Peter Scott, Executive Director, Chairperson
BPsych, GradDipPsych, MRehabCouns, GAICD

Peter has been involved in rehabilitation in both Australia and the United States of America since 1982 and in employment services since 1975. Prior to taking over ORS Group in 1992 where he remained the CEO until early 2019, Peter was one of the founding managers of the Rehabilitation Division at the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Commission (WorkCover WA). Peter is passionate about making a positive difference in people’s lives. He recognises that helping people achieve their goals is one significant way to do that, and inspires this belief in all who work with ORS. Peter is an accomplished speaker, innovator and leader.

Jacqueline Lane, Executive Director
BBus(HRM), GAICD

Jacqueline is passionate about helping businesses drive performance and innovation through clear strategy, leadership and stakeholder engagement. Jacqueline is an organised and proactive executive and HR professional with over 10 years of leadership and management in the allied health, workplace rehabilitation, disability, training and employment sectors. Proven expertise linking business strategy to operational management through her previous roles managing multiple corporate departments across the areas of property, safety, marketing, learning and development, human resources, quality, finance and accounts. Wanting to help businesses create solid foundations for performance, Jacqueline is a member of a number of community and commercial boards including Managing Director of her own co-working, networking and business support agency in Perth.

Dr Vanessa Parletta, Chief Executive Officer
BPsych(Hons), MSoSc(Crim), MBA(HRM), DBA

Dr Vanessa Parletta is the CEO of ORS and is a passionate advocate for providing clients with high quality evidence-based allied health services that work. Vanessa’s Doctorate thesis involved the implementation and evaluation of evidence-based supported employment (Individual Placement and Support) for adults with severe and persistent mental illness. Vanessa’s theses from her Masters and Bachelor degrees involved the implementation and evaluation of a coping skills program for at-risk prisoners and the implementation and evaluation of a stress management program for mainstream prisoners. Vanessa is a strong believer in the evaluation of services to ensure that they are achieving client and funder goals and helping people reach their potential. Currently ORS is assessing the impact of emotion regulation practices on the reduction of physical aggression in an NDIS client population receiving positive behaviour support services.

Vanessa has over 20 years’ management experience of large government/insurer funded programs for clients with injuries/disabilities requiring assistance to overcome barriers and achieve their goals. Vanessa was awarded the National Employment Services Association Discovery Grant Award in 2012/2013 for her leadership and innovation within the employment services industry. She was also the National Winner, Disability Employment Australia Bid Management Capability Award in 2011.

Vanessa has co-authored three journal articles published in peer reviewed journals and has presented at national and international conferences including the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development Forum in Dublin/Kilkenny. Vanessa’s main areas of interest include the assessment of dangerousness and how to reduce physical aggression towards others, including the prevention of critical incidents in workplace settings. She is also an expert in the area of restrictive practices and developing positive behaviour support plans involving these.

Lisa Baker, Deputy Chief Executive Officer
Cert IV Bus, Cert IV EmpServ, DipMgt, MBA (current)

Lisa has over 15 years’ experience in workers compensation and vocational rehabilitation, disability employment services and in helping people with injuries/disabilities/health conditions to achieve their vocational and personal goals. Lisa is currently completing her Masters of Business Administration.

Lisa is extremely passionate about continuous performance improvement through strategic process development and training excellence across both corporate and operational areas. Lisa has mentored hundreds of employees throughout her career, and loves nothing more than seeing people progress and succeed as a result. Lisa thrives on implementing transformational change and has led major projects within ORS such as the implementation of the NDIS division, enhancement of the New Employer Workplace Rehabilitation area, and streamlining multiple corporate services areas to improve organisational efficiency, profitability and effectiveness. Lisa’s expertise lies in her ability to interpret and manage contracts, develop and manage systems, improve policies and processes and achieve strong performance across multiple contracts/service divisions. Lisa’s ability to comprehend complex data/information and her attention to detail is exceptional.

With a strong focus on business health and significant growth, Lisa is continuing to coordinate projects and strategies that will increase ORS’ employee behavioural and competency development, improve corporate governance and contract management effectiveness, increase service quality and effectiveness and ensure strong accountability is maintained.

Anthea Smith, General Manager Psychological Services and Behaviour Support
BA(Psych) (Hons), MPsych(Couns)

Anthea has over 15 years’ experience as a registered counselling psychologist and is an AHPRA approved supervisor. Anthea has extensive experience managing psychological and behaviour support services within organisations and is passionate about helping to train and develop provisional and registered psychologists and behaviour support practitioners to become the best they can be in their preferred areas of interest. Anthea’s expertise includes positive behaviour support assessments and interventions, particularly involving clients with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Severe and Persistent Mental Illness, couple and family therapy, group therapy programs (children and adults), emotion regulation training, trauma counselling and pain management counselling.

