About Me 

My name is Evelise but you can call me Evie. I’m from Brazil and I’ve been living in Australia since 2006.

I have a Bachelors Degree in Psychology (Brazil, 2005) and a Masters in Child Play Therapy (Deakin University, AU, 2020). I also hold a Diploma in Early Childhood Education (Australia, 2010).

When I first started studying psychology I was working as a Human Resources assistant and that was the field I thought I wanted to work in. During my clinical internship, I had to face a full year of one on one therapy with children. At first, I was horrified, I did not have a clue about what to do or how to help them. A few weeks into it and I fell so in love with those little people, I could not imagine myself doing anything else. Somehow, I could relate to their struggles and with empathy help them to overcome their difficulties.

When I arrived in Australia I had to choose a course to study and that is how I ended up working in the Early Childhood Education Sector. I worked for a few childcare centres for 7 years before deciding to open my own Family Day Care, Butterflies in the garden, which I ran for 8 years. 

I loved having my own business in early childhood education as it allowed me to help the children learn new cognitive skills while also helping the children and their their families deal with social and emotional issues, separation anxiety, how to communicate and understand each other better, challenging behaviours, self-regulation and other issues.

My passion for brain development and helping children and their families to have a better relationship was so strong that I decided to study a masters in child play therapy. This extra knowledge set me up for my current journey. 

Having had PTSD myself when I was a child due to a life threatening condition, I had to spend 7 nights in a hospital, isolated from my parents and from any familiar face. I experienced severe separation anxiety, night terror, bed wetting and of course, a very complicated relationship with my 3 sisters, as my parents turned their attention to the sick child. I only started therapy to deal with my long term symptoms when I was 21. Thankfully, around that time, my relationship with my sisters become strong and we are still super close to this day. Even though we live in different parts of the world, we text everyday and we have a WhatsApp video call once a week. 

I always had a good connection with children, even before I realised it. I believe my own struggles dealing with PTSD growing up, helped me to understand children and increases my desire to help them. 

I am so glad that these days we have so many therapeutic options and resources available to help children from a very young age. 

I hope my love and passion for children can help your child and your family to deal with whatever it is that you are going through right now.

Providing early intervention and good mental health assistance for children, help them to increase their self-esteem, develop their self confidence, social and emotional skills, develop self regulation and most importantly, help prevent or decrease the risk factors to the development of a mental disorder.

Let’s help children today so they can have the best opportunity for good mental health and well-being in the future. 💚