The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University

17/02/2026

“Family-Centered Support for Women Prisoners to Reduce Recidivism Risk: The ‘Strengthening Connections’ Service” published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (2025).

What’s it about?
This article describes a family-centered intervention designed to support women in prison by strengthening their relationships with their family members or other close supports—an approach that shows promise in reducing recidivism risk and supporting better post-release outcomes.

Why it matters:
Family connection is a powerful protective factor. By centering support around relationships, the ‘Strengthening Connections’ service offers an innovative pathway to more humane, effective reintegration for women leaving custody.
Read the article here https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X251389984

11/02/2026

📰 NEW Research Publication

We’re excited to share our latest publication:
MERTIL for Parents: Pilot Study of an Attachment and Trauma-Informed Online Parenting Program

MERTIL for Parents is a brief, online, attachment and trauma informed program designed to strengthen early relational wellbeing.

The pilot study highlights strong potential for broad, scalable impact.

Key Findings:
1️⃣ Highly acceptable to parents — Most participants found the program useful, the length appropriate, and all were willing to recommend it to others.

2️⃣ Meaningful improvements at 3 month follow up — Parents reported increased parenting confidence, better parent–child attunement, greater enjoyment of the relationship, more help seeking readiness, and reduced irritability, with medium-to-large effect sizes.

3️⃣ Strong promise as a scalable early relational health intervention — The program fills a major gap in accessible, brief, evidence informed online relational support for families with young children.

🔗 Access the full publication here https://doi.org/10.3390/children13010007

10/02/2026

📰 Research Publication!

Proud to share another important contribution to the Early Relational Health evidence base:
“Mapping the Influence of Infant–Parent Relational Quality on Life Course Relationships: A Scoping Review of Prospective Cohort Studies” published in Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review (2025).

What this review examines:
This scoping review synthesises longitudinal evidence from prospective cohort studies to understand how the quality of infant–parent relationships shape relational patterns across the lifespan.

Key insights:
1️⃣ Early infant-parent relational quality lays the groundwork for later relationship functioning
2️⃣ Patterns of attachment and caregiver responsiveness are linked to the quality of relationships not only with parents, but also with the broader social world – including peers, romantic partners, and others in a child’s expanding environment as they grow
3️⃣ Findings highlight the long-term importance of supporting secure and attuned early relationships

Full article available here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-025-00527-5

Another meaningful step in advancing understanding of how early caregiving experiences echo across the life course.

08/02/2026

Shame, Trauma and Family Relationships | 26 March
1-day workshop | In-person
Systemic Practice Consultants: Deb Mountjoy & Liz Malone

Drawing on attachment and trauma theories, and narrative and family therapy concepts, learn how to enhance your therapeutic work by exploring how shame can be a by-product of complex relational trauma.

By attending this workshop, you will be able to:
✔ Understand shame as a manifestation of complex relational trauma
✔ Develop skills in identifying how shame impacts your clients and adversely affect family
✔ Learn specific strategies to discuss shame with clients and families and to promote healing and enhance connections
✔ Address shame with greater confidence with your clients

👉 Register now https://bit.ly/BC-PD2026-STAFR

02/02/2026

📰 New research publication

The Bouverie Centre is pleased to share our latest research, Refining a Single Session Thinking Approach for Trauma Affected Families: A Delphi Study.

This study draws on expert consensus to refine Single Session Thinking (SST) approaches to better support trauma affected families through timely, trauma informed practice.

Three Key Findings
1️⃣ Expert consensus supports the safe and effective use of SST with trauma affected families
2️⃣ Trauma specific adaptations to the SST session map are essential
3️⃣ An adapted SST framework is likely to improve engagement in brief, high pressure service settings

Read the full article here:
🔗 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10591-026-09776-0

29/01/2026

Adolescent Violence in the Home | 20 & 27 March
2-day workshop | In-person workshop
Systemic Practice Consultants: Jo Howard

Understand the systemic and relational context to adolescent family violence and explore trauma-informed interventions

On completion of this workshop, you will be able to:
✔ Identify the determinants which contribute to the use of violence by adolescents against parents/carers, with a particular emphasis on the experience of family violence
✔ Identify co-occurring issues including neurodiversity, alcohol, drug use and mental health challenges
✔ Develop skills in assessment and safety planning
✔ Demonstrate skills to enhance engagement in change with adolescents and parents/carers
✔ Learn and practice a model of intervention that is developmental, trauma-informed and relational

👉 Register now

Adolescent Violence in the Home: Systemic Interventions with Families workshop, professional development workshop

29/01/2026

Clinical Supervision Training | Beginning 10 March

In this workshop, you’ll learn how to build supervisory relationships that foster psychological safety while providing developmentally appropriate challenges. Explore a range of supervision modes, methods, and models—and refine or develop your own approach.

You’ll deepen your understanding of the roles, tasks, and professional foundations of effective supervision, and gain practical techniques for giving and eliciting meaningful feedback.

This training also supports you to work with an intersectional lens, considering how factors like culture, power, class, age, and gender shape supervision. You’ll reflect on organisational influences, strengthen your “use of self,” and explore strategies for both self‑care and collective care.

Ideal for supervisors committed to reflective, ethical, and growth‑focused practice.

Training details: Online modules + 4 in-person workshop days
Location: The Bouverie Centre, Brunswick
Systemic Practice Consultants: Angie Nyland and Olivia Dwyer

Learn more and register at https://bit.ly/BC-PD2026-CST

27/01/2026

Building Team Resilience | 19 March
Strengthen team resilience across your organisation.

In this workshop, you’ll explore the key characteristics of resilient teams and learn how trauma‑informed responses can build and sustain them. Walk away with practical, ready‑to‑use activities that foster meaningful working relationships and enhance team resilience in the workplace. Ideal for leaders driving healthy, high‑performing cultures.

1-Day workshop | In-person
Systemic Practice Consultants: Angie Nyland and Liz Malone

Learn more and register here

Building Team Resilience Workshop

26/01/2026

Group Reflective Practice | 26 Feb & 5 March
2-day workshop | In-person workshop

Build your confidence in delivering effective group reflective practice.
This training gives you a structured yet flexible approach to facilitating reflection, guiding you through how to establish, review, and close reflective practice sessions. Strengthen your understanding of the purpose of reflection and develop skills to offer both support and constructive challenge within group settings.

Learn more and register at https://bit.ly/BC-PD2026-GRP

23/01/2026

Join our team: Clinical Family Therapist & Systemic Practice Consultant

We’re looking for a skilled and passionate clinician to join our team in a dual role focused on delivering impactful systemic family therapy and shaping the future of practice development.

This position is based within the Family Therapy Services team at The Bouverie Centre, La Trobe University — a unique practice-research-translation centre within the School of Psychology and Public Health within La Trobe University and a statewide specialist mental health service for Victorian families.

If you’re committed to strengthening families through systemic approaches and love blending clinical work with professional development, apply now.

For the complete position description and to apply, visit https://bit.ly/BC-LTU-569969

Applications close at 11.55pm on Wednesday 11th February 2026

19/12/2025

A systemic path towards peace: A message from the Bouverie Centre.

https://bit.ly/BOUVERIE-TOWARD-PEACE

18/12/2025

BOUVERIE CONNECT | DECEMBER EDITION | OUT NOW

Edition highlights:
- 2026 Professional Development Workshop Calendar
- Research publication celebrations
- Spotlight on research : Essential design principles for a family digital mental health intervention
- interview, articles, feature essay......and more!

https://bit.ly/BC-CONNECT-DEC25