Dr India Bryce
Dr. India Bryce is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southern Queensland and a Forensic Social Worker. Dr. India Bryce began her career as an early childhood educator before taking a position as a front-line Child Safety Officer in the Investigation and Assessment Team, in the Queensland Department of Child Safety, Women and Youth. She is also a specialist consultant in the field of child maltreatment, specializing in cumulative harm. She has worked closely with government and non-government agencies in the design and implementation of family intervention, prevention, and preservation programs and has delivered training in child maltreatment and cumulative harm to a broad range of helping professionals across the forensic sector. India’s Ph.D. explored the lived experience of cumulative harm and its influence on vocation in the helping professions. India is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a member of the USQ Centre of Health Research (Health and Social Justice). India’s current research explores cumulative harm, trauma-informed pedagogy in higher education, trauma narratives and health, vocational behavior, transgender youth, and youth justice, and separated parents’ experiences of education systems. India has published books, book chapters, and journal articles from her research including two co-edited reference books, Child Abuse and Neglect: Forensic Issues in Evidence, Impact and Management, and Child Sexual Abuse: Forensic Issues in Evidence, Impact and Management. India has presented on topics related to her research nationally and internationally.
Dr. Simone Collier
Dr. Simone Collier is a former Special Education teacher who taught in special school settings, and mainstream classroom settings and worked as a Special Education and Behaviour Advisor. Simone worked as a Deputy Principal and as a Guidance Officer before moving into the social work sector, initially in homelessness and domestic and family violence and then into child protection.
Simone has a varied career working with children and young people in residential facilities and in complex care settings as well as in out-of-home-care with foster and kinship carers. Simone has worked in Team leader, Program Co-ordinator, and Program Manager roles in child protection and more recently as a State Project Manager and a Specialist Practice Compliance Manager with Act for Kids. These latter roles were focused on setting up Individual Programs for children and families with multiple and complex needs. Currently, Simone is working in her own private practice providing child play therapy and working to reduce the impact of cumulative harm in children and families.
Simone was involved in an extensive pilot research project in partnership with the University of Southern Queensland trialing an evaluative risk measuring tool for cumulative harm exposure in children and young people. Simone is a specialist consultant advising schools and early education centres on becoming trauma-informed educational facilities, including complex case analysis, coaching, and mentoring staff, and providing ongoing professional supervision services.
Simone works as a lecturer and course examiner in child abuse, trauma and education, and child mental health subjects at the University of Southern Queensland and continues to be involved with a range of research projects to further knowledge and skill in the sector.