Principals

Carolyn Cousins, MSW, MEd (Adult), Dip Mgt, MACSW

Carolyn Cousins holds Masters Degrees in both Social Work and Adult Education, as well as a Diploma of Management. She has published in relation to children at risk, domestic violence and also the quality of service provision and management. She is an article and book reviewer for a number of journals in the UK. She is currently undertaking a Masters in Applied Neuroscience and Mental Health.

She was the recipient of a Creswick Foundation Fellowship to the Tavistock and Portman NHS in North London, where she furthered her research and interest in the specialist areas of Group Supervision, Infant Observation and Worker Self Reflection.

With a background in the fields of child protection, domestic violence and mental health having held frontline, specialty and management posts in both Australia and the UK, she is passionate about equipping workers and services to deliver high quality and be utilizing the most up to date research and approaches.

Quality supervision is an area of professional passion and Carolyn has published in this area, runs training programs and has developed supervision models for a range of agencies in the health and welfare sectors. She provides clinical supervision to a range of teams including Domestic Violence Teams, Adult, Child, and Perinatal Mental Health Teams, Homelessness teams, Child Protection teams, Aboriginal Infant and Family Health teams, and a range of government and non-government family support services. She also undertakes independent specialist Court assessments for Community Services, often in relation to complex cumulative harm, emotional harm and domestic violence, including Parenting Capacity Assessment, Complex Carer reviews as well as Adoption and Guardianship Assessments.

She partners with an indigenous colleague to research and train in the area of trauma and advocate for systemic change for indigenous communities and has also worked with faith-based communities to address child protection and domestic violence concerns.

Carolyn is currently the Convenor of the Clinical Division of the Australian College of Social Work, a part of the Australian Association of Social Workers that is about promoting Advanced Social Work Practice.

Simon Ashley-Binge, MSW, MBA, Dip Youth & Community

Simon holds a Masters in Business Administration, a Masters in Social Work and a Diploma in Youth and Community Work. Having worked in London for most of his career in the fields of Youth Justice, Child Protection and then Senior Management and Consultancy posts, he relocated to Australia in 2010 and took up a post managing a headspace young people’s mental health service.

Joining Tuned In Consulting in 2014, Simon brings a wealth of management, coaching and consultancy experience. He was nominated to become a specialist consultant for the ‘Centre for Excellent Outcomes’ (C4EO) government program in the UK, and undertook Service Evaluations and Reviews across the country. This was in partnership with Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), Research in Practice and the National Children’s Bureau.

Services he previously managed were also been written up as best practice by the UK government Green Paper Review in the UK and later formed the basis of the Targeted Youth Support Model. Simon provides focussed and goal orientated management development (mentoring / coaching) to managers and organisational business development services, and is able to develop strategic intervention plans to bring about organisational change / organisational culture shifts.

Simon is a Department of Communities and Justice approved Independent Assessor and approved Step-By-Step Assessor in relation to complex carer assessments, carer reviews and parental capacity assessment. He is also a trained Guardianship and Adoption Assessor.

Published Papers

Cousins, C. (2021) ":Aiming for Safety: Exploring Potential Dynamics within Line Managed Supervision":, Australian Counselling Research Journal, Volume 15, Issue 2, pp.14-21.

Book Chapter. Cousins, C. (2021) “Managing conflict and challenging processes in supervision”, in O’Donoghue, K. & Engelbrecht, L. (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work Supervision, Routledge Press, London.

Cousins, C. (2020) Are you getting what you need from Supervision?, Australian Counselling Research Journal, Vol.14 (1), 10-15.

Cousins, C. (2019) Supervising Social Workers in Involuntary Contexts: Some Considerations, Australian Social Work, DOI: 10.1080/0312407X.2019.1695867

Cousins, C. & Duffy, D. (2019) Ensuring we consider Adverse Childhood Experiences: Re-working a social work tool, Social Work in Focus, Vol. 4(2), pp. 32-34.

Ashley-Binge, S. & Cousins, C. (2019) Individual and Organisational Practices Addressing Social Workers’ Experiences of Vicarious Trauma, Practice: Social Work in Action, DOI: 10.1080/09503153.2019.1620201

Cousins, C. (2018) Case Closure: An under-examined part of the case management cycle, Developing Practice, Vol.49, pp.86-96.

Cousins, C. (2018) Parallel Process in Domestic Violence Services: Are we doing harm?, Australian Counselling Research Journal, Vol. 12 (1) 23-28.

Lawrie, R. & Cousins, C. (2018) Reclaiming Our Safe Ways of Parenting: How trauma research is supporting Aboriginal ways of child rearing, Social Work in Focus, Autumn Edition, pp 36-37.

Cousins, C. (2016) Well Supervised Contact: An overlooked part of the Restoration Puzzle, Social Work in Focus, Vol.1, No.4, p28.

Cousins, C. (2016) Taking Care not to Paternalise Victims of Domestic and Family Violence, Social Work in Focus, Vol.1, No.3, pp.14-16.

Cousins, C. (2016) The Potential Impacts of Becoming a Parent on Practice. Children Australia, 41, pp 106-113

Cousins, C. (2010) "Treat Me Don't Beat Me" ... Exploring Supervisory Games and Their Effect on Poor Performance Management, Practice: Social Work in Action.

