Overview
Sharon has been a lecturer in the Sydney campus in the Discipline of Counselling since 2013. In this capacity Sharon has been involved in curriculum development, teaching, coordination of the Diploma of Counselling Skills and various other tasks. Sharon has been working in counselling and counsellor education for more than 25 years. She has taught in a number of counselling agencies, ACAP in its early days and also Wesley College. Sharon has also developed curriculum for counselling courses overseas. Her key interests are diversity, trauma therapy, and group work. Although Sharon has worked as a generalist counsellor she has mainly worked with clients who have experienced trauma, either survived childhood trauma and/or experienced one-off traumatic events. Sharon has also worked for some years in the area of HIV and in the area of gender based violence. The trauma and grief work has been both individual and in groups.
Sharon has combined her interests of International Development and Counselling education in working for more than 15 years in Papua New Guinea. In that time Sharon worked for local and international services developing HIV Counselling through developing a national curriculum and a network of counselling educators. Specific training courses were developed for health workers, counsellors and the general community. Sharon maintains an interest in International Development with an ongoing relationship with HIV and gender equality services in Papua New Guinea.
Publications
- Sfakinos, D., Miles-McCann, P.D., Bettman, C., & Walker, S. (in press). What counts in managing diversity in the classroom: from the perspective of academic teachers and students at ACAP. Melbourne, Victoria: ACAP Annual Conference: Innovations in a changing world.
- Lewis, I., Maruia, B. & Walker, S. (2008) Violence Against Women in Papua New Guinea, Journal of Family Studies 14: 183–197
Conference Presentations
- Sfakinos, D., Miles-McCann, P.D., Bettman, C., & Walker, S. (2019). The management of diversity in the classroom: exploring the perspectives of teachers and students. ACAP Annual Conference: Innovations in a changing world. Melbourne, October.
- Sfakinos, D., Miles-McCann, P.D., Bettman, C., & Walker, S. (2018). The management of diversity in the classroom: Exploring the perspectives of teachers and students, The future of the human service industry: Implications for training and practice ACAP Conference 2018
- Walker, S., Moon, D., & Hall, C. (2016) Online student engagement activities, Innovation and Engagement for Learning. Health and Wellbeing, NPI Conference 2016
- Walker, S., & Lewis, I. (2009) Culture and Violence: The Melanesian Philosophy of Human Dignity, Divine Word University, August 2009 [Gender based violence and HIV]
- Walker, S. (2007) Society of Counselling and Psychology Educators [SCAPE], [focus of paper: Development of counselling training and services in PNG]
- Walker, S. (2000) Society of Counselling and Psychology Educators [SCAPE], 2000 [focus of paper: self-disclosure in a group setting for training purposes]