Joanne Neophyton
Resume
I have been a Trainer/Assessor at NBMC for 13 years, and for the last 5 years, a Student Wellness Coordinator/Counsellor. I love using my skills to support our students to achieve successful outcomes in their learning.
My previous experience in mental health includes working as a Registered Nurse at South Pacific Treatment Centre, facilitating students in mental health facilities and volunteering as a Crisis Support Worker at Lifeline.
I graduated as a Registered Nurse in 1989 from Western Sydney University. I spent many years working in Paediatric nursing, High Dependency Gastro-intestinal surgical nursing and in Occupational Health Nursing. I worked in nurse education early in my career, facilitating student RN’s from many Universities in many hospitals across Sydney.
I fulfilled a lifelong career dream and became a Flight Attendant and Cabin Services Manager for Qantas and Jetstar for 8 years. My nursing knowledge was utilised often with many on board medical emergencies and I maintained my nursing skills by working as an RN on my days off from flying.
In my role as a nursing facilitator, I had the opportunity to bring Health Services Assistance students from NBMC into the surgical setting at Pittwater Day Surgery. One of my HSA students loved it so much, the Day Surgery employed her as soon as she finished her course!
Many Diploma of Counselling, Certificate III in Health Services Assistance and Individual Support students have gone on to further studies becoming counsellors and nurses. Some students are employed in local aged care facilities and hospitals after studying with us, and it’s not unusual for me to see lots of graduates from the College happily working with residents/patients in their workplaces. Some of our graduate students return to NBMC to study other health and community services related courses in order to further develop their preexisting skills and knowledge.
I love everything about training, but the ‘icing on the cake’ for me is when I see my students enter careers in counselling and health and community services that they absolutely love. Jobs in healthcare, counselling and community services are virtually ‘bombproof’ and I have not been out of a job for over 30 years. There are always health and community services jobs out there – even in a pandemic, and you can move into your preferred work areas of interest relatively easily.