Ms Amanda Paton

Amanda is an executive leader and Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years’ experience working with child abuse and trauma.  She is the Deputy Director, Practice for the Australian Centre for Child Protection at the University of South Australia and oversees the Solutions Project for Understanding and Responding to Harmful Sexual Behaviours and is responsible for leading and overseeing the research, development and implementation of evidence-based therapeutic models for responding to child abuse, neglect, trauma and harmful sexual behaviours across the WA context including the creation of a suite of Workforce Development trainings. She also provides policy consultancy and advice to the Department of Communities Royal Commission team and Specialist Child Protection Unit on a range of key reform and policy areas associated with state and national priorities for improving responses for children who have experienced child sexual abuse. She is the Program Director for the Graduate program in Childhood Trauma, and the Chair of the National Strategy Advisory Group for harmful sexual behaviours, for the National Office for Child Safety.

She has been chief investigator in a several national projects including the development of Australia's Minimum Practice Standards - for specialist and community support services responding to child sexual abuse.  

Amanda has strong connections to the child protection services sector in WA including community sector organisations and government agencies such as Department of Communities and WA Police.  She was previously the Director of Therapeutic and Advocacy Services at a large WA community services organisation and responsible for providing executive management and clinical oversite to specialist psychological services, secondary youth and family outreach programs and the Multiagency Investigation and Support Teams (an inter-agency response to the forensic investigation and management of child sexual abuse at two Child Advocacy Centres). She also has extensive experience and success with service design and development, business development and award of grants and tenders.

As an executive leader and child abuse specialist within the sector for many years, Amanda has extensive knowledge of sector reforms across a broad range of areas including, Out of Home Care, mandatory reporting reform, national strategy and local implementation, at risk children, young people and families, diversionary strategies and other early years initiatives.  

Clinically, Amanda specialises in the assessment and treatment of children and young people who have experienced complex trauma from child abuse, particularly related to sexual abuse, and those children living in Out of Home Care. She also has a focus on the assessment and treatment of children and young people with Harmful Sexual Behaviours and facilitating the training and supervision of specialists and other professionals in this area. Amanda also has expertise in the design, development and clinical governance of Child Advocacy Centres and multiagency teams responding to child sexual abuse. Other areas of expertise include developing new approaches to working with and supporting children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse, with a focus on building capability in the sector through partnership and workforce capacity building. 

• Member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD)
• Member of the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA); Registered to Psychology Board of Australia; Endorsed to practice in the area of Clinical Psychology; Endorsed as a Board-approved supervisor
• Member of the Australian Psychological Society (APS)
• Member of the APS Group – College of Clinical Psychologists
• Member of the Australian Government BoardLinks Program; Endorsed by a Champion

Qualifications

• Master of Applied Psychology Murdoch University

• Bachelor of Psychology Curtin University of Technology

• Bachelor of Science (Psychology) Curtin University of Technology