Centre for Excellence in Therapeutic Care
Meet Our Team
Director
Janise is the Deputy CEO of ACF and Director of the Centre. She completed a Masters of Social Work in 2008 in which she researched the implementation of therapeutic foster care in Victoria. In doing so she researched best practice elements in therapeutic models of care and looked at the change process required to move an existing way of delivering care to a therapeutic model of service delivery. Janise has 30 years’ experience in the field of child protection and therapeutic care. She has extensive experience consultancy to governments and organisations, policy analysis, program development and evaluation. Janise is the lead editor of a Handbook on Therapeutic Care to be published in September 2019 by Jessica Kingsley.
Director of Research
Dr McPherson brings a strong professional and academic background in child protection and out of home care spanning more than 30 years in practice, management, training and research. She has considerable research and organisational consultancy experience, including but not limited to evaluation of therapeutic care programs, numerous organisational consultancy and development projects and leadership, supervision and change management. In 1997, she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to examine international best practice in child protection. In 2017 Dr McPherson and Noel Macnamara released a book ‘Supervising Child Protection Practice: What Works?’ An Evidence Informed Approach. This book was published and distributed internationally by Springer Publishers. Alongside Dr Lynne McPherson is an SCU based Research Team: Kathomi Gatwiri - Senior Research Officer (SCU) Nadine Cameron - Research Officer (SCU) Natalie Parmenter - Research Assistant (SCU)
Professional Education and Training Manager
Marina Dickson is the Executive Manager, Professional Education Services at ACF and the Professional Education and Training Manager in the Centre. Marina has 25 years’ experience in child welfare and professional education and training. Marina has been responsible for the development of a range of training programs and courses developed specifically to meet the needs of the child protection and out of home care workforce including the Graduate Certificate in Developmental Trauma.
Senior Advisor
Noel is currently the Executive Manager, Research and Policy at ACF and will undertake the Senior Advisor in the Centre. Noel brings 30 years of experience to the Centre in therapeutic out of home care and child protection having worked in operational and senior management roles, policy and organisational consultancy. In 2013, Noel’s contribution to the field was acknowledged in his being awarded the Robin Clark Award in Victoria for his contribution to the field of child protection and out of home care. He has a particular interest in supervision and leadership and organisational development.