Our Team

Melinda is an organisational psychologist, researcher and teacher with over twenty-five years’ experience supporting schools. She has established Compassionate Schools as a mental health workplace consultancy for schools across Australia. Compassionate Schools offers 1:1 support (clinical, supervision, coaching), school workshops for staff mental health, and psych health & safety partnerships.

Melinda brings deep knowledge of how Australian schools and systems have operated over the last 25 years, and combines this with clinical expertise in supporting school staff, compliance expertise in providing safe and well workplaces, and staff wellbeing expertise promoting mental health for individuals, teams and schools.

Melinda is currently undertaking a PhD exploring the psychosocial workplace conditions that enhance or buffer school-life’s subsequent impacts on staff wellbeing and engagement, and how schools, and the sector, can individually and collectively strengthen the design and enhance the workplace experience for school leaders.  Melinda’s psychology honours and masters research focused on workplace wellbeing, specifically burnout, compassion fatigue and secondary traumatic stress following critical incidents, and the protective factors that lead to resilience and wellbeing.

Melinda has taught K-12 and has held roles including Senior Consultant with headspace schools/Be You; Consultant: School Innovation with the Association of Independent Schools of NSW; Teaching Educator with Catholic Education, Diocese of Parramatta; and Lead – Program Content and Evaluation and General Manager with Good Grief Ltd, now MacKillop Seasons. Melinda has also practiced as a school counsellor with the Catholic Schools Office Diocese of Broken Bay, and holds coach accreditation with the International Coach Federation.

Breanna is a registered psychologist and board approved supervisor, with over 15 years’ experience working across education, private practice, community mental health and organisational wellbeing. She is currently a mental health program facilitator for the Black Dog Institute, and her recent roles have included Clinical Consultant with headspace Schools and Communities, and Student Wellbeing Education Officer with Sydney Catholic Schools.

Breanna’s counselling practice, clinical supervision and coaching are grounded in psychological safety, with a focus on strengthening school leader and staff mental health through sustainable, collaborative and strengths based approaches.

Breanna has extensive experience supporting school leaders, wellbeing teams, psychologists and educators to navigate complex mental health, behavioural and safeguarding concerns, specifically suicide risk, critical incidents, trauma, family violence, self-harm and high-risk presentations, and is committed to supporting school staff to maintain their own mental health and wellbeing.