A small team, deliberately.
Everyone here works across the same story. So your family isn't handed between strangers as it moves through the stages.
Portia
Portia founded Anoshe to build the practice she kept looking for and couldn't find, one where a family's cultural context isn't a footnote at the end of the intake form. She holds the practice's family and couples therapy work, the throughline across every chapter of the story.
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She is also the author of Roots vs Routes, the decolonial family therapy framework the practice's clinical and educational work is built on, alongside assessment, diagnosis and treatment across the lifespan.
AHPRARegistered Nurse
PACFACertified Practising Counsellor
ACMHNCredentialed Mental Health Nurse
ACNPMember
AAFTMember- Registration
- Registered Nurse with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, working under a Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (Transitional) scope, and a Credentialed Mental Health Nurse with the Australian College of Mental Health Nurses.
- Therapy qualification
- Master of Clinical Family Therapy, and a Registered Clinical Counsellor with PACFA. Family and couples therapy scope sits with Portia alone across the practice.
- Education
- Master of Advanced Clinical Nursing (Nurse Practitioner), Monash University , due Mar 2027 Master of Clinical Family Therapy, La Trobe University , 2013 Master of Nursing (Mental Health), Monash University , 2010 Bachelor of Nursing, Northumbria University , 2003
- Professional memberships
- Credentialed Mental Health Nurse, Australian College of Mental Health Nurses , issued Jan 2024, current to Jan 2027 Registered Clinical Counsellor and Clinical Member, Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA), also registered as a Professional Counsellor Member, Australian College of Nurse Practitioners (ACNP) Member, Australian Association of Family Therapy (AAFT) Registered Nurse, Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
- Clinical scope
- Mental health assessment, diagnosis and treatment planning across the lifespan. Prescribing and medication review within nurse practitioner scope.
- Further training
- EMDR Part 2, Trauma Recovery Network Australia , 12 hours training and 12 hours practicum, delivered by an EMDRAA Accredited Trainer, June 2025. Introductory workshop completed Dec 2023.
- Roots vs Routes
- Author of the practice’s decolonial family therapy framework, published with a DOI. Read the framework
- Languages
- Also speaks Shona.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Medicare rebates are available under a GP chronic condition management plan, and for non-directive pregnancy counselling. Your GP will need to have the plan in place and this service named in it before your appointment.
Rebates do not apply to family or couples sessions. Prices are shown per clinician before you book in Cliniko.
Dr Paschal Alexander
Dr Paschal Alexander is an Australian-trained psychiatrist working with adults, most often with depression, anxiety and the effects of trauma. He practises psychiatry as a conversation rather than a prescription. Unusually among psychiatrists he offers psychotherapy himself, short-term or over a longer course, which means he can stay in the room for the parts medication was never going to answer.
A booking with our psychiatrist follows a comprehensive assessment with one of our clinicians first. This isn't a formality. It means Dr Alexander starts from a full picture of you and your story, not a blank slate. How the psychiatry pathway works →
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His perinatal work holds both partners, not only the person who gave birth, which means Held can stay with families through pregnancy and the first three years rather than referring out at the point continuity matters most. He also backs the practice's nurse-practitioner-led assessment work.
Registration, accreditation and scope
- Registration
- Registered psychiatrist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
- Qualifications
- Fellow of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (FRANZCP). Master of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne.
- Clinical scope
- Psychiatric assessment, diagnosis and treatment planning. Medication review and prescribing. Formulation is built together with the treating clinician and the family, so people receive one shared account of what is going on rather than a separate opinion handed down.
- Perinatal scope
- Holds an interest in perinatal mental health and works within that scope, including medication decisions in pregnancy and while breastfeeding, and higher-acuity perinatal presentations. Where a presentation calls for subspecialist perinatal psychiatry, it is referred on.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Medicare rebates are available with a valid GP referral to a psychiatrist. Please bring your referral to your first appointment.
