ABOUT YVONNE

Yvonne Sadgrove has over 30 years of experience working with children and families as an Educator, Counsellor, Case Manager and Therapeutic Specialist. She began her career as an Early Childhood teacher and has worked in preschool and childcare centres as well as infants and primary school. She has spent many years working as an educator at NSW TAFE, teaching child studies subjects to students from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Yvonne’s interest in social justice and understanding the relationships between children and their parents and carers lead her on a path of pursuing holistic counselling and psychotherapy at Metavision Institute in the Southern Highlands of NSW. This later lead to a Master of Social Work at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. Yvonne is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).

Yvonne spent nearly 5 years as a Family and Relationship counsellor and parent education facilitator at Centacare Southwest NSW. Yvonne has over 15 years experience working with NGOs who provide services to children, families and carers who have experienced significant social barriers, some of which were Foster or Kinship care or were at risk of being taken into the child protection system. 

Yvonne’s deep sense of curiosity has informed her passion to deeply understand what is happening when a family experiences difficulties with parenting, which may be displayed through a child with behavioural challenges or issues with stages of development.

Yvonne understands that there are many societal pressures that impact on a family and how it handles the stress of meeting perceived expectations. Her experience and knowledge on the neurobiology of developmental trauma, that is how the growing brain is affected by a variety of significant environmental, physical and emotional stressors, underpins her work in supporting parents and carers to understand and build empathy and compassion for their children.  Part of this parenting journey is to learn how to become reflective of our own childhood experiences and how the way we were parented affects how we engage in this very important job for the children in our care.