Team Leaders

Administration Unit
Our Administration team comprises our Director, Dr Alex Wodak and Deputy Director Bronwyn Crosby. The Administration Unit works centrally to keep the operational clinical units working smoothly.

Bronwyn Crosby RN. RMN. RM. MHM. MRCNA
Deputy Director
Alcohol and Drug Service, St Vincent's Hospital
Ms Crosby has a long and broad based experience in health and in a variety of associated speciality fields. Ms Crosby has worked as both a clinician and a manager for over 25 years in Alcohol and Drug services in Sydney and London. With a nursing background and qualifications in a range of areas Ms Crosby believes in the benefits of population health concepts and works to ensure that disadvantaged populations can access evidence-based, best practice interventions.

Bronwyn has responsibility for managing this extremely busy inner city treatment centre with over 80 health professionals who work exclusively with every sort of alcohol and drug problem.

The knowledge that inequalities in access to treatment affect the health of our general community adversely is a strong motivator. Ms. Crosby’s work involves developing services and systems, creating and/or developing networks, policies and procedures, training manuals, training and education packages for staff and other health professionals.

Ms Crosby is also extensively active in community groups and in committees involving community organisations.

Peter Crooks
Assistant to Deputy Director  
Peter Crooks has been working in Administration as Assistant to Deputy Director, Bronwyn Crosby, since January 2006. His varied and busy role requires a holistic overview on the service and facilitates a cohesive and coordinated approach in Administration.

While Peter has tertiary qualifications in Science, working for most of his career as a research chemist in the petroleum industry, he has also devoted much of his spare time contributing to local community services. He is currently a member of the Sydney Inner West Rotary Club, a volunteer carer with Community Support Network, a volunteer with The Community Visitors Scheme, is a member of the hospital choir and an active member of his local church community.  For many years, Peter was a volunteer Outreach worker, a Shepherd of the Streets and crisis counselor at the Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. Since 1996 he has supervised university examinations for students with special needs at the University of Technology, Sydney.

Without Peter Crooks’ special networking and keenness to help skills the unit would grind to a halt. Peter’s vision for the future of A & D Service is to see a cohesive, dynamic and progressive team working together to achieve and provide the best possible service and outcome with available resources to a special local and the general community while always maintaining the values of the Sister of Charity – “Charity, Care and Compassion”.

Ms Leah McLeod
PA to Dr Wodak
Leah McLeod is the Assistant to the Director, Alex Wodak, providing administrative, research and project support.

Leah’s policy background includes past positions in the National Secretariat of the Intergovernmental Community Services Ministers’ Council and the Strategic Planning and Evaluation unit for the NHMRC. She has undertaken various other research and project roles in the federal Department of Health, has assisted a Member of the Refugee Review Tribunal and worked as a PA in private enterprise. As an artist, she has exhibited widely and lectured in several tertiary art institutions. She is a past president of the NSW Users and AIDS Association and represents users on State drug policy committees.

TREATMENT UNITS
Within the department individual Treatment Units have a manager who is assisted by a clinical support officer.

Call Centres

Debra Crosbie
Assistant Manager, Systems
Debra has more than fifteen years experience in administration and management and has worked at St Vincent's Hospital for nine years. She uses her administrative and logistic skills to support clinicians in provision of services to the public. She endeavours to ensure that systems, both IT and other, integrate well and operate successfully. In recent years Debra has developed her IT skills and become increasingly involved in the day-to-day management issues that arise in a busy clinical team. Debra maintains a keen sense of justice and supports the values of the Sisters of Charity.

The Alcohol and Drug Information Service (ADIS)
ADIS have 10 full time equivalent staff, many of whom have worked for over 5 years at ADIS. Qualifications and experience vary - we seek out special individuals with passion to learn to support and educate the public on a range of controversial and complex issues.

NSW Quitline
NSW Quitline has a staff of 15 full time equivalent staff and 2 Advisor Assistants. Staff have qualifications that range from psychologists to social workers to alcohol and drug graduate counsellors. Many commenced their employment with NSW Quitline without specific knowledge of smoking cessation, but our comprehensive on the job training and specialist trainer giving one on one support soon have staff competent and working hard.

Donna Brady - Clinical Nurse Specialist
Ashley Cochrane - Clinical Nurse Specialist

Sianne Hodge - Clinical Project Officer
is responsible for overseeing quality improvement activities and related monitoring and review. Sianne has a Bachelor in Social Science (Criminology). She joined the Alcohol and Drug Service in 2006 and was involved in setting up SMART Recovery in NSW.

 

Stimulant Treatment Program (STP)
Susan Hudson – Manager
Susan is a Social Worker with over ten years experience in the fields of justice and substance use with a particular interest in group work, she has worked in a number of states in Australia and overseas in the United Kingdom and more recently with UNICEF in the Maldives. Susan has a Masters in Social Work and is currently completing her Ph. D through the School of Public Health and Community Medicine at the University of New South Wales.

The Stimulant Treatment Program team is comprised of four counsellors who have extensive and varied experience in therapeutic work with individuals, groups and in case coordination. Our therapeutic work draws from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Mindfulness, Client-Centred and Narrative counselling approaches, and we each have considerable experience in working with individuals experiencing difficulties as a result of their stimulant use. The Stimulant Treatment Program team endeavours to work creatively with their clients in addressing the broader psychosocial factors that both contribute to, and result from problematic stimulant use.

Gorman House  

Clinical Services Team

Hospital Liaison Team
The team comprises our Clinical Nurse Consultant, staff specialist medical officer and medical and psychiatric registrars. This team works in the hospital with all inpatients, trying to reduce the number of return visits by particularly dependent or ill individuals.