Research Supervisor:
Ronald Addinall

Brief Biography:
Serving Clients Since 2010.

I have completed my B. DIAC. degree in social work from Huguenot College in Wellington (2009). With an extremely practical approach in our course, I was exposed to a variety of practical environments, from rehabilitation, to child welfare, to court cases and even just applications to old age homes. Name it, it has crossed my table from my practical years up to today.

I have worked with many welfare organisations and at one stage decided to take a break and head to the academic side where I trained social auxiliary workers, community development workers as well as lay counselors. It was a privilege to facilitate training to different groups that will go out and make a difference in their communities.

And then I started missing getting my hands dirty and working directly with clients. I decided to also specialize in the field of substance abuse and worked at an NPO doing outpatient treatment, whereafter I also worked in private rehabilitation facilities. In this time I did an Honours degree in clinical social work (2016), specialising in substance abuse. The field is wide and ever changing. Also in this time I started registering and setting a foundation for my private practice (2020).

Then COVID happened when I was at a crossroad, since a private treatment centre dependent on international clients had difficulties, and an opportunity to work as a health care worker in this time popped up. I jumped for it and now I'm working as a social worker at a TransHealth clinic, focusing especially on gender affirming health care and support.

My private practice has also picked up during this time and it does feel like my cup runneth over. Not the burning out kind, but that living your purpose kind.

At the end of 2020 I have been chosen as one of 8 students in the country to start their Master's in Clinical Social Work at UCT in 2021. Something I dreamt of for so long!

Since 2022 I have been working as a consultant social worker at a music teaching NPO, rendering psychosocial services to the little musicians in need thereof. I assist different organisations in different levels of their services delivery, whether it is psychotherapy, support groups or material development. I have since then been facilitating different training workshops on these specialised skills I’ve built up, but especially towards sensitisation training for the LGBTIQA+ community, where I now aim to be(come) a specialist psychotherapist in gender, sex and sexuality being open to have those difficult conversations.

Title of Dissertation:
The psychosocial gender affirming needs of the gender diverse adolescent in South Africa.