Complex Trauma WA Inc.

Kate’s interest in trauma began as a postgraduate student in the UK over twenty years ago. Following completing a doctorate in complex trauma and addiction, she retrained in counselling and family therapy, and joined the mental health field in 2015. Kate has a special interest in dissociative disorders and narcissistic abuse recovery; and in 2021 founded a clinic specialising in Complex PTSD and neurodivergence.

Kate is a published academic, an international and guest speaker, and is regularly asked to provide media commentary in relation to mental health and neurodivergence. She has held a position as an invited academic providing consultancy in relation to trauma and student well being, and prior to joining COTWA, was the co-founder of a non-profit organisation focusing on education reform. Kate is a passionate advocate for raising awareness in relation to the necessity of a trauma-informed approach across all sectors. She also comes to COTWA from a position of lived experience.

Kate is the mother of two young adults, and when she’s not working, you’ll find her pottering around her home tending to her rescue animals, dancing along to music in her kitchen, or curled up with a cup of tea and a good book.

Steve is a dynamic, executive leader and an accomplished aviator with over 33 years’ aviation operations and management experience, 21 of which are specific to Search and Rescue (SAR) aeromedical operations.  He brings to COTWA his experiences with front-line complex-trauma exposure and management through his many years flying combat search and rescue in the military, as well as through his current position as the Manger of Western Australia’s Emergency Rescue Helicopter Service for the Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

Steve brings the highest standards of integrity, vast operational leadership, and strategic planning experience on the global stage from both his military and civilian / commercial backgrounds.  He also volunteers as an officer and not-for-profit board member of Australia’s first and only U.S. Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 12163, which supports Veterans and their families in Western Australia.

Kirsty comes to the complex-trauma space through lived experience, which has been the driving force for many years of powerful advocacy and political activism in support of survivors. In 2017/18 Kirsty staged a parliamentary sit-in, leading to important law reform for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This law reform directly led to an abrupt change in career direction for Kirsty, who is now the Co-ordinator for a team of Abuse Law specialists at a leading WA personal injury law firm.  Awarded for “always sticking up for the little guy” and for her strong community engagement through her work, Kirsty has twice shared a podium with Erin Brockovich and has delivered speeches several times at TEDx events.

Emmett is an emerging multi-disciplinary artist with a knack for organisation, having spent the last four years in various secretarial, and administrative positions. He also works with neurodivergent children and teenagers in a mentoring and tutoring role.

Primarily working in the arts sector, Emmett is particularly passionate about the connective power of art and storytelling in processing and healing from trauma. Their arts company, ‘perhaps, a theatre company.’, seeks to create space for others (particularly the marginalised and underrepresented) to share their stories.

Emmett also has a special interest in the role complex trauma plays in the lives of queer and neurodivergent individuals. He is currently a creative honours student UWA, exploring the ways in which the ‘trauma of the closet’ can shape queer relationships.

Sonia trained as a clinical psychologist in South Africa, and joined the mental-health community in Western Australia in 2006.

In 2014, she volunteered to convene and coordinate the Perth Complex Trauma Mental Health Professionals Network (MHPN), to offer opportunities for other clinicians to learn more about complex trauma. From these meetings, Sonia and Ana and Vivien discovered a shared passion for better service delivery for people with a lived experience of complex trauma; and also that they made a good team!

With the addition of a number of additional board members – notably those with better business skills than the average clinical psychologist – they started Complex Trauma WA (COTWA) in 2018 and Sonia served as founding chairperson for the first few years.

In 2023, post COVID realities made it apparent that COTWA needed a fresh approach – and fresh legs! – to continue its important work in the WA community, and she handed the baton to the new board. She remains dedicated to ensuring that all clinicians on COTWA’s Spatial Directory continue to meet Blue Knot Foundation’s international best-practice standards for trauma-trained service delivery.

Ana Santos is a registered clinical psychologist in private practice, and one of the founding members of COTWA.

She is an expert in Trauma and Psychological First Aid, and has worked with the United Nations services in Kosovo and East-Timor, as well as the Portuguese Red Cross, fire-fighters, police forces, and correctional services in this regard.

Ana is passionate about psychology, and making psychological and neuropsychological principles accessible to people in everyday contexts. She has facilitated group workshops across Europe, Africa, and Australia, and has extensive experience working with diverse populations across the life span.

Ana and her family loves singing and making music; and in between everything, she is training a much-loved Labrador Retriever puppy to become a therapy dog.

Vivien became involved with COTWA in its infancy, as it slowly differentiated from the Mental Health Professionals Network interested in Complex Trauma.

Initially trained and working as an academic, Vivien subsequently realised that her real interest lay with people and their extraordinary capacity to survive. As a scientist and clinician, Vivien’s growth has always included a focus on the impact of complex trauma – in particular, the ways in which different traumata at different ages affect the growing individual, their developmental trajectory, and their sense of self; and secondly, the protective factors which seem to mitigate what would often appear to be almost indescribable horrors.

Vivien is a member of the management committee for the Australian Association for Infant Mental Health (AAIMH). In addition to her clinical experience over 25 years, many more years of life experience of all sorts, a passion to understand the human condition, and an ability to walk alongside those who need a hand; Vivien is passionate about the prevention of harm to children.

Lynn has worked in the Aboriginal sector for the past 42 years, including in her role as CEO at Derby Aboriginal Health Services. She is well-known in Aboriginal communities in WA (and beyond), and also to non-Aboriginal people whose work involves Aboriginal people. She offers an invaluable perspective of life in Aboriginal communities across decades – not only as a survivor, advocate, and service provider; but also as it pertains to the influence of various political parties and associated Zeitgeist, the reconciliation movement, the impact of Australia’s advancing economy, and global and national trends in technology advancements that affect Aboriginal people in particular ways. Lynn works from a positive, strengths-based position. She is collaborative, and believes that people can only achieve great things by working together – without blame – for a common purpose. She is a good listener, forward-thinking, inclusive, and she looks for the good in people. 

Lynn is a bit of a workaholic, and she never really ‘stops’. She has recently moved back to Bunbury, but her roots run deep in the Kimberley and she still regularly visits her mother in Derby.