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Quirky Kid Principal Child Psychologist Dr Kimberley O’Brien completed a four-week professional immersion in Ghana, building connections across psychology, mental health, education and community services.
Supported by Vocational Impact, a UK-based placement organisation, the program included professional visits and discussions in Accra and Cape Coast, giving Dr O’Brien the opportunity to observe how different services approach recovery, rehabilitation, youth support and mental health care.
The experience extended Quirky Kid’s international professional learning beyond publishing and education into direct exchange with clinicians, students and community organisations working in West Africa.
Learning across different service systems
Professional visits included mental health, justice and community settings. These encounters provided insight into how local teams work with limited resources, peer support, vocational rehabilitation and community connection.
Rather than treating the visit as a model to be replicated, the value was in comparison and exchange. Different systems create different constraints and strengths, and seeing those differences firsthand can sharpen thinking about clinical practice, service design and the role of community in recovery.
Academic connections with the University of Cape Coast
A significant part of the immersion involved discussion with psychologists and students connected with the University of Cape Coast, which offers postgraduate training in educational psychology, clinical health psychology and related fields.
Dr O’Brien also led an educational discussion in Accra with local clinicians and students. The visit subsequently opened discussions about a possible adjunct teaching application with the University of Cape Coast.
The connection created the possibility of further academic exchange between Australian and Ghanaian psychology communities.
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Quirky Kid continues to grow, develop and evolve. As a result, we have new positions for child psychologists and a mental health clinician (Social Worker, Occupational Therapist, Mental Health Nursing or Psychologist) who shares Quirky Kid’s passion for working with children – Together, amazing things happen.
International learning that informs local practice
For Quirky Kid, professional exchanges such as the Ghana immersion are valuable because they expose clinicians to different systems, cultures and ways of thinking about child development, mental health and community support.
The experience also adds to Quirky Kid’s broader history of international engagement through education, publishing, research and professional collaboration, while keeping the focus on what can be learned and brought back into practice in Australia.
