Catherine (Cay) Camden is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with a Graduate Diploma in Psychology. Cay currently works as a student counsellor at a large secondary college in Sydney’s North. Cay is the Convener of the AIS School Counsellors Education Committee and has been a sessional lecturer at UNSW, in the School of Women’s & Children’s Health since 2002 providing an international web-based program. Cay has also lectured and tutored at USyd & UWS in psychology, sociology, group communication, personality & health, organisational psychology and communication skills training. In addition to her other areas of work, Cay has a mobile counselling practice and rooms at Lane Cove, specialising in grief bereavement, as well as anxiety and depression in children and adolescents. Cay has been a consultant & presenter of The Resilience Doughnut since its inception, offering topics related to resilience and well being to 1000’s of parents and students over NSW and WA.
Previously, Cay was a senior social worker in paediatric palliative care/bereavement, at The Children’s Hospital, Westmead, focusing on grief and bereavement counselling and program formation for individuals, families and groups. Cay won a large Federal Government Grant to promote communication skill training among professionals working with children who were terminally ill. This education program was well received in Australia, New Zealand and New York. Cay moved on to be a primary school counsellor, in the Diocese of Broken Bay covering 6 primary schools on the North Shore. Here Cay facilitated The Cool Kids Program; Chilled; 1-2-3 Magic; Stop, Think, Do; Seasons for Growth; Seeing Red; Friends for Life; Get Lost Mr. Scary and lastly, The Resilience Doughnut Program. Cay strongly believes current research has shown that mutual aid group programs covering topics like anger management, anxiety, depression, grief, and resilience-building, produce healthier psychologically adaptive, positive children, who as a result, then learn better.