests include the impact of mental health issues, the experiences of fathers and children, the impact of family violence, the link between family of origin and current concerns, and teaching and supervision.
Greg completed the Postgraduate Diploma in Family Therapy at Bouverie in 1999, and has a background in parent and adolescent mediation and social research.
To contact, please email Greg U'Ren.
Hanna Jewell is a social worker and family therapist. She currently works as a member of the Mental Health Team as a family practice consultant providing workforce training, practice support, clinical supervision and implementation to improve the way mental health services respond to families affected by mental illness. Her work includes ongoing clinical work with families, including research with families where a parent has a mental illness.
She has an interest in working with families where a parent experiences a mental illness and is involved in developing the Let’s Talk program to mental health services. Further to this is her interest in evidence-based family work such as Behavioural Family Therapy and family psycho-education. She comes with over 20 years’ experience of working in public mental health services.
View Hanna's research profile.
Jacqueline Cleary is our Intake Program Coordinator who joined The Bouverie Centre in 2019. She has worked therapeutically with infants, children, adolescents and families in a range of public and private settings including mental health, sexual assault and trauma over the past 18 years.
Jane Schinas is the Senior FaPMI Project and Data Officer and is responsible for contributing to and supporting the co-ordination of the Families where a Parent has a Mental Illness (FaPMI) program at a state level and for supporting FaPMI Co-ordinators located in the Area Mental Health Services across Victoria. Jane has extensive experience working on system and program developments in the tertiary education sector and in primary mental health, and has a particular interest in health consumer and carer advocacy.
Former Director Jeffrey Young contributes to the operations of The Bouverie Centre and acts now as one of our thinkers in residence.
Jeff has an interest in responsive and contextually compassionate health services. He has contributed to the development of Single Session Therapy and reflecting teams, understanding blame and conceptualising change in chronic conditions. Jeff developed No Bullshit Therapy which combines honesty and directness with warmth and care.
Jeff has been the President of the Victorian Association of Family Therapists, President of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy (ANZJFT) and member of the Dulwich Newsletter editorial committee.
Jeff was awarded the Anita Morawetz Research Prize in 2007 for his work supporting drought counsellors across Victoria, for which he received his PhD in 2011. He was also presented with the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy Award for Distinguished Contributions to Family Therapy in 2017.
View Jeff's research profile.
Jo Howard is a social worker and family therapist. She has worked with family violence and families for over 30 years in service delivery, clinical supervision, training and research and policy. She first published on the emerging issue of adolescent family violence in 1994. In 2009 she gained a Winston Churchill Fellowship to research best practice responses to adolescent family violence across the United States and Canada.
Her contribution to adolescent and adult family violence includes developing and leading research projects, practice and practice development and guidance, contributing to several books and key journals, working to build cross agency partnerships and training practitioners
Karen Story B.A., Dip. Soc. Stud.(Social Work), MCPP, MCFT is qualified social worker, teacher, child and adolescent psychotherapist and family therapist. Karen joined Bouverie staff (ABI team) in 2011 after extensive clinical, group therapy and consulting experience in child and adolescent mental health, foster care, teaching and community and public welfare. She has extensive experience in training, consultation and service development both locally and interstate.
In her current role at The Bouverie Centre, as a member of the Community Services team, she is involved with teaching and facilitating training and workforce development in the areas of family inclusive practice and single session work, among others. She sees families in the clinical family therapy program. Areas of particular interest include Single Session philosophy and practice in short and long term work, working with children and adolescents in the context of their families, use of narrative tools such as the Tree of Life, emotion coaching and emotion intelligence, group work and research.
To contact, please email Karen Story.
Kate Cordukes is a family therapist and art therapist. She holds a postgraduate degree in Arts Education, and a Master’s in both Arts Therapy and Clinical Family Therapy. Kate has worked as a therapist for the past 20 years with diverse populations and settings such as Juvenile Justice, drug and alcohol and mental health. She has also presented and lectured at RMIT University, MIECAT Institute and at various conferences and workshops. Prior to joining Bouverie, she was Team Leader (Family Therapy) at Berry Street, both working with families and supervising staff.
Her areas of passion are working with children and adolescents in families where there is conflict. She brings into her work a sense of creativity and is particularly interested in brain development, its relationship to emotional regulation and how to work with this so family members are able to communicate in more responsive ways to one another.
At Bouverie she works both on the clinical team and on the Academic team.
To contact, please email Kate Cordukes.
Kelly Tsorlinis is a trained Social Worker and Clinical Family Therapist and in 2006 completed the Master of Clinical Family Therapy at The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University. She has worked in the community sector in the areas of community health, family-based services, sexual assault, child protection and child and adolescent psychiatry.
She currently works at The Bouverie Centre as the Intake Program Coordinator. Kelly has a clinical interest in working with children/adolescents and their families, Single Session Work, working with family members with ASD within a systemic framework, trauma - EMDR and Havening Techniques and how these can be integrated within systemic approaches.
