I am Patrycja (Patricia) Toczek, a qualified accredited Mental Health Social Worker with 15 years’ experience in the clinical mental health field and trauma-orientated practise. I am a professional member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and Australian Association of Family Therapists.

I have extensive clinical practice experience in public mental health and private mental health setting working with adults in different clinical settings with a diversity of clients and their families experiencing a variety of complex issues including: impact of mental illness, co-existence of other co-morbidities including: drug & alcohol, disability, psycho-social and broader systemic issues.

For the last 15 years I have been working in the field of public mental health (NWMH) in a variety of different clinical roles. In my current role I provide support to social workers with different level of experience (from entry level positions to senior roles) working in different clinical settings including: inpatient unit, community teams and rehabilitation unit.

I am registered business owner and accredited mental health social worker running my own counselling practise toczek counselling providing counselling services to individuals/ couples and families. For more details please refer to: https://www.toczekcounselling.net/

My professional experience also includes: working in a private mental hospital (Victoria Clinic) as a DBT group facilitator and individual DBT therapist. In early stages of my my work as a social workers i spent 5 years working in a community based organisation (Australian Multicultural Community Services) coordinating volunteers and projects focusing on providing equitable access to people of non-English speaking background.

I am currently in a leadership position supporting the social work team in one of the busy and rapidly growing health care systems contributing towards improving the quality, efficiency and effectiveness of mental health services. My role include: provision of supervision to social workers at all level of practise, coordination of social work educational and training activities, staff recruitment and retention, coordination and participation in quality improvement projects and chairing meeting dedicated to the area of Safety and Inclusion and fostering collaboration between clinical and non-clinical sector.

In my work I utilise a range of therapeutic approaches and intervention strategies. A lot of my training modalities are focused on attachment, trauma, personality disorder and systemic work. Some of my training include: ACT, ACT with trauma, Advanced DBT training, EMDR (beginners and advanced), Havening, Internal Family Systems (beginner and advanced). I am a qualified family therapist (The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University). I have advanced training in managing clients with dual diagnosis of substance use and mental health. My work is characterised by a client-centred strength approach drawing on the individuals’ resources through trustful, reliable and authentic relationships focused on individual's goals.

In my current role, I support over 35 social workers, working in different clinical settings, in their delivery of care, improved clients’ outcomes and quality of life. My mission is empowerment and I enjoy supporting the social workers I supervise. to deliver the best quality of care to our clients while they preserve their self-care as part of the process. This helps us maintain the enthusiasm, commitment and dedication to our work while keeping both personal and organisational perspective in mind.

Good quality supervision as a way of meaningfully supporting our workforce is something that I am professionally committed to and am passionate about fully understanding some of the challenges of work we do while working alongside some most disadvantaged and vulnerable populations.

I am trained and experienced in different models of professional supervision, critical debriefing practise, trauma and theories of organisational change. Some of my most relevant training includes:

Advanced Supervision Training Facilitated 6 days training | La Trobe University, Melbourne| 2021 Advanced Practise Series in Supervision in Family Violence NO To Violence, August 2020 Trauma & Critical Incident Debriefing and Stress Interventions 5 day training organised at Royal Melbourne Hospital and conducted by Dr Rob Gordon Oct-Nov 2022 Managing and Leading Change |Melbourne School of Business | 2022 AASW CPD training: “Managing unconscious bias” and “Leading teams in social work practice” | 2021 Comprehensive Risk Assessment and Leadership -Alignment training | MARAM | 2021 Certificate IV in Project Management |Australian Institute of Management, Melbourne | September 2022