Meet our Team
Experience compassionate care from our team of experts dedicated to enhancing mental health in your workplace.
Our Story
From humble beginnings as a teacher and educator, our founder Lou Lugsdin recognised the deep connection between individual wellness and collective success.
Her compassionate and empathetic approach, honed through two decades of fostering self-belief and emotional well-being in young minds, brought a glaring gap in the business world to light.
This realisation was the genesis of her journey, and thus, the Team Approach was born.
Initially, Lou launched MyY, a platform for personalised coaching to professionals. However, this one-to-one approach didn’t mirror her core belief in the power of teamwork. Understanding that businesses needed to be as much about people as they were about profit, she reimagined her vision.
Guided by core values of empathy, compassion, connection, lifelong learning, and teamwork, Lou relentlessly championed a paradigm shift in traditional HR and mental health support. Lou began educating businesses on human behaviour, underlining the reciprocal relationship between a positive work environment and business success.
Her mission was simple yet revolutionary – when we look after our people, they look after the business.
The Team Approach is now a thriving team of amazing counsellors and mental health experts that share this passionate vision.
Our vision is a future in which every workplace in Victoria and Australia is a champion of emotional health. We strive for Employee Assistance Program (EAP) to be synonymous with successful mental health initiatives, making The Team Approach the leading provider of EAP programs and Psychosocial Safety consulting for businesses and organisations Australia Wide.
Our Team
Founder
Lou Lugsdin
Lou longs for the day when mental health is as routinely discussed as workplace health and safety. She’s determined to reduce the stigma around mental health and cultivate a culture where ‘Connected Conversations’ – organic dialogues promoting positive mental health – are commonplace.
Lou’s journey is a testament to her resilience and unwavering belief in the power of human connection. Her story serves as an inspiration for businesses, proof that profit and people not only coexist but flourish together.
Her day-to-day work at the Team Approach is imbued with an array of emotions – excitement, satisfaction, compassion, and more. Each story of transformation, each acknowledgment of positive change, instils in her a sense of profound fulfilment, gratitude, and honour.
B.Teach (Prim) (CSU), Dip Couns (AIPC), CAPC (TCI), Equine Assisted Therapy & Somatic Coaching – CEEL Practitioner, E-DISC Profiling Pract & Facil (HR Profiling)
Team Member
Jess Cramer
Jess is a qualified Nutrition Coach and educator. With a background in chemistry, education and nutritional counselling, Jess brings a practical, evidence-informed approach to nutrition that supports both physical and mental wellbeing.
With over 15 years’ experience as a teacher, Jess is highly skilled at translating complex nutrition concepts into clear, achievable strategies. Her work focuses on helping clients turn nutrition advice into everyday habits that fit their lifestyle, work demands and family life.
Jess specialises in supporting clients with sustainable nutrition changes, including weight management, hormone health, gut health, fatigue and general wellbeing. She often works with clients who feel overwhelmed by conflicting nutrition advice and helps them regain confidence with food through education, structure and accountability.
Her coaching style is supportive, practical and non-judgemental. Jess works collaboratively alongside counsellors, fitness professionals and other wellbeing practitioners, ensuring nutrition guidance complements movement, mental health and lifestyle support.
Jess is passionate about preventative health and believes small, consistent changes are the foundation for lasting wellbeing. Her role within The Team Approach is to support clients with practical nutrition education that empowers them to feel more in control of their health and daily routines.
Team Member
Sally Phelan
After more than 25 years leading global teams in the fashion industry, Sally retrained and now works as a certified life coach, ADHD executive functions coach, NLP practitioner, DISC trainer, high-performing teams coach, and Yoga Nidra teacher. She brings both corporate insight and deep coaching expertise to her practice.
Sally specialises in transformational life coaching and hypnotherapy for success, supporting leaders, women in midlife, and neurodivergent professionals to overcome burnout, self-doubt, and uncertainty. She combines performance coaching, mindset coaching, and hypnosis for confidence to help clients release limiting beliefs, rediscover purpose, and align their lives with their true values.
Her coaching style is strategic yet soulful, grounded in curiosity, contribution, and practical tools for lasting change. Sally works with individuals and teams to build clarity, confidence, and renewed energy, offering both workplace wellbeing and personal growth pathways.
Team Member
Elizabeth Ravech
After a varied career as a commercial litigation lawyer, teacher, owner/operator of a tour business, a worker’s advocate within the Workcover Authority, Elizabeth completed a Masters of Counselling, and now provides EAP Counselling sessions. In fact, Elizabeth has over 1000-hours of EAP Counselling experience.