Deb
Deb is a Nurse Practitioner Candidate and psychotherapist specialising in multicultural mental health and trauma-informed care. She works with individuals, children, and young people from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, holding their cultural identity, lived experience, and personal strengths at the centre of care, not as an add-on to it.
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Her practice draws on a holistic biopsychosocial framework, addressing the impact of migration, displacement, and social adversity alongside mental health promotion, early intervention, and trauma recovery, with a particular focus on reducing access barriers for underserved communities.
- Registration
- Registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. Currently a Nurse Practitioner Candidate, completing a Master of Nurse Practitioner at Adelaide University (due Dec 2026) and working toward endorsement.
- Education
- Master of Nurse Practitioner, Adelaide University , Jul 2023 to Dec 2026 Master of Mental Health (Psychiatric & Mental Health Nursing), Flinders University , Mar 2019 to Dec 2021 Registered Nursing (Nursing Administration, Nursing Research and Clinical Nursing), University of Eastern Africa Baraton , Sep 2003 to Dec 2007
- Therapy qualification
- Psychotherapist, specialising in multicultural mental health and trauma-informed care. Works from an integrated approach, drawing on more than one therapeutic model and shaping the work around the person rather than fitting the person to a single method.
- Clinical scope
- Mental health assessment, diagnosis and treatment planning, shared with Portia across the practice.
- Languages
- Also speaks Swahili.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Fatima
Fatima is an Arabic-speaking psychologist who works with clients in both English and Arabic. She holds assessment and intervention with adults, and works with children and young people alongside that. She brings clinical training together with an understanding of culture, faith and lived experience.
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Her professional background includes forensic and complex mental health settings, supporting people from diverse communities. Her approach is developed collaboratively with each client, with the aim of supporting change that lasts rather than change that holds only while the sessions do.
A good deal of her work happens in Arabic, which means a family does not have to translate itself before it can be understood.
- Registration
- Registered Psychologist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
- Experience
- Forensic and complex mental health settings, working with people from diverse communities.
- Clinical scope
- Psychological assessment and intervention with adults, and therapy with children and young people.
- Languages
- Works in Arabic and English.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Medicare rebates are available with a Mental Health Treatment Plan from your GP. Please bring your plan and referral to your first appointment.
Awadia
Awadia has practised for more than sixteen years, working with individuals and families across the lifespan. She draws on cognitive behavioural therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy, and narrative therapy, choosing the approach to suit the person in front of her rather than running everyone through the same one.
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Alcohol and other drug counselling is a substantial part of her work, held without judgement and alongside whatever else is going on. More recently she has extended her practice into neurodiversity, working with neurodivergent clients and the families around them.
She is multilingual, and a good deal of her work happens in the space between what a family can say in English and what they actually mean.
- Accreditation
- Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with the Australian Association of Social Workers, the credential required for Medicare-rebated mental health work.
- Education
- Certificate IV in Workplace and Business Coaching, Open Doors , Feb 2013 to Dec 2013 Bachelor of Social Work, University of Melbourne , 2006 to 2009 Diploma of Language Interpretation and Translation, RMIT University , 2006 to 2007
- Experience
- More than sixteen years working with neurodivergent people and the families around them, across the lifespan.
- Clinical scope
- Individual therapy and family support. Neuroaffirming rather than behavioural.
- Languages
- Also speaks Arabic, Tigrinya and Amharic, and is formally trained in interpreting and translation. A good deal of her work happens in the space between what a family can say in English and what they actually mean.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Medicare rebates are available with a Mental Health Treatment Plan from your GP. Please bring your plan and referral to your first appointment.
Hazel
Hazel works at the practical end of things. What a day actually looks like, and where it keeps getting stuck. Her practice is neuroaffirming rather than behavioural. The aim is a day that fits the person, not a person trained to fit the day.
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She works with children, adolescents and adults, including autistic people and people with ADHD, developmental delay, dyspraxia and Down syndrome, on fine motor and coordination, balance and gross motor skills, sensory processing across all the senses, routines, and the daily living skills that make independence possible.
