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Health, emergency and community services

For teams who carryother people's trauma.

Caseworkers, nurses, paramedics, teachers and NGO staff carry exposure that most workplace programs aren't built for. Unbound Minds psychologists already work one to one with people in these roles. That clinical experience shapes every program we run.

Who we work with

  • Hospitals and health services
  • Ambulance and emergency services
  • Child protection and community services
  • Schools and education
  • NGOs and peak bodies

Where we help

Vicarious trauma
Secondary traumatic stress
Compassion fatigue
Critical incidents
Clinical supervision

What we help with

Built around the exposure itself.

The brief is rarely wellbeing in the abstract. It's the exposure that decides whether good people stay in the work or leave it.

Vicarious trauma and secondary stress

Assessment, 1:1 psychological care and reflective practice for staff who carry other people's trauma, week after week.

After a critical incident

Psychological first aid, follow-up and care for the people most affected, then a clear plan back to normal work.

Clinical supervision and reflective practice

External supervision for senior staff, group reflective practice for frontline teams, and support for your own supervisors.

Workforce risk and work design

Caseload, rostering, supervision and leadership. The conditions that decide whether exposure turns into injury.

The framework, applied

Five phases, built around exposure.

See the full framework →
  1. 1

    Diagnose

    Where exposure is building up, and which controls are holding.

  2. 2

    Design

    Caseload, supervision and post-incident plans your leaders can run.

  3. 3

    Deploy

    1:1 care from psychologists who already know this work.

  4. 4

    Develop

    Supervisors and team leaders ready for the hard conversations.

  5. 5

    Demonstrate

    De-identified reporting for your executive, board and funder.

Why teams choose us

Clinical depth that wasalready here.

We didn't build a trauma program and then look for clients. Our psychologists were already treating the people you employ.

That's the difference between reading about vicarious trauma and treating it. Evaluators can meet the senior clinicians who would lead your work.

Built on direct clinical experience

Our psychologists already see caseworkers, health staff, teachers and first responders, one to one.

Prevention first

We look at caseload, supervision and leadership before adding services on top.

Where the work happens

Reflective practice in your team rooms. Supervision that fits your rosters. Care at our locations or online.

One practice behind every program

When a situation is complex, the referral stays inside one team, with the same supervision and standards.

Questions

What agencies ask us first.

What is vicarious trauma, and how is it different to burnout?

Burnout builds when demands outweigh resources for too long. Vicarious trauma is the cost of repeated exposure to other people's trauma as part of the job. It needs a different response. We treat it as a workplace exposure to control at the source, with clinical care when it's needed, not as something staff should just push through.

How is this different to an EAP?

An EAP sits on the edge of your organisation as a phone number, and people carrying trauma exposure are often the least likely to call it. We work inside the organisation. Our psychologists learn your work, your supervision model and your teams.

How do you handle confidentiality?

Before any program starts, we agree in writing where the limits are, such as statutory reporting duties, and explain them to staff. Reporting to you is de-identified and grouped. What someone says in a session stays between them and their psychologist, within the law.

Will this replace our internal supervision?

No. We fit around what already works. That might be external supervision for senior staff, support for your own supervisors, a review of your supervision model, or clinical depth when a situation goes beyond your in-house team.

What does an engagement look like?

Most start with a diagnostic of four to six weeks, then a roadmap for your executive sponsor. Training and clinical care run side by side. You get quarterly briefings and an annual outcomes report, with a named senior clinician leading the work.

Can you deliver PHN-commissioned programs?

Yes. We scope work to your commissioning deliverables, report against your evaluation framework and deliver to milestones. We're also glad to partner with organisations you already commission.

Go beyond a 1300 EAP line

Bring a clinical team into the work.

Book a 30-minute call. We'll ask what your teams are carrying, what you already have in place, and where we might help.