Our Areas of Expertise
Minerva can offer tailor-made training in mental health practice to suit the needs of your business. Our strong collaborations and cumulative experience allow us to support best practice in mental health and developing your practice. Get in touch if you would like to talk to us about your needs or interests.
Our areas of expertise include, but are not exclusive to:
Trauma informed care and Healing centred engagement
Carla van Heerden and Pamela Meredith, Professor and Head of Occupational Therapy at the Central Queensland University, join in presenting on the integration of sensory and attachment informed approaches applied in practice. With a range of examples from Carla’s clinical experience in this field, combined with Pamela’s academic knowledge, these workshops aim to equip clinicians with a different lens. Rather than providing a definitive intervention toolkit, the presenters will encourage learners to think about and create intervention strategies to fit the needs of the individual they are working with.
Understanding how early life experiences shape the development of attachment patterns and sensory processing may be helpful in clinical application as well as personally.
These approaches are increasingly used in combination with new evidence due to its relevance to affect regulation and trauma informed care.
The Vona du Toit Model of Creative Ability
This occupational therapy model originated in South Africa and is underpinned in existentialism, phenomenology, motivational and developmental theories. It describes the development of volition (or motivation) through the lifespan, and holds that motivation is manifested in action.
Carla works in close collaboration with the International Creative Ability Network, initiated by Wendy Sherwood in the UK, as well as with the author of the Activity Performance Outcome Measure, Daleen Casteleijn, in South Africa to promote awareness of and research on the effectiveness of applying the Model in mental health occupational therapy and is an international presenter on this topic.
The model helps therapists to understand how behaviour is sustained over time, and how they can best work alongside their clients to create change. Seeing someone achieve volitional growth is one of the most rewarding experiences that a therapist can have, and the VduTMoCA provides a framework to support this.
The Lived Experience Workforce in Mental Health
The term "Lived experience" worker in mental health refers to the range of people with a personal experience of mental illness who are contributing to the design and delivery of mental health services. As a newly emerging discipline in the field, there are many shared experiences of challenge and success.
Together with Michael Burbank, a Lived Experience consultant and teacher of the Certificate IV in mental health peer support at Queensland TAFE, Carla offers support to any services who are developing, implementing and sustaining a lived experience workforce. We provide opportunities for service providers as well as practitioners to share and grow together.
Clinical supervision and mentoring
Time pressure, ease of access and affordability are all factors that play a role when engaging in professional development activities. Having the confidence to implement newly acquired skills or integrate theoretical perspectives often depend on continued access to support and opportunities to interact with others who share the same interests and / or skill sets.
Minerva offers opportunities for clinical supervision, mentoring and communities of practice through access to member forums and (soon to come) online resources.
Business service support and mentoring
For many people working in the health and disability sector, the experience of running a small business can be daunting. Within the NDIS framework, rapid growth and expansion is a challenge when business systems and processes need to keep up with the pace. John Trent’s extensive experience in managing businesses, initially in the financial and later in the allied health sector, is invaluable when starting or growing a business. He has worked across Australia and in the United States, bringing a wealth of experience to Minerva.
When sharing his knowledge and offering mentoring sessions, John’s passion for business is evident in his contagious enthusiasm and energy.
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