Mildura High and Complex (Support) Needs Workshop

Multi-symptom, multi-problem, multi-system presentations across all forms of service delivery has increased dramatically in recent years. Practitioners at all levels of training and practice working in this complex space often feel they are either sinking amidst the diverse needs and demands or struggling to make a difference in the lives of their clients. Why is service delivery becoming more complex?

In 2000, in Australia (and the Western world) the walls of the old mental health, disability, and correctional institutions came down with an exodus of children, adolescents and adults into consulting rooms, classrooms, families, boarding houses, and the streets; a changed world of high and complex (support) needs clients who require extraordinary clinical, socio-emotional, and practical support.

High and complex (support) needs are individual and systemic - located in a complex web of human services, health, education, justice, and disability systems - and present agencies and practitioners with significant clinical, and ethical dilemma. This is the focus of service delivery and therapeutic practice - where inequality, diversity, difference, technology and sexuality converge. Service delivery systems are now stretched and therapeutic models not fit for purpose.

This workshop will present a comprehensive methodology for clinical practice and service delivery with high and complex (support) needs children, adolescents, adults, and families. The focus will be on the practices and protocols agencies, schools, and practitioners can use to produce genuine inclusion and participation and make a real difference to intractable problems and symptoms - by dealing with the fundamental inequalities that constrain responsibility, inclusion, participation, and collaboration in clinical practice and service delivery.

Participants will have the opportunity to address clinical problems and symptoms in real world circumstances.

This workshop is suitable for anyone working in therapeutic practice or service delivery in health, human services, education, justice, and mental health.

The workshop is part of a major commitment Bower Place has made to developing therapeutic practice, service delivery, and training in Riverland SA, Victoria and NSW.

When: Monday 17 November 2025

Time: 9.30am - 4.30pm

Where: The Quest, Mildura

Cost: $360+GST per person - includes catering and 6-month licence*

CPD Hours: 8 Hours (Certificate of Attendance issued on Completion)

Licence*: authorizing participants to use the bower(note) protocol for complexity and crisis (includes 6-month subscription to bower(knowledge) – a regularly curated knowledge and resource reference for practitioners and workers in health, education, human services, community organisations, justice and NDIS).

Bower Place (1986)

Bower Place is a twenty-first century knowledge organisation with expertise in all forms of high and complex (support) needs in mental health, human services, education, and justice, especially in paediatric and perinatal mental health. Bower Place has deep clinical and system knowledge and an intimate grasp of the constraints this complicated relationship presents for agencies and practitioners.

Bower Place develops protocols, facilitates research, conducts training, and delivers services in high-end clinical practice and case management in psychology, psychiatry, social work, family therapy, dispute resolution and NDIS Specialist Support Coordination.

Bower Place is physically located in Adelaide with national and international reach including training psychologists, psychiatrists and psychotherapists throughout India. Bower Place’s global electronic delivery of training and therapeutic practice is through the Complex Needs Clinic (CNC) which is a high and complex needs teaching clinic that takes a unique approach -providing in-situ training for beginning and qualified practitioners in high-end therapeutic practice.

Bower Place has partners in Australia, India, and Europe, and a major involvement in the development of software for therapeutic practice and service delivery across education, human services and health. Bower Place has made a commitment to developing services and training in the cross-border Riverland region of SA, Victoria, and NSW. Integral to this is the flexible use of sophisticated technology for hybrid face-to-face and electronic delivery.

Bower Place is a Registered Training Organization with programmes across Australia and links to numerous European and Australian Universities.

In Australia, bower(schools) delivers clinical practice and systemic training to leadership and teachers in schools across the State, Independent and Catholic education systems. Bower Place is currently dealing with schools, disability, and violence and the application of the Disability Discrimination Act.

Bower Place holds significant Intellectual Property developed from research in working with complex human matters and symptoms and has a subscription-based knowledge portal, bower(knowledge), and consults to a range of organisations providing advice, protocols and skills training in the field of human services.

Presenters:

Malcolm Robinson: Bower Place Executive Director

Expert in clinical practice with high and complex (support) needs and author of the bower(note)™ protocol used in bower(schools)™ and all clinical practice at Bower Place. Qualified Social Worker, Clinical Family Therapist, and Mediator with 50+ years therapeutic, teaching, supervision, management, and consulting experience with fractured, fragmented, families across the mental health, child protection, education, disability, justice and correctional systems – including acquired brain injury, intellectual disability, major mental health, criminal behaviour, addictions, violence, and child abuse. Malcolm teaches family therapy and systemic practice, has held numerous key positions in family therapy in Australia, and presented 400+ papers and workshops in Australia, NZ, UK, and USA.

Melissa Hopper: Bower Place Practitioner: Social Worker

Melissa is a systemically trained Social Worker and Family Therapist, with a particular interest in working with individuals and families with high and complex support needs.

Melissa has over ten years of clinical, professional and therapeutic experience working in private, government and non-government roles within the child, adolescent and adult mental health, disability, health, family and child-care services.

Melissa is a practitioner in the Bower Place Complex Needs Clinic, working therapeutically with individuals, couples, and families that present with a wide range of problems, symptoms and challenges.

Melissa assists in training practitioners at all levels of experience and expertise in the Bower Place Complex Needs Clinic.

John Karatzas: Bower Place Practitioner: Social Worker and Specialist Support Coordinator

John is a family therapy trained Accredited Mental Health Social Worker specialising in the area of multi-symptom, multi-problem, multi-system complexity.

Based in the Bower Place Complex Needs Clinic, John works with adults, children, adolescents, individuals, couples and families with a wide range of presenting problems including mental illness, addictions, emotional dysregulation, disability, relationship problems and other challenges.

John has extensive knowledge and experience of NDIS and its intersection with health, education, criminal justice and the mental health systems.

Feedback From the Last Workshop

“I thoroughly enjoyed it. Brilliant workshop!”

“Thank you for teaching me a very new and useful way of looking at coming alongside people to resolve their needs”

“Thank you for the training. It was an eye opener on how practice can be improved to work with complex patients”

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