Meet Fiona Waites - Our Lead TACT TCI Instructor

Fiona has worked with youth in a variety of out-of-home care and youth homeless shelter settings since the early 2000’s. She has worked in a variety of roles from direct care work (youth worker) through to managing teams of direct care workers. Most of this experience has been within out-of-home care residential and semi-independent living environments.

Since mid-2013, Fiona has focused on Learning and Development – specialising in supporting staff and carers engaging with traumatised young people. Based in Brisbane, she has provided support across the State of Queensland equipping staff across a number of areas like manual tasking and personal safety through to emotional intelligence and leadership topics. She has a particular interest in brain functioning, trauma and mental health. She has extensively trained staff, carers and parents in TCI & TCIF and Mental Health First Aid (Youth and Standard editions).Fiona’s initial experience with TCI was in 2004, when she was trained by Howard Bath as a direct care worker in the 3rd Edition of TCI. Since then, Fiona’s understanding of the practical application in day-to-day work of not only the skills and thinking, but also the whole-of-organisation system that TCI is has deepened. Fiona became an Associate Trainer of TCI in 2009, Professionally certified in 2016 as well as certified as an Instructor the same year. Fiona enjoys investing in trainers and equipping them to utilise the system within their organisation with fidelity. She is focused on assisting theory and literature to be applied in practical day-to-day behaviours within organisations and individuals.

Fiona is passionate about supporting those she interacts with to ‘do what they do better’, and enjoys connecting with individuals where they are at, with an aim to encourage them to go further.

Personally, Fiona loves being outdoors – camping, activities and anything that can include her dog, Bella.