Human Approach team
Allied health, with a difference
Health and community support systems are complex, and if you’ve been receiving NDIS assistance for any length of time, you’ll know what we mean!
As a team, we are most interested in supporting you to have a positive experience in your life. We each offer support from a range of disciplines, and our intake workers assist to match you to a team member with an approach that will work for you. It’s not always easy to share details of your life with a new service, or a new worker. So don’t be shy in letting us know the kind of person you feel may be a good fit.
Our team include the following fields of practice and interests: Social work, psychology, art therapy, developmental education, and carer counsellors. We hope to expand our services in time, and would be very interested to hear about services that matter most to you.
Led by lived experience
Our Director, Tania Curlis is a Social Worker with advocacy experience, with a passion for assisting people to find their way in complex community and health systems. She has worked extensively for over a decade with carers and families, and people with invisible disability, drawing from her own personal and family experience.
Her deep relationships in the disability and mental health sector ensure access to information that is accurate and up to date, which enables you to make informed decisions in utilising your funded supports.
Our values
Our approach is client centred, and family-inclusive. Supporting human rights in invisible disability and carer support matters to us. We share knowledge, pursue ongoing team professional development, and support each other to foster a culture of team wellbeing. At Human Approach we know that when we support each other as a team well, we can each be most effective in our support to you. Each of us are driven to see our clients experience life on their own terms.
We actively listen, reflect, and engage in personal development and professional supervision, to ensure an attentive and engaged experience for all clients.
We model healthy boundaries. We will provide consistent support and be available in a timely way, offering a range of ways to connect and work together to suit your preferences. We are not a crisis service, but we recognise that the mental health system is in crisis, and the pressure this places on us all as clients, families and professionals.
Invisible disability matters
Human Approach is committed to contributing to systemic advocacy. This means we work towards true belonging in the community for people with disability, or chronic health and their families, and toward greater compassion for people with mental ill-health and distress.
We collaborate with professionals and organisations who are affirming of neurodivergence. We don’t talk about ‘the spectrum’ and don’t view Autism as a disorder, but an identity and an experience. We focus on strengths in every day life with you, yet appreciate that health systems require us to also talk about risks and difficulties when seeking funding. We will create reports based on what you are comfortable to share and seek your opinion and feedback.
We stand as allies with people with lived experience of trauma, phenomena of voice hearing or diverse experiences of wellbeing, mental ill-health. We recognise the political and social disadvantage that comes with living with psychological distress, and have compassion and respect, and high regard for individuals living this in their daily experience.
We recognise not everyone identifies with a diagnosis, and invite you to ‘come as you are’. We are committed to learning about you, and being thoughtful in our use of language you prefer, to describe your health and life situation, and gender identity.
The language we use to describe mental health matters. Language shapes relationships, and perpetuates stigma and disadvantage. If we do cause harm or create offence in any way, please help us understand - this is where change takes place and we are willing to learn.
We support people with lived experience as a priority group in our hire of staff, and our selection of students who engage us for student placement.
We contribute to change within government policy and legislation. We want to ensure the frameworks and methods we utilise do no harm, and fit people’s real life needs and barriers. So we represent community needs to government directly through policy submissions and participation in advisory and reference groups. We network with community leaders who can influence change for the better.