Sharon Cooke is the MBN owner, lead trainer and a supervisor of MBN facilitators. She works as a parent-infant therapist, providing relationship-focussed services to individual families as well as perinatal and early childhood providers. Her work includes individual and parent-infant therapy, group training, professional reflective groups/retreats and reflective supervision. Sharon was the lead researcher in two preliminary studies evaluating the impact of MBN on the mother-infant dyad and has been instrumental in growing MBN, which is now offered in three rural and ten metropolitan sites in Western Australia.
Diploma in Parent-Infant Therapy (Oxpip UK) Master of Perinatal and Infant Mental Health B.Sc (Nursing) Post Grad (Midwifery, Child & Community Health) Diploma Professional Coaching, GAICD Registered provider Circle of Security, Courage & Renewal 
Caroline Winchester has trained as a Clinical psychologist here in WA after completing her undergraduate studies in her first home - the UK in 1991. She has had many years of experience working with adults across the lifespan presenting to both community and government mental health settings with a range of difficulties in livingthat commonly have their roots in early relational struggles. Her interest in perinatal MH has been borne from an appreciation of the developmental significance of the early years along with a keen passion in supporting both infants and their caregivers find their way together. Caroline’s enthusiasm and appetite for psychoanalytic thinking precipitated her decision to complete her infant observation training in 2016 and more recently immerse herself in the Australian Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Association of WA, with whom she has been a training candidate since 2019. Caroline’s appreciation of the powerful conscious and unconscious processes that shape our lives has well and truly been nurtured over the years. She now appreciates (maybe a bit like parenthood), this is a rich learning journey that hopefully has no definitive end. Caroline currently spends her working life shared between the public service at FSH Mother Baby Unit and her private practice in South Fremantle. She has had the privilege of being offered spaces to think by a mix of generous supervisors and hopes to be able to extend this space to others.
MSc Clinical Psychology |
Dr Elaine Cumber holds a Doctorate in Clinical Psychology and is experienced in working with children, young people and adults with histories of trauma and neglect having worked in mental health services in both Australia and the UK. Her interest in perinatal and infant mental health grew out of an appreciation of the vital importance of early relational experiences in shaping the developing child’s sense of self and capacity to trust in others and the impact of maternal mental health on the developing parent infant relationship. Elaine’s current roles include providing a clinical psychology service within the Women and Newborns Health Service as well as offering a safe and supportive space for mothers and their infants attending the Mother Baby Nurture group program during this early formative period.
Elaine has accessed training focussed on the provision of reflective supervision and values the opportunity to provide a reflective space to support others in the valuable work they do with Mother’s and their infants. Elaine is a Board Approved Supervisor with the Psychology Board of Australia and has experience supervising students, early career and experienced mental health professionals. D.Clin.Psychol; Edinburgh University, Scotland MA(Hons) Psychology; University of Glasgow, Scotland 
Frances Thomson-Salo Ll.B., PhD
Frances trained in the United Kingdom and is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Australian Psychoanalytical Association as an adult and child psychoanalyst. She was a senior child psychotherapist at The Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne for 30 years, specialising in infant mental health, and was the Infant Mental Health Consultant at the Royal Women’s Hospital, Melbourne for over a decade. She has taught over 45 infant observation seminar courses as well as clinical and theoretical courses on the University of Melbourne Grad Dip/Masters of Infant Mental Health for 16 years. She has published over 30 articles and edited/ co-edited 12 books on child psychoanalysis and infant mental health, including Infant Observation (2014, Karnac) and Engaging Infants (2018 Karnac). |