To contact, please email Kelly Tsorlinis.
Mark Furlong PhD. is Thinker-in-residence at the Bouverie Centre and an independent scholar. In addition to around 60 academic contributions, Mark has published Re-sizing psychology in public policy and the private imagination (Palgrave, 2016), and Building the client’s relational base: A multi-disciplinary handbook (Policy Press, 2014). His key research focus is what builds, and what undermines, ethical and secure relationships.
View Mark's research profile.
Dr. Mohajer Hameed is a senior researcher with an outstanding national and international track
record of evidence that aims to change policy and practice to benefit people, families, and communities. Mohajer is highly skilled in the design, implementation, analysis, and interpretation of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed method research related to health interventions, health policy, and family models of health and wellbeing. Mohajer works and partners with national and international universities, health research networks, non-profit organisations, industry, and government.
He aims to be a free thinker and continues to explore various disciplines of knowledge such as applied statistics, behavioural neuroscience, psychoanalysis, philosophy, family health, psychology, public health, comparative theology and whatever comes to mind.
Mohajer is highly committed to ongoing reflective practice and infinite self-development, through identifying strengths and challenging blind spots and biases. He aspires to motivate the self and others with respect, understanding and empathy.
Nella Charles is a family therapist and clinical psychologist at The Bouverie Centre where she has been employed as a clinician and teacher in family therapy for over 20 years. She has a breadth of experience working with families, with particular experience working in disability, acquired brain injury and child welfare fields. She has a particular interest in the treatment of trauma and use of creative methods in family, group work and supervision.
View Nella's research profile.
Nicholas Barrington is a psychiatric nurse and family therapist. Nick has been employed within the Mental Health Program at The Bouverie Centre since 2019, prior to which he worked for 15 years in the mental health sector across a range of settings.
In his current role, Nick provides training to mental health and community services, as well as supporting implementation and practice change activities.
Having worked in public mental health services in a wide variety of roles, Nick has come to appreciate the complex and interconnected nature of human experience. This has driven his passion for family therapy and systemic practice. Combining this with his experience in child and adolescent wellbeing, Nick is particularly interested in how these ideas can improve the lives of young people and their families.
Nick completed his Graduate Certificate in Mental Health Nursing at The University of Sydney in 2008, and his Master of Family Therapy at La Trobe University in 2016.
To contact, please email Nicholas Barrington.
Patrick Carroll is a social worker and family therapist. He has over 20 years’ experience working in 
mental health roles in homelessness and child protection related services. He has also coordinated multidisciplinary teams and provided training and clinical supervision.
In his current role, Patrick provides training to mental health and community services, as well as supporting implementation and practice change activities. He also sees families in Bouverie’s clinical program.
Patrick is passionate about working with LGBTQI+ clients, anti-oppressive practice, work with children and adolescents as well as single session thinking.
To contact, please email Patrick Carroll.
Peter McKenzie (PhD, MA ClinFamTher, BA (Honours) Social Sciences) is an anthropologist, clinical family therapist and academic/research fellow. He currently holds the Carer Academic (mental health) position at The Bouverie Centre, School of Psychology and Public Health, La Trobe University, which focuses on families, caring & the lived experience workforce. He has significant personal caring as well as professional experience as a family practice consultant, supervisor and trainer in the professional development of the clinical and lived experience mental health workforces. He is currently the Chair of TANDEM, a Board member of Mental Health Carers Australia, a former Board Member of the Australian BPD Foundation and a member of the Australian Association of Family Therapy.
View Peter's research profile.
Robyn Elliott (MA ClinFamTher) is the Manager of the Academic Program, where she supervises the development and delivery of our family therapy postgraduate courses.
Ron Findlay is a medical practitioner who works as a family therapist with a strong interest and experience in the narrative approach. He has over 30 years’ experience in practicing, consulting, teaching and providing supervision in family and narrative therapy.
Ron coordinated The Bouverie Centre’s Narrative Therapy programs for 10 years. He is a guest lecturer at La Trobe University in the Master of Family Therapy program. In recent years, he has worked in Single Session Family Therapy using a narrative approach at a Headspace in Melbourne’s South-East.
Ron also co-founded the Men’s Responsibility Group (MRG), a men’s attitudinal and behavioural change program with a narrative therapy influence, which ran at a Melbourne community health centre for 20 years.
He has also worked in Victorian community psychiatric centres, community health centres, and Aboriginal physical health and mental health services.
To contact, please email Ron Findlay.
Tanudja Gibson is an experienced project officer and executive assistant, with strong organisational, writing and problem solving skills, and a commitment to delivery. Tanudja specialises in the development of engaging, interactive course material through the Articulate Storyline software. She has extensive experience interacting with and supporting new learners.
To contact, please email Tanudja Gibson.
Zoe Guest is a Researcher at The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University. Zoe’s research examines family relationships, including issues related to women’s relational health, family safety, and the evaluation of early intervention parenting programs. Zoe is also a registered psychologist.
To contact, please email Zoe Guest.