Anthea believes strongly in the need to evaluate the effectiveness of services provided and is currently heading up research within ORS involving the impact of emotion regulation training on the reduction of physical aggression in clients receiving behaviour support funding under the NDIS.

Simone Jones, Physical Services Manager
BOccTherapy

Simone has over 20 years of experience as an OT and has worked within paediatric mental health, workplace rehabilitation, disability and NDIS sectors. Simone’s expertise lies within workplace and home modifications for people with disabilities, health conditions and injuries. Simone also specialises in assistive technology prescription; functional daily living skills / Supported Independent Living (SIL) assessments and ergonomics. Simone is a hands on manager who enjoys training and developing staff and helping them to learn the skills needed to assist clients overcome barriers and achieve their goals.

Dr Geoff Waghorn, Senior Innovation and Research
BSocSci, PGDipPsych, PhD

Dr Waghorn has 24 years’ experience as a Registered Psychologist and 23 years in research. He is one of the leading experts on vocational rehabilitation including Individual Placement and Support (evidence-based supported employment) within Australia and internationally. To date Dr Waghorn has contributed to over 120 peer reviewed research publications. Most of his research has focussed on improving the recovery and social inclusion of individuals living with disabilities and health conditions.

In 2014 Dr Waghorn entered into the Disability Employment Australia Hall of Fame for his significant contribution to improving the lives and experiences of people with mental illness seeking employment. Dr Waghorn’s expertise includes an ability to simplify complex information and research to ensure that it can be practically applied in the real world. Geoff is a passionate advocate of open employment for people living with disabilities and severe mental illnesses who want to work. He has challenged low expectations in society with questions such as “show me the evidence that this person cannot work given the right support and a suitable job match.”

Dr Waghorn is currently assisting ORS to improve our services through ongoing evaluation and documentation of best practices. He is also overseeing our research into the impact of emotion regulation on the reduction of aggression for NDIS clients receiving behaviour support services

Marko Bajic, Marketing, Quality and Systems Manager
Cert IV MentalHlth, DipEmpServ, DipMgt

Marko has 10 years of management experience and has predominantly worked within the Disability Employment Services and NDIS sectors. Marko is passionate about helping people with a disability live their best lives, and he strives to achieve this through his commitment to exceptional customer service, training and development of staff, implementation of systems and efficiencies and his strong focus on quality and ensuring that the National Standards for Disability Services and ISO 9001:2015 underpins all of ORS’ service delivery. Marko’s expertise lies in his ability to manage multiple contracts/systems, his strong performance orientation, his background in design, his love of social media and technology, his strong marketing and business development skills and his extensive experience in quality and compliance across multiple industries.

Elizabeth Trickey, Strategy and Performance Manager
DipFLM

Elizabeth has worked within the employment services industry, workplace rehabilitation industry and NDIS for the past 13 years within many different roles including site, region, service area and national management roles. Elizabeth has a strong focus on contract/service area knowledge, performance, staff morale and team culture and is able to work within any team to identify and address process/performance/system issues and subsequently generate improved performance. Elizabeth’s areas of expertise and interest include customer service, complaints handling, performance improvement and staff management.

Rob Savage, IT Manager
DipMgt, GradCertBus, GradDipBus, MBA, MCSE, Prince 2 Foundation Cert, ITIL Foundation Cert

Rob has a technical and managerial background with over 20 years’ experience, primarily in the Information Technology industry. Working within both the private and public sectors Rob has a proven ability to develop and strengthen management teams in order to maximise company profitability and efficiency. With a strong technical background Rob has spent time in both Canada and the United Kingdom offering consultation services to companies such as IBM and Hewlett Packard. Rob’s areas of interest include information systems and process management.

Matthew Frearson, Customer Experience Manager
BBSc(Psych), DipCouns

Matthew currently manages the customer experience within ORS. He oversees the organisation’s referral and booking process, administration, staff allocation, and customer feedback. Matthew has had extensive experience across multiple roles within ORS and has worked across employment services, NDIS including School Leaver Employment Supports/Finding and Keeping a Job and Behaviour Support in addition to holding a number of management roles. He is passionate about providing exceptional customer service and high quality evidence-based services in a timely manner and ensures all feedback is actioned and addressed with solutions in place to reduce similar issues occurring in the future.