Cousins, C. (2010) Spreading the Case load: use in the UK, Community Care, September 2010.

Cousins, C. and Yaya, B. (2010) Tried and Tested Workload Management Allocation Tools, Community Care, September 2010.

Cousins, C. (2005) Short term placements and secondments: an exercise in organisational cultural change Australian Journal of Public Administration, Vol.64, Issue 4, pp. 81- 89.

Cousins, C. (2005) The Rule of Optimism: Dilemmas in embracing a strength based approach in child protection work, Children Australia, Vol.30, No.2, pp. 28 – 32.

Cousins, C. (2005) But the parent is trying: the dilemmas workers face when children are at risk from parental substance use in Child Abuse Prevention Newsletter, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Vol.13, No.1, pp. 3 - 7.

Baxter,S. & Cousins, C. (2004) "Linking Child Abuse and Domestic Violence with Animal Cruelty", Central Coast Practice XChange, A worker’s journal, Vol.1, pp. 21- 23.

Cousins, C. (2004) "When is it Serious Enough? The protection of children of parents with a mental health problem, tough decisions and avoiding a 'martyred' child", Australian e-Journal for the Advancement of Mental Health Vol. 3 Issue 2.

Cousins, C & Toussaint, S. (2004) "You wrote what!?….dangers and dilemmas in record keeping", Developing Practice, Vol.10, pp.38 - 45.

Cousins, C. (2004) "Becoming a Social Work Supervisor: A significant Role Transition", in Australian Social Work, Vol.57, No.2, pp.175 - 185.

Cousins, C. (2004) "Where the Explanation Doesn't fit the Injury", in Child Abuse Prevention Newsletter, Australian Institute of Family Studies, Vol.11, No.2, pp. 4 - 13.

Cousins, C. (2003) "The Will to Learn, Not just Teach: challenges and considerations for Educators of Aboriginal Adults", in Australian Journal of Adult Learning, Volume 43, No.1, pp. 101 - 114.

Cousins, C. (2002) "Getting to the Truth: Issues in contemporary qualitative research", in Australian Journal of Adult Learning, Volume 42, No.2, pp. 192 - 204.

Conference Presentations

Cousins, C. (2019) The Systemic Failure to work with parents post the removal of their children, AASW National Symposium, Adelaide.

Cousins, C. (2019) What is Clinical Social Work in an Australian Context, Australian College of Social Work Session, AASW National Symposium, Adelaide.

Cousins, C. (2018) Blurred Lines: Exploring the impact of Organisationally based Vicarious Trauma on clinicians and clinical practice in supervision, Australian Clinical Supervision Association Conference, Melbourne.

Cousins, C. (2018) The Third Contract: Issues of Employer Curiosity, Expectations and the Ethics of Confidentiality in Employer Funded External Clinical Supervision, Australian Clinical Supervision Association Conference, Melbourne.

Cousins, C. & Lawrie, R. (2017) Advocating for new understandings of Closing the Gap: The underlying impact of collective trauma in Aboriginal Communities, AASW National Symposium, Hobart.

Cousins, C. (2016) Keynote Address: Children’s Voices in Domestic Violence, Connextions Conference, Erina.

Cousins, C. (2016) Parallel Process: Taking Care to avoid a slide from empowerment towards paternalism in Domestic and Family Violence responses, Connextions Conference, Erina.

Cousins, C. (2015) “Uncovering Your Personal Practice Model”, National AASW Symposium, Sydney.

Cousins, C. (2015) “Ensuring Young Children are ‘heard’: Infant Observation principles in family work”, Child Inclusive Practice Forum, Brisbane.

Cousins, C. (2014) Considering Sexualised Behaviours in Context, Child Protection Week Keynote Address, Westmead Children’s Hospital.

Cousins, C. (2014) “Managing Up: A Key Worker Survival Skill?” ACWA Conference, August 2014, Sydney.

Cousins, C. (2014) “Are you OK? The subtle shift from client to worker care in the human services”, ACWA Conference, August 2014, Sydney.

Cousins, C. (2013) Ensuring Young Children are ‘heard’: Purposeful Infant Observation principles in assessing ‘good enough’ parenting, Child Aware Approaches Conference, Melbourne.

Cousins, C. (2009) “Loss, grief and tantrums: the 'dilemma' of an emotional foster carer in an age of professionalisation”, BASPCAN 7th National Congress: Changing Landscapes, Emerging Challenges Contemporary issues in safeguarding children and young people, Swansea, Wales.

Cousins, C.(2007) “Exploring the ‘Why?’ of Case work decisions in child protection.” XIth ISPCAN European Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, Lisbon, Portugal.

Cousins, C. “It is sad, but it is not my job… Examining factors that lead health care professionals to an acceptance of their child protection responsibilities.” XIth ISPCAN European Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect, Lisbon, Portugal.

Cousins, C. (2006) "Overcoming interagency conflict: the benefit of assisting workers exam the theoretical underpinnings of both their work and their agency context." IPSCAN XVIth International Child Abuse and Neglect Conference, Children in a Changing World: Getting it Right, York, England.

As an Australian-based company, Tuned In Consulting recognises the traditional owners of the land on which we work and pay our respects to elders, past and present.