Anna is a hugely experienced facilitator, copy writer and communications advisor. For the past four years she has been contracting to the All Right? Mental Health and Wellbeing campaign as a facilitator and advisor. Here she regularly facilitates wellbeing and mental heath workshops for businesses, organisations, schools and groups. She also writes website and resource copy and manages the Sparklers portfolio where she writes classroom content for teachers to proactively embed mental health and wellbeing learning into their everyday activities and the curriculum.
Anna is also contracted to the Ministry of Education delivering their Incredible Years programmes in Christchurch and is currently co-designing an app alongside the Canterbury District Health Board and University of Auckland Department of Psychological Medicine. The app is focused on supporting children’s wellbeing and self regulation skills.
Developing and designing training, seminars and workshops alongside organisational needs is a passion for Anna. She always includes honest accounts of her own self-learning and experiences, humour and dynamic, energized activities. Her trade secret is she originally trained as an actor at the New Zealand College of Performing Arts and worked with The Improvisers delivering corporate training before extending her skill base and graduating in psychology. These mix of skills and education are invaluable and certainly contribute to her reputation as a thought-provoking, fun and engaging facilitator.
Facilitator, resource developer and communications specialist, EAP. BA Hons (Psych, Eng) (Canterbury) Te Reo Māori, Arowhenua Marae. PGDip, (Perf Art and Media), (NZ College of Performing Arts)
Anna works across Social Services, Health and Education educating and supporting staff, parents, teachers and children in terms of understanding, managing and improving their mental health and wellbeing.
She has specialised with the All Right? campaign in post-quake mental health and wellbeing, especially in terms of family, whānau and community connections. She is advocates that people are experts in their own wellbeing, they just might not know that yet!
She has written content for national and localised health and wellbeing focussed websites achieving up to 25,000 page views in one month. She has developed wellbeing resources on behalf of government organisations and All Right? which have also been hugely popular and needed to be reprinted, and one such resource Tiny Adventures has now been redeveloped into an app in order to keep up with its demand.
Anna is a creative thinker - she loves working inside of a co-design process developing content, resources, workshops and presentations which genuinely engage people from all walks of life. Her qualifications across English and Psychology paired with her performance background ensure she always brings something new and compelling with her.
Anna certainly has a great deal of expertise as a facilitator running groups, workshops, seminars and programmes on behalf of the Ministry of Education and All Right? for businesses, organisations, schools, conferences and local community groups. This is the work she loves.
Anna has recently been asked to write a book focussed on parent and child wellbeing alongside Dr Dean Sutherland at the University of Canterbury. She is thrilled with this opportunity and intends to begin this in the new year.
