Skilled, experienced and highly qualified mental health clinicians who have worked in a range of senior education and training, and leadership positions, with a commitment to providing contemporary, practical Mental Health knowledge and skills.

Sean Duffy

Sean is a nurse with 20 years experience in the health industry.  His qualifications include;

• Registered Psychiatric Nurse
• Registered General Nurse
• Bachelor of Nursing  (post registration)
• Cert IV workplace assessment and training
• Master in Business Administration

In addition to these formal qualifications Sean is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Melbourne, an Associate Fellow of the Australian College of Health Services Executives.  He is also trained as a clinical supervisor (University of Melbourne).

Sean has extensive experience in the field of mental health, having worked in acute and secure extended care inpatient services, community case management in rural and remote areas, forensic mental health and psychiatric crisis assessment and treatment teams.  For the last 9 years Sean has worked in senior leadership and management positions in mental health / drug and alcohol services.   

He has provided strategic and operational leadership to a variety of sectors within mental health, including primary, secondary and tertiary consultation to a range of community agencies and health service providers.  Sean has lead teams within organisations through complex change initiatives, that involved multidimensional collaboration activities and working closely with employee groups to assist them with the change process.  This work has required advanced competencies in transformational leadership and like all change, managing employee emotions was fundamental to the success of the change strategy.  Sean sees this as an area where he has a thorough understanding of the principles and models to assist employers and employees in this area.

Sean has delivered tertiary lectures and tutorials to undergraduate and post graduate students, in the area of occupational violence and aggression, equal employment opportunity in the workplace including dealing with bullying and harassment.  In addition, Sean has also developed and delivered education and training to employee groups in the area of mental health prevention, promotion, early intervention, acute treatment and ongoing recovery programs. These groups include emergency services, intellectual disability sector, public and private mental health services and the general health industry. He has also been a principle researcher in examining the effect of exercise therapy on clients with unremittent schizophrenic disorders.
Sean’s area of speciality is;

• Organisational change strategies
• Managing the emotions of change
• The role of emotional intelligence in leadership
• Transformational leadership
• Professional development strategies within strategic planning
• Performance management and appraisal
• Mental health service system and clinical pathways
• Managing mental health problems in the workplace

Sean is also the welfare, education and training director for the North Ballarat City Football/Netball club and is a school councillor at Pleasant Street Primary School in Ballarat.

Paula Duffy

Paula is a nurse with 20 years experience in the health industry.  Her qualifications include;

• Registered Psychiatric Nurse
• Registered General Nurse
• Bachelor of Nursing (post registration)(UOB)
• Graduate Diploma Mental Health Nursing (UM)
• Masters of Professional Education and Training  - in progress (Deakin)
• Cert IV in workplace assessment and training

In addition to these formal qualifications Paula is a trained clinical supervisor (University of Melbourne) and occupational violence and aggression trainer (Professional Assault Response Training). 

Paula has extensive experience in the field of mental health, working in crisis assessment and treatment teams, community case management, inpatient acute and secure extended care units.  For the past 8 years Paula has provided clinical services with education and training in a vast range of clinical areas.  Paula has worked in partnership with management of organisations to provide tailored, evidence based and/or best practice education and training modules.  This includes a delivery of a full range of teaching styles covering various different disciplines.

The strength of Paula’s approach is in combining contemporary education and training applications and applying these in practical workplace environments.  For this to be successful Paula develops rapport and works closely with individuals and groups to understand their issues in applying new learning.

Paula has also worked extensively with tertiary education institutions, providing tutorials, master lectures and off site education to undergraduates. She has worked in an advisory capacity to shape tertiary training programs, including mental health majors and state-wide training modules for the existing workforce.

Paula specialises in providing education, training and consultancy in;

• Mental health symptoms, behaviours and management strategies
• Occupational violence and aggression – prevention, identification, and management.
• Professional development planning, scheduling and system development
• Stress management, relaxation and health promotion cultures

Paula is married with two children, enjoys exercise, the beach, retail therapy and spending time with friends.

Our Consultants

Mentalhealthworks consultancy (MHWC) directors have specifically identified practitioners in the field who have a strong consistent reputation for quality education, training and consultancy.

MHWC pride itself on providing high level tailored education, training and consultancy and therefore maintain a high expectation on what is required of the consultants who present information to our customers.

Each consultant has a minimum of 15 years experience in the health industry, including intensive experience in leadership and management and/or, education and training in a variety of industry and settings.  In addition there is an expectation that our consultants have higher degree tertiary qualifications to support their industry experience.

Each consultant is also a specialist in a particular area and therefore MHWC has the capacity to target consultants based on an organisations need.  It is this approach that ensures we are targeted, contemporary, practical and comprehensive in our service delivery.