Dr Sherryn Tobin (she/her)

Registration No. PSY0001129853

Dr Tobin completed a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Swinburne University in 2015. Since completing her studies, she has undertaken subsequent training in evidence-based interventions, including Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) and Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR). Dr Tobin is a Board registered Supervisor.

Dr Tobin is a Clinical Psychologist with over twenty years’ experience working with infants, children and families across clinical and research settings. She is known for centring the voices of infants, children and young people in her work, and for developing therapeutic relationships grounded in respect, humility and transparency.

Dr Tobin understands that children, young people, caregivers and families do the best they can. At times, however, cumulative pressures and life experiences can become overwhelming, impacting wellbeing, relationships and everyday functioning. As such, Dr Tobin prioritises developing a thorough understanding of her clients. This includes getting to know their interests, how they spend their time, and their thoughts and feelings about themselves, their relationships and the world around them. Through collaboration, Dr Tobin supports clients to identify clear and meaningful goals about what they would like to be different and what they would like support to change. She aims to help unburden children and young people by reducing worries and challenges, while also building on strengths and positive experiences, supporting them to thrive.

Dr Tobin has extensive experience working within multidisciplinary teams across hospital settings and not-for-profit organisations. She has worked at the Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) in various roles, including within the Pathways to Good Health Program, where she completed clinical assessments for children and young people entering foster care, kinship care, and residential care. She also worked as a Senior Clinical Psychologist within the RCH Psychology Service, providing clinical care to children and families adjusting to medical conditions and new diagnoses, as well as providing supervision to clinical staff and postgraduate psychology students.

Since 2015, Dr Tobin has worked at Berry Street within various clinical programs in the Take Two service. This has included roles as a clinician in the Intensive Therapeutic Program, providing therapy to children and young people in the care of Child Protection, and as a Senior Clinician within the Northern Healing and Recovery Program, which provides therapeutic support to victim-survivors of family violence. Dr Tobin currently works as a Statewide Consultant within the Knowledge Team at Berry Street, where she provides consultation for complex cases and contributes to knowledge translation and capacity building in the area of therapeutic interventions for complex trauma.

Dr Tobin is passionate about working with infants, children, young people, caregivers and families experiencing a range of mental health challenges, including difficulties related to:

· Trauma (including single incident, chronic developmental and medical trauma), neglect and family violence

· Dissociation (feeling disconnected from emotions, self, others or the environment), anxiety, depression, phobias, grief and loss

· Identity, including self-esteem, sexuality and gender

· Relationships, including peer relationships, parent–child relationships and broader family relationships

Dr Tobin draws on a range of evidence-based approaches to guide her work, with a particular focus on attachment, developmental, trauma-informed, systems-based, somatic (body-based) and culturally informed frameworks. She specialises in Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR; https://emdraa.org/learn-about-emdr/) and Child Parent Psychotherapy (CPP; https://childparentpsychotherapy.com/), and incorporates play-based approaches, art-therapy techniques and body-based regulation strategies within her work.

In addition, Dr Tobin has experience in the following therapeutic modalities: Family Therapy, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Narrative Therapy.