Her particular interests are sensory processing, neurodivergence, chronic illness seen from the carer's side, and sexuality and intimacy, which is an area occupational therapy is well placed to hold and most services leave unaddressed. With adults she works on routine, employment and volunteering, exercise, nutrition and life skills, and she helps families assemble what they need for NDIS housing support and onward referrals. She welcomes NDIS clients, provides clinical supervision to other practitioners, and is the founder of Allied Health Professionals of Colour (AHPOC).
- Registration
- Registered Occupational Therapist with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency, qualified through the Master of Occupational Therapy Practice at Monash University.
- Education
- Master of Occupational Therapy Practice, Monash University , 2018 to 2020 Bachelor of Health Science (Health Promotion / Therapeutic Recreation), Western Sydney University , 2011 to 2014 Certificate III in Aged Care (Assistant in Nursing), Start Education , 2012
- Supervision
- Provides clinical supervision to other practitioners.
- Clinical scope
- Functional and sensory assessment, regulation, routines and daily living skills, across children, adolescents and adults. Fine motor, visuomotor and bilateral coordination, balance and gross motor skills, and sensory modulation and processing across the tactile, visual, auditory, vestibular, proprioceptive and olfactory senses. With adults, routine management, employment and volunteering, exercise, nutrition and life skills. Works as part of a multidisciplinary team and builds family capacity through training and education rather than holding the work alone. Occupational therapy assessment is functional. It describes how someone manages a day and does not diagnose a condition.
- NDIS
- Welcomes NDIS clients. Assists with gathering information for housing support and preparing reports for onward referral.
- Allied Health Professionals of Colour
- Founder of AHPOC.
- Memberships
- Occupational Therapy Australia, including the Health and Sexuality special interest group. African Professionals of Australia. African Australian Women's Association. Ghana Association of New South Wales. Australia Sickle Cell Advocacy Group.
- Languages
- Speaks Twi (Akan), French and Indonesian alongside English.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Orlando
Orlando works with young people and adults moving through the justice system, and with the families around them. Fifteen years across custodial, community and health settings in Victoria means he has usually already seen the part of the story a person expects to be judged for, and he does not mistake it for the whole of them.
His practice holds alcohol and other drugs work alongside forensic and youth justice intervention, because in his experience the two rarely arrive separately. He also works through mentoring and group facilitation rather than only one to one, and speaks and facilitates for schools, services and community organisations.
Zubia
Zubia counsels women, and particularly women holding a household across two cultures. The one who books everyone else's appointments, translates at the pharmacy, manages what gets said to family overseas, and is expected to be fine. That load is real and it is usually invisible until somebody counts it out loud.
She draws on cognitive behavioural therapy, dialectical behaviour therapy and mindfulness, choosing the approach to suit the person in front of her rather than running everyone through the same one. The aim is resilience that holds up outside the room.
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Migration reorganises who does what in a family, and it tends to land hardest on the women. Work once shared across aunts, sisters and neighbours gets compressed into one person, usually without anyone deciding it should. Add the expectation to be grateful, to cope, and not to bring trouble to the family's name, and asking for help starts to feel like a character flaw rather than a reasonable response to carrying too much. In this work that is the starting point, not something to arrive at in session six.
- Registration
- Level 2 registered counsellor with the Australian Counselling Association. Counsellor is not a protected title in Australia, so registration with a recognised body is what evidences training, supervision and ongoing professional development.
- Scope
- Individual counselling with adults. She does not diagnose, prescribe, or carry out formal assessment; where that is what someone needs, it is referred to a clinician here who holds that scope.
Registration can be checked on the public register linked above.
Meenas
Meenas is often the first person you hear from. She looks after bookings, referrals and the practical side of getting started, which on a practice like this means holding the details that decide whether therapy actually happens: whether a plan is in place, whether the funding lines up, whether the time offered is one a client can genuinely make.
She is a Biomedical Science graduate with an interest in healthcare accessibility and women's health, and has worked in client-facing roles where getting the administration right removes a barrier rather than adding one.