Geoffery Henrisson, Reporting Manager
BBus (Acc and InfoTech)

Geoffery has over 30 years’ experience across various industries in the areas of accounting and business reporting/analysis. In his role, Geoffery is responsible for supporting individual business divisions, conferring with managers and executives to provide key performance metrics, designing interactive dashboards to track, review and analyse performance and revenue KPIs. Geoffery’s expertise is his ability to communicate with staff at all levels about data and trends as well as his skills in designing, analysing and reporting to increase profitability and efficiency.

Rebecca Ryan, Accountant
BCom, DipFinPlan, CPA, Xero Partner Accreditation

Rebecca is a CPA qualified Accountant who has worked in practice for over 20 years gaining a wide range of accounting, tax and audit experience, working for a variety of clients across numerous industries. Rebecca’s expertise involves her ability to quickly understand how different industries work and what strategies are required to maximise growth and financial performance.

Alastair Mould, State Manager Workplace Rehabilitation and Health NSW/ACT
BPhysio, MBA

Alastair has over 16 years’ experience within the workplace rehabilitation industry working within the insurance sector as well as for private providers. He has extensive managerial experience across multiple states and his main areas of expertise include business development and strategic operations.

Alastair is a strong advocate of integrating health into business practices and believes that good health equals improved business outcomes. Alastair is a hands on manager who likes to work closely with staff and clients to identify, develop and integrate tailored, evidence-based, best practice solutions to meet business/individual needs. Alastair enjoys training and supporting his team to be the best they can be and to ensure that they are doing everything they can to help their clients achieve their return to work goals.

Joseph Carrello, Psychological Services Manager – WA
BPsych, JI Accredited Trainer

Joseph has over 30 years’ experience as a Registered Psychologist across multiple government and private sector organisations and authorities. He is an AHRPA approved supervisor and has assisted many provisional psychologists achieve full registration. Joseph has extensive service delivery and management experience and currently oversees ORS’ Western Australia Primary Health Alliance contracts for short term brief intervention psychological counselling for adults and children with mild to moderate mental health presentations in WA as well as our Employee Assistance Program services contracts nationally.

Joseph’s expertise is in the areas of EAP service provision, evidence-based psychological counselling, couples counselling, mediation and conflict resolution, outplacement and career transition, Psychological Assessments and delivering training presentations on psychology related topics. He also specialises in critical incident / trauma debriefing and has assisted numerous companies, individuals and families recovering from significant workplace accidents. He is also the only accredited Judgment Index (value based assessment) trainer accredited outside the USA to conduct training in the Judgment Index and has presented key note addresses at international conferences.

Alex Caterjian, Psychological Services Manager NSW/ACT
BSocSc(Sociol), BA(Psych), PGDPsych, MPsych(Clinical)

Alex has 12 years of experience providing psychological therapy in private practice and state and federal government agencies, including Centrelink and NSW Health. He is an AHPRA approved supervisor for provision and intern Psychologists, as well as for Clinical Psychology Registrars, having helped numerous provisional and clinical psychologists achieve full registration and endorsement.

Alex’s areas of expertise include trauma, sexuality, and men’s health. He also specialises in depression, anxiety, and compulsive behaviours. His main areas of interest include psychological dysfunctions impacting on weight and the evidence-based interventions to treat these conditions, notably emotion regulation training and cognitive remediation.

Alex is highly skilled in the provision of a range of therapeutic approaches including Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT), motivational interviewing, interpersonal psychotherapy, and brief solution-focused therapies. He has significant experiences and skills in the delivery of neurocognitive assessments for cognitive and intellectual functioning, personality disturbances, and forensic and medico-legal preparations and reports.

Petrina Scott, Strategy and Performance Coordinator
BArts, Cert IV TAE, Cert IV FLM, Cert IV ES

Petrina has over 15 years’ experience working with individuals with disabilities/injuries/health conditions/other forms of disadvantage and helping them to achieve their personal and employment goals. Petrina has personally assisted hundreds of clients achieve employment through her marketing and support efforts.

Whilst working at ORS, Petrina has managed multiple programs/services/projects and enjoys developing and training staff to exceed program and client expectations. Petrina is currently managing the WA NDIS services along with the Psychosocial Support Program, previously known as PHaMs. Petrina’s expertise includes marketing, business development and assisting large employers develop and sustain successful disability employment programs within their organisations.

