In the last twelve months Karinya House has seen an intensification of mental health concerns both amongst the women supported and also being referred to Karinya. Many of the women that Karinya House works with have expressed mental health concerns, often due to experiences of complex trauma. For some women, this means their decision making or capacity to respond to the challenge that life presents including navigating health and finance systems, the transition to motherhood, breakdowns in social networks, and new challenges such as COVID is impacted further by their experiences of trauma.

While Karinya House welcomes and is supportive of the suite of mental health and wellbeing programs available across the ACT, these are not always appropriate or accessible for the women Karinya House works with.

The women Karinya House supports are faced with a range of compounding experiences of trauma related to histories of domestic/ family violence, sexual assault, child protection involvement, homelessness, drug and alcohol misuse. This complex trauma and associated mental health impacts require specialised and consistent counselling and mental health support. The lives of women that Karinya House support are characterised by ‘having to tell their story’ to many different services, such as Housing, Child Protection and Centrelink, therefore the prospect of being allocated a different mental health professional, every time an individual accesses a government or community based service is unacceptable for most women and is often a deterrent for seeking support.

Karinya House has secured a philanthropic grant, from the James N. Kirby Foundation to fund the engagement of an appropriate mental health professional to:

  • Work with women to develop and implement appropriate strategies to address their mental health issues, which in turn helps women to identify and work towards reaching their goals.
  • Provide therapeutic, trauma informed counselling, within a recovery framework.
  • Work with women in both a residential and outreach capacity
  • Provide support/ advice/ development to Karinya House caseworkers working with women presenting with mental health issues.
  • As the Karinya House Mental Health Practitioners continue building connections and liaison with mental health services in the ACT

This is a pilot position to develop the role and provide proof of concept. The appointment terms and length of engagement are subject to negotiation.

Further details including the role requirements are available here.

Expressions of Interest close at 3pm on Friday 26 February 2021.

Enquiries about this opportunity in the first instance should be directed to Belinda Munn, Executive Officer, on 0408 095 243 or [email protected]