When life feels overwhelming, coping may not just be a matter of changing our mindset or looking on the bright side. Rather, understanding how our brains are wired and having a tool kit of skills and strategies can help to improve insight and increase resilience, and find a way back to joyful, valued living.
Elizabeth’s counselling style is person-centred and trauma informed, using psycho-education and evidence-based interventions. She draws from various modalities including; Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Solution Focussed Therapy (SFT) and Motivational Interviewing (MI).
Elizabeth works with adults and adolescents to help with: anxiety, depression, grief and loss, workplace conflict, substance and behavioural addictions, navigating challenging life events, emotional regulation, understanding and coping with unpleasant emotions and intrusive thoughts, assertive communication, effecting change, decision making, values work, and interpersonal skils.
Team Member
Sloan Wilkins
Team Member
Rebecca Dahl
Bec is a seasoned family law expert and Partner at Nicholes Family Lawyers. Bec assists clients to achieve outcomes that work (practically, emotionally, financially) – across the full breadth of family law services.
Bec is dedicated to:
- Helping the LGBTQI+ community navigate donor agreements, parenting disputes, property agreements and disputes, donor / surrogacy arrangements.
- Helping women before and after separation/divorce so they can live the best life they can – and to move onwards and upwards with confidence!
- Helping grandparents build and maintain valuable and life changing connections with their grandchildren – wherever they are
- Achieving outcomes that contain costs and risk, reduce anxiety and long-term damage
- Representing clients on issues across the lifespan of a relationship: from binding financial agreements (BFAs) (or ‘’pre nups’’) to marriage to separation/divorce and spousal maintenance to child support
Bec approaches all her matters with a human, caring approach and with an understanding that reflects the complexity and anxiety that is often associated with family law issues. Clients rely on Bec for her compassionate yet robust approach in looking after their needs.
Team Member
Shane Kelton
Shane’s journey into the personal training industry is deeply personal and inspiring. After facing his own mental health challenges, he discovered that exercising correctly was essential for his wellbeing. As he built confidence through fitness, he pursued qualifications and set out on a mission to help others develop lifelong skills for physical and mental balance.
Shane’s personal training philosophy centers around creating sustainable habits and a life of balance. He thrives on educating clients, keeping them accountable, and sharing his passion for helping people lead happier, healthier lives.
Over the years, Shane has worked in various settings, from home gyms to online platforms, and even owned a factory-style training space where over 100 people came each week to transform their lives. His lived experience with mental health has shaped not only his approach to training but also his broader impact as an author and keynote speaker. Shane has shared his story and insights at more than 100 events, inspiring audiences to prioritize their wellbeing.
A devoted family man, Shane’s passion for helping others remains as strong as ever. He believes in the power of wellbeing to create a positive ripple effect across all areas of life—from work and family to personal fulfillment. Shane’s mission is to empower others to embrace healthier habits that enrich their lives and those around them.
Team Member
Logan Popple
Logan has been passionate about finance since his first job collecting golf balls at the age of 14 years old. This then led into buying his first home at the age of 19 which then sparked the career choice to become a mortgage broker, assisting clients with the property buying journey.
Starting out in scaffolding and landscaping for about 8 years, gave Logan a wide variety of experiences and understanding for different types of income.
Outside of finance, his passions include friends and family, while enjoying all kinds of sports.
Logan provides 1-hour EAP Financial Wellbeing appointments via Zoom as part of your EAP Program.
Team Member
Louise O’Neill
Louise is not just a counsellor, she is also a movement for mental and physical health advocate. With a background in sport physio and personal training, Louise has the knowledge to deliver safe and effective exercise programs when recovering from injuries as well as general fitness programs.
Louise has been delivering both group and one on one personal training for many years online, as well as face to face, and is capable of delivering safe and effective workouts with no equipment all the way through to those with home gyms, or access to unstaffed gyms.
She enjoys working with people of all ages and fitness levels all over rural Australia with her focus being more on improving functional fitness, endurance and strength rather than simply losing weight.
Louise provides 1-hr functional fitness, movement and exercise appointments via Zoom as part of your EAP Program.
BSC Hons Sports Therapy, Grad Cert Ag Health and Medicine, Ba Psychology and Counselling
Team Member
Tory Wilcox
Tory Wilcox offers broad-based experience in counselling, teaching and professional development. She holds a Bachelor of Psychological Science (Minor in Counselling) and has worked extensively in the education sector with staff and students in both a counselling and teaching capacity.
