Imaginif, home of talk doctors, Megan Bayliss, BITSS of Protective Behaviours; For Counselling, training, supervision, child therapy, child protection, sexual assault counselling.

About

Imaginif logoImaginif Pty Ltd is a private counselling practice in Cairns, Queensland, Australia. Although child and sexual assault counselling is our area of expertise, it is not all that we do.

This is who we are and how we started:

The Talk Doctors, Rebekah, Fran and Megan

Rebekah Allen, Fran Burke, Megan Bayliss

Megan Bayliss

(BSW, Dip SOC, MAASW), Director of Imaginif, mother of four and soon to be grand mother.
Megan is the director of Imaginif PTY LTD and the creative imaginera who designs the BITSS resources, writes the books and tutorials, answers the phone, emails, queries, takes bookings for the counsellors & looks after the web sites.

At Imaginif Megan offers professional supervisions, does some external research, offers the BITSS of Protective Play and Life Story Work workshops and is a motivational, moving and humorous guest speaker. Because of Megan’s busy creative schedule she will undertake direct client counselling only in exceptional cases and if the other counselors can not take on the case.

Megan has worked in both Australia and the UK, across all levels of government, in the community sector and in private industry. She is a solution focused therapist and has held senior social work positions within government and been coordinator at two sexual assault centers (adults and children). Megan has also done sessional teaching in counselling skills and professional development at James Cook University, Cairns campus.

Rebekah Allen

(B. Psych., Grad. Dip., Assoc. MAPS, fully registered as a psychologist in QLD, mother of 3): Rebekah is one of Megan’s past supervisee’s and recruited trainer in Megan’s BITSS model of Protective Behaviours.

An excellent child therapist across a range of behavioural areas, Rebekah is exceptionally skilled in assisting children with depression, anxiety and sexual assault issues to integrate, heal and move past their trauma.

Mother of three, Rebekah has an interest in preventing self-harm in children, young people and adults. Her weekly blogs at Imaginif will inform you about self-harm actions, prevention, reactions and treatment. Sad that so many children harm themselves as a way to display their internal pain, Rebekah delivers her weekly topic in a way that few people will run from.

Fran Burke

(Dip SOC, Dip SOH, M. ASOCHA, mother of 2): Solution focused and sexual assault response trained, Fran and Megan have previously worked together at the sexual assault counseling services in Cairns. Both sexual assault counsellors, they go back 15 years to when Fran first started at the old Rape Crisis Centre.

Mother to two grown males (wife to one male only), Fran remains grateful that she has a beautiful teenage grand daughter to engage in more feminine pursuits with (aka Fran spends a fortune on grand daughter!)

Although sexual assault therapy (past and recent ) is Fran’s area of expertise, Fran also works with men and women around anger, grief and loss, relationships and self-esteem. Just to balance the ages up, Fran does some excellent work with adolescents too. Fran has a special interest in working with grass roots Indigenous agencies and travels to both the Cape and Gulf from time to time.

But how did these three end up as the talk doctors?????

The Talk Doctors, Rebekah, Fran and MeganShort story is: Megan’s sole practice grew rapidly and she needed other therapists to take on the load. Megan wanted to turn her hand toward doing more supervision, training and web work. Hence, Fran and Rebekah joined the team (they have their own businesses) to take up all the direct face to face counselling work.

One of Megan’s previous clients used to call her the talk doctor so we became colloquially known as the talk doctors, healing emotional pain through talk. It stuck and we rather like it. Below photo is the three talk doctors, Rebekah Allen, Fran Burke and Megan Bayliss, playing with toy stethoscopes.

 

And Imaginif? Great, yet strange, name.

Imaginif was born of a simple conversation in 2005. For months, Paul and Megan had been discussing a name for Megan’s protective behaviour consultancy. Nothing fitted well. Paul sat back in the arm chair and said, “Imagine if this was easy.”

Imaginif logoThat was it! Imaginif stuck as a catch cry for, “Imaginif there was a world without child abuse.” Megan had a name for her counselling business and a name that she believed would stick in people’s minds - Imaginif it did!

But, what is Megan’s fascination with child abuse and protective behaviours? A rather strange topic to be passionate about isn’t it?

Megan grew up in Papua New Guinea and saw dreadful atrocities perpetrated against women and children. It was the formation of her social justice streak. At university, Megan studied Social Work and went on to specialise in child sexual assault therapy. Particularly interested in protection, Megan developed an interest in protective behaviours: right down to developing the BITSS model of Protective Behaviours.

Imaginif BITSS circleMegan says:

BITSS is an acronym for:
Body Ownership
Intuition
Touch
Say No
Support Network

BITSS began in 1998. My youngest child was at day care. I arrived to pick him up one afternoon and walked into a fight between several little boys.

“It’s a cock,” said one.

“It’s a willy,” said another.

“It’s a trouser snake,” laughed another little boy as he slapped his partners in crime on the back.

“It’s a penis,” said my three year old as he stomped his frustrated little foot. “It’s a penis, it’s a penis, it’s a penis!”

Oh, oh. The director invited us into her room. We were in trouble because young son said, “penis”.

As I listened to the directors explanation for our potential suspension (”you can’t say penis or vagina, it’s rude”), it dawned on me that my expectations of early educators and protective behaviour knowledge was too high. If we were relying on early educators to impart correct protective behaviour skills to our children, then we were in trouble. Just like other people, some early educators are terrified about protective behaviour talking. Also, if early educators are a representative group of the community, then one in three early educators would also have their own sexual assault issues. Undealt with personal issues makes it difficult to deal with similar social issues. It’s too hard so people stay away from it or use old myths taught to them as children (never mention those parts of the body; stranger danger, etc)

After facing suspension from day care for using inappropriate language, MY child (yes, sir, my child, not the other children who actually were using inappropriate words for the male private part) and I went home: he unhappy and angry because I got him into trouble (I told him his penis was a penis), me motivated to produce an easy model of protective behaviours that did not rely on early childhood educators training our children. A model that parents could use in their own homes to teach their own children. It had to be easy and it had to be fun.

BITSS was born after much research, consultation with parents and professionals and grouping of the five major protective concepts together: body ownership, intuition, touch, say no and support network - these are the BITSS that will help to keep your child safe from sexual assault.

bitss-jigsaw.jpg

The BITSS model uses protective play and teachable moments: activities and games that can be gently woven into everyday life. Research suggests that protective behaviours taught in school once every six months are insufficient to help children remember what to do in potentially dangerous personal situations. Reminders in the home, in the child’s every day life are the best way to keep your children safe.

If you’re wondering how to make sure your kids remember important safety rules about safety, use the BITSS model of protective play.

Imaginif BITSS of play kept our children safe.