Alison Burrell is a mother of 12 and grandmother of 3. From her experience of raising a family and the challenges that brings, with disabilities and health challenges in the family, it set her on a path to seek out alternatives to healing and wellbeing. From an early age, Alison dedicated herself to learning healing ways to create a better, safer world for our children and young ones to come.

For over 20 years she has been deeply immersed in learning the healing traditions of her many mixed ancestral lineages including Celtic, pre-Celtic Irish, Nordic and Australian First Nations traditions. She gratefully acknowledges the many teachers, in particular Ger Lyons ( http://www.gerlyons.net/ ) and other elders who have inspired her and generously shared their wisdoms over the years. Alison has family connections to Wiradjuri country, where her grandmother was born but connects deeply to Dharug country (Hawkesbury River NSW) where she grew up. She is now living and working on Wurundjeri country in Melbourne since 2004. Since having the opportunity to travel to her ancestral country of Ireland she has strengthened her connections there. Alison has travelled back repeatedly doing healing work both for herself and others, offering people ways of reconnecting to their roots, and wisdom of the ancient traditions.

Her traditional healing work is coupled with years of studies, research and professional experience working with families, groups, and communities. Alison has a Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Family Therapy, Bachelor of Applied Science in Health Promotions and a Master of Indigenous Studies based on Professor Judy Atkinson’s We Al Li program.

In her professional capacity she has been working with the Bouverie's First Nations Team in the Family Therapy Program for several years. She has been working with Children and Families in the Workin’ with the Mob Clinical Program for the last 10 years and in the Strengthening Connections Project in Victoria’s Women’s Prisons for the last 2 years. Since 2018, she has also been involved in The Healing the Past by Nurturing the Future project, an Aboriginal led University research project, which recognises ongoing oppression and intergenerational trauma (particularly forced removal of children) for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and aims to actively contribute to recovery. Alison is a qualified lead facilitator for the We Al Li Training Programs, ( https://www.wealli.com.au/ ) developed by Professor Judy Atkinson’s which focuses on a greater understanding of worldviews and builds awareness of effective ways of working with individuals, families, and communities around trauma.

In addition to this work, she has travelled to different communities and countries within Australia, and internationally to Ireland and Bosnia running trauma recovery and healing workshops. Alison also highlights other overlooked aspects of trauma include grief work as under the anger and pain is the grief. While working in the Residential Care Space Alison often saw this with the young people, under their heightened expressions of rage was a lot of loss and grief that was barely acknowledged. From this piece of work with the young people, she continues to advise and support Child Protection and Child and Family workers on the foundational need for trauma informed approaches throughout all sectors. Alison believes that advocating for these crucial changes on all levels, starts with healing ourselves, this is what will bring the change within our families, our communities and our wider workspaces.