Tory fosters an honest, caring and supportive relationship with her clients, employing evidence-based practices and accessing a wide range of tools and data-based decision-making methodologies that lead to positive psychological outcomes for personal empowerment and enhanced well-being.
Tory has taken an interest in learning how to push right outside her comfort zones with her most recent achievement being the completion of an advanced survival training course in the Peruvian Amazon Jungle.
As an EAP counsellor, Tory delivers on her passion for providing a safe setting for individuals to explore their needs and evolve positive and productive coping strategies, boundaries, and goals.
BPsychSc (Couns), Cert IV TAE
Team Member
Roee Kohn
Roee is a qualified and highly experienced Mental Health Social Worker with over 19 years of experience working in the UK and Australia. He specializes in assisting individuals struggling with traumatic life challenges and guiding them toward meaningful change. Described by his clients as warm, non-judgmental, and a great listener, Roee works collaboratively to understand their issues and limiting beliefs.
His approach incorporates a mixture of behavioral therapies, each tailored to the individual’s unique situation, underpinned by a strengths-based approach that emphasizes everyone’s inherent strengths and awesomeness, regardless of their story.
Roee is committed to helping his clients by listening attentively, guiding them, and empowering them with practical tools and strategies to tackle any issue. His credentials as an accredited Mental Health Social Worker, Personal Performance Coach, along with his specialties in handling issues related to drugs and alcohol, gambling, emotions and anger, anxiety, and phobias, equip him to provide effective support and interventions.
Dip PPC (The Coaching Academy), BA/Psych (Monash), BSW (Monash),Accredited Mental Health Social Worker, Member of the AASW, MAASW (Adv Acc), Member of Mental Health Academy
Team Member
Catherine O’Leary
Catherine is an experienced trauma-informed therapist who is a ‘here and now’ practitioner, bringing useful strategies to life in her sessions with clients. She welcomes clients and whatever issues they may want to work with, and assists clients to explore thoughts, feelings and behaviours that are troubling to them.
She has extensive exposure working with clients who have experienced or are experiencing trauma, mental health issues, addictions, grief, and challenging life changes, and introduces effective evidence-based strategies towards resolution of any troubling situation.
It is not always doom and gloom. She works with clients light-heartedly to safely reveal inner strengths and unconscious motivations towards lasting solutions.
Catherine has a lengthy and robust background in the mental health industry. Each person is unique to her, so she can apply appropriate individualised approaches to clients’ individual needs.
Catherine is committed to helping clients work through whatever has brought them to therapy in an enjoyable and efficient manner, using a selection of useful modalities. She meets clients on level ground, helping them find their own solutions through vital information sharing, support, and a few gentle informed nudges along the way.
RN, BN, MA, Post Grad Dip Advanced Psych Nursing, Dip Couns., IFS equivalent L1
Team Member
Karen Bishop-Hubert
Karen’s approach is compassionate, supportive and is all about bringing out the best in people.
Karen has extensive experience across multiple industries. With a background in case management, she has worked with very long-term unemployed people, helping them to obtain sustainable work, or access services to provide additional support.
Karen has also managed busy employment services and recruitment offices, and has been heavily involved with programs designed to help First Nations people overcome educational and employment barriers.
With more than 30 years of management and leadership experience, she has been an EAP Ambassador and mentor to new and upcoming managers.
Holding qualifications in counselling, human resources management, management and mental health first aid, Karen is also a qualified end-of-life doula for both people and pets. With a special interest in end-of-life, Karen can also provide support for grief and loss, pet loss and workplace issues. By utilising multiple modalities, Karen provides support tailor made to the uniqueness of each client.
An accomplished leader and manager, Karen understands that a business cannot be successful without a supported team. She believes that a motivated, visionary workplace is one that focuses heavily on staff wellbeing and self-care. Teams who feel valued and empowered perform at their best and contribute to making a business successful.
B Couns (current), Dip Couns, Dip HRM, Dip Mgmt, Cert IV WHS, Cert IV FM, Cert III Bus Admin, Mental Health First Aid, Rehabilitation and Return to Work Co-Ordinator.
Working together for mentally healthy teams
From our base on the Bellarine Peninsula, The Team Approach supports organisations across Australia. We specialise in psychosocial safety, workplace wellbeing, and leadership consulting, delivered through in-person training, online appointments, and our groundbreaking digital tool, The Team App. Whether it’s Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), coaching, or team development, we make support accessible anywhere, anytime.
office
2/11 Clifton Springs Rd, Drysdale VIC 3222
