Welcome back to another edition of Counselling Australia. As we mark over halfway into 2025, the Australian Counselling Association is excited to share some of the excellent research, community advocacy, and insights into the counselling profession in this new edition.
Firstly, the ACA’s annual conference in Adelaide in June welcomed dozens of presenters and hundreds of members to celebrate, discuss, and look to the future of counselling. This edition of the magazine features a wrap-up of the conference’s highlights, as well as the winners of the inaugural Counselling Excellence Awards. These awards celebrated some of the best and brightest in the profession, recognising their work across client counselling, academia, teaching, and wider community advocacy and support.

One of the foremost examples of this is Counsellor of the Year Michael Torres, who has written a first-person perspective of over 40 years of work counselling Indigenous communities, with a focus on the Indigenous Men’s Healing Shed. Michael is the founder, coordinator, and counsellor of the Darwin Aboriginal Women’s Shelter’s Indigenous Men’s Programs, which focuses on providing mental health support to shape safe relationships, families, and communities within the context of domestic violence. This article is essential reading for anyone working with Indigenous communities to gain an understanding of best practices in providing culturally appropriate and safe places of support.

We also applaud the work of Alyona Cerfontyne, who has contributed some of her key work on counselling adults with misattributed paternity; an area of counselling research and practice that often goes unnoticed but is hugely significant for those affected. Alyona outlines her own experience in finding out later in life that her biological father was not who she thought, and the long-term impacts of grief, identity loss, and emotional turmoil. What this means in the counselling room, and the best way to approach multi-faceted paternity for a client dealing with it in the short- and long-term, including the healing power of community, is the key focus of this piece.

And finally, as part of a double feature, ACA spoke to Kerrie Arthur from Griefline Victoria on the experience of running a pilot program for loved ones dealing with voluntary assisted dying-related grief and loss. Kerrie’s insights into an often-quiet area of grief counselling – the experiences of those who say goodbye to family members or loved ones as part of the VAD process – is a thoughtful and nuanced look at bereavement and loss. The formal study of the VAD pilot program is also included in this edition, for academics and interested professionals alike, written by Jane Nosworthy and Kerrie Arthur.

ACA is also pleased to announce our 2025 symposium titled 'Evolving Your Practice' will offer insights, tools, and research to help you advance your counselling practice, whether you are a seasoned private practitioner or just beginning your professional journey. Members are invited to attend in-person on the Gold Coast or online on the 28th of October.

Save the date now, and stay tuned for the agenda and ticket details!

The ACA Team