Ms Peta Marks (Director)
Peta is a highly qualified mental health nurse, family therapist and national project/programs manager. She has 30 years experience working in the mental health field across a range of clinical, educational, service development and consultant roles.
Peta has a Masters in Public Health and extensive experience in national project management in mental health, having been involved in mental health service planning, framework and strategy development, and workforce development projects for the past 15 years. Her focus is on always ensuring strong stakeholder engagement, genuine co-production with consumers and carers, and collaborative, constructive and transparent working processes across all projects.
Peta began working in the eating disorders area in 1994, when she took on the role of nurse co-ordinator for the eating disorder inpatient program at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney. She was appointed as the first eating disorder specific position in Australia, re-establishing the University of Sydney’s Centre for Eating and Dieting Disorders and conducted a GP Shared Care project in Eating Disorders in 2000. As a mental health nurse (Peta is a Registered Nurse, a Credentialed Mental Health Nurse) and with a Masters in Couple and Family Therapy, Peta has always maintained a clinical practice providing psychological therapy for people who experience eating disorders and their families – it is this strong grounding in the reality of how hard it is to experience and recover from an eating disorder, that drives her passion for genuine co-production in all her work.
Peta is a highly respected mental health nurse and the editor of a number of publications, most recently as co-editor of Elsevier’s Mental health in Nursing 5th Edition text book and it’s Mental Health in Emergency Care, and is currently editing a publication focused on mental health care in emergency settings. She is also passionate about the care and wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers and has established a community-based group that fundraises for refugee support in her local community, which is based in the Byron hinterland, Bundjalung country in Northern New South Wales.
Qualifications: Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Nursing (USyd), Master of Public Health (UNSW), Masters of Couple & Family Therapy (UNSW), Credentialed Mental Health Nurse (ACMHN), Certificate IV Training & Assessment (TAA40104).
Additional Training: Acceptance & Commitment Therapy; Dialectical Behaviour Therapy; CBT for Eating Disorders; Family Based Therapy for Eating Disorders (Advanced); Specialist Supportive Clinical Management (SSCM).