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Coral Tree Family Service is a state-wide service for the families of children with behavioural, emotional and mental health difficulties

The service supports children with complex, severe or longstanding difficulties, and their families.

Coral Tree is the only service of its kind in Australia. The service’s approach involves a combination of parent management training, family therapy, and attachment-informed interventions.

All programs are offered to families free of charge.  

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Why support Coral Tree?

Coral Tree works with families from all over NSW, at times of struggle and hardship. 

It is resource-intensive due to the high-quality nature of the interventions, provided by a range of professionals, including psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers, carer peer worker, and child and adolescent psychiatrists.  

Coral Tree is always looking for opportunities to expand the number of families that it can provide a service to. We are looking to innovate and improve the facilities that families can access whilst staying on-site, creating an environment that is safe, comfortable, and that encourages connection within families.

“We have restored hope and a new way forward. This model does work. I will always be eternally grateful and it has changed our lives.” 

How we support families

Coral Tree provides services to the families with the following programs: 

Family Residential Program – involves the family of a referred child attending a planned four-night Family Residential Stay, which is family-oriented, intensive and time-limited.  

Clinical School Program – in partnership with the co-located Arndell School, to facilitate change across home and school settings.  

Day Attendance Program – a brief intervention, supporting a family to think through a “Question of the Day” together with staff. 

Case Consultation Program – available for NSW Health staff to support multiple professionals “thinking out loud” together to support a family.  

Let’s Work Together Program – partnering with clinicians in rural and regional NSW to support a family, using video-conferencing.

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“I finally have skills that I am able to use, even though the children are going through different developmental stages. Even when there is a crisis, we feel supported.”

Our impact

1.8k
families have accessed services provided by Coral Tree since 1999
1
families come from out-of-home care (OOHC)
33
of families come from rural or regional NSW

1

children identify as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
70+
of referred children are affected by parental mental health struggles (COPMI)

“We have gained a better sense of family, feeling unified with a clear direction on how to best manage the boys’ mental health and behavioural issues.”

Meet some of the Coral Tree staff

Cathryn McElroy

Service Manager

Cath is a Registered Nurse who has enjoyed various roles in her 22 years at Coral Tree. Cath feels especially privileged to be managing an amazing team of dedicated and passionate professionals who are constantly exploring innovative ways to improve Coral Tree to support children and their families.

Dr Matthew Symond

Clinical Lead

Matt is a Senior Clinical Psychologist, and has worked at Coral Tree for over 16 years. Matt oversees referrals, assessment and service provision. He is proud of the work Coral Tree does in supporting whole families, by empowering parents and carers to find new ways to relate to their children.

Dr Tania Leung

Medical Director, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist

Tania is a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who has been with the service for over 10 years. In her capacity as a Psychiatrist, she supports the team in the provision of Psychiatry input to the children and families who engage in the various programs offered in Coral Tree.

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