Colleen Sincock

Collen Sincock is a mother of two teenagers and experienced post-natal depression after having both of her children, being hospitalised both times.  The recovery journey brought Colleen to be involved as a Lived Experienced Consumer with COPMI (Children Of Parents with Mental Illness) for over eight years. At COPMI she worked on many resource materials, presenting to health practitioners in South Australia and interstate, being interviewed for the online resources, and always advocating for what COPMI represented; “if there’s mental health issues in a family everyone is effected, and everyone needs to be cared for”.  Colleen has also been presenting for a couple of years for Perinatal & Infant Mental Health Education at Helen Mayo House to health professionals that are at the forefront of supporting mothers with mental health issues, offering her insight and view as a parent with mental health challenges.

Colleen is very passionate about having mental health normalised and it being part of everyday conversation, helping to remove the stigma, guilt and misunderstandings that are out there.  Colleen grew up in a family with both parents having mental health issues that were not spoken about or treated and knows that with knowledge, empathy and the professional help, outcomes for her parents could have been very different.  Colleen loves to tell her story if it can help in any way to break down the many issues and complexities about mental health, recovery and being a parent.