A Wrap Up Of The Year That Has Been For Perth Psychologists

It has been a busy year for our Perth psychologists with an increasing number of referrals to
our service for diagnostic assessments and new counselling cases. We have tried to expand
our service to provide more support to parents and families by offering counselling packages
and we are continuing to refine and develop a new introductory training programme which will
commence early 2014. Niketa Durack has been learning all about motherhood, and we eagerly
anticipate her return to work early in 2014, where she will mostly service clients in our
Mandurah region. Amanda di Russo has successfully completed her psychologist’s
registration with AHPRA (The Australian Health Practitioners Registration Agency) and this
was no mean feat given the rigorous requirements of the board. She has been working hard to
develop her specialist clinical skills in the area of Autism and in diagnosis. Amanda will
become a member of WAADF in 2014 and continue on with ISADD. Larni Mullan has
managed to juggle all of her multiple roles as a programme manager, specialist consultant,
assessor, diagnostician and counsellor with boundless enthusiasm and energy. She will take
a well deserved short break over Christmas, resuming early 2014 by starting the year off with
several interesting group projects with Amanda. Tania Dawson has been building up services
for adolescent and adult clients and there is certainly an increasing interest for services for
these age groups, with a look toward building better organisational skills, independence skills,
relationship and communication skills and support for mental health. We are starting to forge
some solid collaborative relationships with adult mental health and private psychiatrists to
improve services to older clients. Tania is continuing for a second term on the board of the
Western Australian Autism Diagnosticians Forum (WAADF), which has kept her very busy
behind the scenes in working with other professionals in preparing for the change-over to the
DSMV, which will officially be used by clinicians in Western Australia as of January 2014. We
are looking forward to welcoming Emina Cholich (Perth Case Manager) as a Psychologist
Registrar next year with Tania as her supervisor. She has exceptional programming skills and
is very dynamic in her work with children and we know that she will easily be able to transfer
these skills into assessing and counselling older children on the spectrum. We have enjoyed
seeing the progress of all of our early intervention clients when we have met with them for
follow-up assessments and have been privileged to work alongside some very dedicated
parents. We wish all our ISADD families a happy and safe Christmas and look forward to
seeing you all at some stage in 2014!