Simon Gao, Behaviour Support/Physical Services Manager WA
BPsych(Hons), MOccTherapy

Simon has over 6 years’ experience as an Occupational Therapist working with people of all ages, from children aged 3+ to teenagers, adults, and older adults with complex health needs in mental health, disability, paediatric, geriatric, and private sectors. He has had a strong focus on training and professional development whilst leading therapy teams in various clinical settings as well as teaching undergraduate students at a tertiary education level, assisting with multidisciplinary team members to deliver the best possible practices to their clients.

Simon is adept of supporting clients experiencing from a wide variety of health issues and subsequent behavioural concerns, including mental health issues, neurodevelopmental/neurodegenerative conditions, trauma, and chronic pain. Particularly, Simon utilises a unique clinical view from a conjunction of his OT and psychology backgrounds to best support clients with dual diagnosis of disability and mental health. Simon is a member of Occupational Therapy Australia and Australian Psychological Society respectively, and also speaks Mandarin.

Simon believes that people with disability can overcome their barriers, regain their functioning, achieve their individualised goals, and ultimately improve their quality of life and independence with the right supports. Simon is passionate to assist his team to walk alongside their clients during their recovery journeys. Simon also has a particular interest in the area of information processing and emotional vulnerability and resilience, and is hoping to develop an innovative intervention for adolescents with autism spectrum disorder to reduce their anxiety and improve their employability skills.

Ashleigh Johnston, Strategy and Performance Coordinator
Cert IV ES, Cert IV FLM

Ashleigh has over 12 years’ experience working in Employment Services, Workplace Rehabilitation and Health and more recently within the employment area of the NDIS. Ashleigh has placed hundreds of clients into employment throughout her employment with ORS. She has also managed five star employment service sites and regions and helped to train others to replicate her results.

Ashleigh strongly believes in the benefits of employment in improving health outcomes and recovery. However she understands the need for the vocational goal and company culture to match the needs/wants/career aspirations/capacity of the client for any placement to be successful. Ashleigh’s expertise is in the area of motivational interviewing, vocational goal planning and in employer selection and marketing.

David Smout, Team Leader Workplace Rehabilitation and Health and NDIS – ACT
BSc(OccTherapy), PostGradCert. in Soft Tissue Injury

David is an AHPRA registered OT with extensive experience in the workplace rehabilitation industry across multiple schemes including the NSW and ACT WorkCover schemes, Comcare ACT Government, DVA, NDIS and Aged Care.

David specialises in workplace assessments to assess capacity and identify strategies that align with capacity to facilitate an early return to work and swift recovery. David is a strong advocate of the health benefits of good work and has an excellent understanding of the latest evidence based practices/literature so that he is able to promote this and educate treating practitioners, workplaces/employers, injured workers and doctors in order to facilitate early and durable return to work outcomes. David is also extremely knowledgeable about the impact of disability on mobility and function and uses his expertise in this area when conducting ADL and Supported Independent Living Assessments for NDIS customers

Katie Scriven, Team Leader Workplace Rehabilitation and Health and NDIS Occupational Therapy – Newcastle/Central Coast
BOccTherapy

Katie is an AHPRA registered OT who is the Team Leader for Newcastle and Central Coast, overseeing Workplace Rehabilitation and NDIS Occupational Therapy services. Katie has extensive experience across multiple schemes including: NSW WorkCover, NDIS, DVA and Aged Care. Katie enjoys working as part of a multi-disciplinary team and likes to take a holistic view of clients and their needs. Katie’s expertise involves Supported Independent Living Assessments, Assistive Technology Applications and Home Modification Assessments. Katie has an interest in sensory intervention and the provision of positive behaviour support. She is particularly interested in how both areas interrelate and enjoys the holistic approach that needs to be taken when conducting these interventions. Katie’s role as team leader consists of supporting staff and ensuring high quality assessments, documentation and services are being providing throughout her team.

Simone Parke, Team Leader Workplace Rehabilitation and Health – Sydney
BExPhysiol, ESSAM AEP, ASCA Level 1 Coach

Simone has 4 years’ experience working within the workplace rehabilitation industry across multiple roles including Rehabilitation Consultant, RTW Coordinator and Team Leader. Prior to this Simone worked as an Exercise Physiologist assisting children and adults through exercise prescription and pre-employment health screening. Simone is a strong believer in the benefits of exercise to overall health and mental well-being. Her areas of interest include: chronic pain, exercise prescription for individuals with cancer, exercise prescription for paediatric populations and complex multi-factorial WorkCover claims. Simone also has expertise in working with employers to help them address unsafe work practices resulting in injuries and WorkCover claims. Simone has recently commenced conducting exercise programs for NDIS clients with complex behaviours also receiving concurrent positive behaviour support intervention.