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Wellbeing sessions for teams in Brisbane and beyond, run by a counsellor
Most workplace wellbeing lands somewhere between a poster and a pizza lunch. These are working sessions, run by someone who sits with people in distress for a living, and built for the team you actually have rather than a generic one. Based in Newstead, and I travel.
The scale of it
One in five of the people in your building, this year
Not a marketing figure. This is the Australian Bureau of Statistics counting the population, and it is the reason I went and studied public health alongside the counselling.
- 22%
- of Australians aged 16 to 85 experienced a mental disorder in the past twelve months. That is 4.3 million people.
- 39%
- of 16 to 24 year olds, up from 26% in 2007. Your youngest staff are carrying the steepest rise of any age group.
- 17%
- experienced an anxiety disorder, making it by a distance the most common group of conditions.
- 15%
- of Australia's total burden of disease now comes from mental health conditions, alongside the physical ones.
Australian Bureau of Statistics, National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing 2020–2022, released October 2023, and the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia's Health 2026. These are the most recent national figures available.
Option one
Wellbeing workshops
A single session on one topic, shaped around what is actually happening in your team rather than delivered off a shelf. We talk first, I build the session from that conversation, and people leave with two or three things they can use on Monday.
Practical and participatory. Nobody is made to share anything, and nobody is put on the spot.
- Stress and burnout — what the early signs look like in a team, and what actually helps before someone goes on leave
- Difficult conversations — how to raise something hard without the other person shutting down
- Belonging in a multicultural team — the quiet cost of translating yourself at work all day, and what colleagues and managers can do about it
- Change and uncertainty — for teams going through restructure, relocation or a loss of people
- Supporting a colleague who is struggling — what to say, what not to say, and where your responsibility ends
- Length
- 60 or 90 minutes
- Group size
- Up to 20 people
- Where
- Your workplace or online, anywhere
- Languages
- English, Spanish or French
Option two
The facilitated team session
A longer session where the team works out together where it is actually at. Not a survey, not a report that sits in a drawer. Everyone in the room, one careful conversation, facilitated by someone from outside the organisation with no stake in the answer.
Teams usually know what is wrong. What they rarely have is a space where it can be said out loud safely, and someone whose job is to keep that space steady.
- I speak with you first to understand what you are hoping for and what is off limits
- The session runs two to three hours, with structure so it does not become a complaints meeting
- People speak for themselves. Nobody is spoken about in the third person
- We finish with what the team has agreed to try, in their words, written down before anyone leaves
- You receive a short summary of the themes and the agreed actions, never an account of who said what
- Length
- 2 to 3 hours
- Group size
- Up to 12 people
- Where
- Best in person, I travel
- You receive
- Themes and agreed actions
Why a counsellor
The difference is what happens when it gets real
Most workplace wellbeing is delivered by trainers and consultants. That is fine until someone in the room gets upset, and then it matters a great deal who is standing at the front.
Someone who can hold the room
I work with grief, burnout and separation every week. If a session touches something raw for someone, that is not an emergency, it is Tuesday. I know how to respond without making it the whole session or leaving the person exposed.
A public health lens
My postgraduate study in public health focused on mental health and the health issues currently facing the Australian population, which means I think about wellbeing at the level of the system as well as the individual. Often the most useful finding is that the workload is the problem, not the coping skills.
Culture that is actually in the room
I work in English, Spanish and French, and I have spent my life moving between cultures. For a team where half the staff are working in their second language, that changes what can be said.
PACFA Member · Postgraduate qualification in Public Health · Advanced Diploma in Counselling Psychology · Public liability and professional indemnity insured · ABN 23 736 392 728
How it works
From first email to session, usually about three weeks
Step one
A conversation
Thirty minutes, free, no obligation. You tell me what is going on and what you have already tried.
Step two
An outline
I send a one-page outline with the shape of the session, a fixed price and what your people will leave with.
Step three
The session
At your workplace or online, on a date that suits. I bring everything except the room.
Step four
What next
A short written summary, and an honest view on whether another session would help or whether you are better spending the money elsewhere.
What it costs
Prices up front, because you have a budget to check
Workshop
From $1,200
90 minutes, up to 20 people
Includes the scoping conversation, a session built for your team rather than adapted from a template, any handouts, and a short written follow-up.
A 60-minute version is $950. A second session on the same day is $700, which suits shift teams, anyone who cannot get everybody in one room, and any organisation I am travelling to.
Team session
From $2,400
2 to 3 hours, up to 12 people
Includes the scoping conversation, the facilitated session, and a written summary of the themes and the actions the team agreed to.
More preparation than a workshop and a great deal more work in the room, which is why it is priced where it is.
Where I work. Greater Brisbane is included in the prices above. Elsewhere in Australia, and overseas, travel and accommodation are added at cost and set out in the outline before you agree to anything. There is never a surprise on the invoice.
Interstate and international. If you are bringing me a distance, it is usually worth building a day or two around it rather than a single session. Several sessions across two days costs you far less per session and gives your people somewhere to follow up the next morning.
The prices above are the full price. No GST is added.
Not-for-profits and small teams. If the work matters and the budget does not stretch, say so in your enquiry. I would rather have the conversation than lose it.
Before you enquire
What HR managers ask me
You get themes and agreed actions. You never get an account of who said what, and I will say that clearly to the room at the start so people know where they stand. A session where staff believe they are being reported on is worse than no session at all.
The one exception is the same as in any counselling setting: if I became aware of a serious risk to someone's safety, I would act on it, and I would tell the person I was doing so.
It happens, and it is handled. The person is not put on the spot, not asked to explain themselves in front of colleagues, and not left alone afterwards. I make time to check in with them privately before I leave, and I let them know how to find support that has nothing to do with their employer.
No, and it is worth being precise about that. A workshop or a team session is education and facilitation. It is not therapy, it is not a substitute for it, and nobody in the room becomes my client. If someone needs counselling, I will help them find it, including with someone other than me where that is the cleaner arrangement.
Yes. Workshops run well online and I deliver them that way regularly for distributed teams. Travel and accommodation are added at cost and agreed before anything is booked, anywhere in Australia or overseas.
The team session is different. It needs everyone in one room, so if you want that one I would want to come to you rather than attempt it over video.
It does a different job. An EAP waits for someone to be unwell enough to call a number. These sessions are for the team as a whole, before anyone reaches that point, and they change what people say to each other rather than what they say to a stranger on a phone line.
Yes, both. I hold public liability and professional indemnity cover, and I am happy to send the certificates of currency with the outline, or earlier if your procurement process needs them before anything is signed. Just say so in your enquiry and they will come across the same day.
A room where the door closes and people cannot be seen from a corridor, chairs that can be moved, and the group's time protected so nobody is ducking out for calls. That last one matters more than anything else on the list.
Tell me what is going on
A few details and I will come back within two working days with either an outline or an honest note that I am not the right fit.