Panellists have generously contributed to our CPD webinars. Please note that they are not employed by MHPN, and we are unable to contact them or provide referrals on your behalf. Please do not send us patient details.
Before moving into organisational development and psychology, Summer spent more than 15 years in music, festivals and major performing arts venues. Her first lessons in workplace behaviour came the rock’n’roll way: backstage, side of stage, in festival offices, production meetings, artist negotiations and the occasional venue crisis that had to be solved before doors opened.
That work gave her a practical education in teams, power, conflict, communication, leadership and what happens when people are tired, under pressure and still expected to make the show go on. It also showed her the cost of work that relies on passion to absorb unreasonable pressure. After seeing too many talented people burn out and leave the industry, Summer became increasingly interested in the line between demanding work and harmful work, and in what organisations are responsible for noticing before people break.
Since 2019, Summer’s work has focused on psychosocial risk, bullying, mobbing, harassment, discrimination and psychological injury. She works with organisations to understand how workplace systems, leadership decisions, communication patterns and culture can contribute to psychological harm, and how those risks can be better identified and managed.
Summer supports workplaces with psychosocial hazard identification, workplace culture assessment, complaint and grievance processes, and complex interpersonal risk. She also works with individuals, legal practitioners and other professionals in workplace psychological injury matters, including the preparation of expert liability reports.
Summer is a registered provisional psychologist and is currently completing a Master of Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. She is a co-author of “Silent Wounds: Unmasking Emotional Abuse and Psychosocial Risks in Australian Organisations”, published in Breaking the Cycle: Insights Into Violent and Aggressive Behaviour, and is a member of the National Psychosocial Safety Network, the Australian Psychological Society and the International Association on Workplace Bullying and Harassment.
