KEYNOTE
SPEAKERS

Dr Denise Quinlan, NZIWR Director

Dr Denise Quinlan is acknowledged internationally as an outstanding facilitator and speaker who regularly presents at national and international wellbeing conferences. She has delivered effective and enjoyable programmes to people from primary school students and their teachers, to scientists, engineers and senior corporate executives. Her humour and honesty allow her to create environments where participants fully engage and contribute. NZIWR’s strengths work draws on her validated strengths programme, demonstrated to enhance wellbeing, engagement and relatedness. Her work has been published in international academic journals and edited volumes.

She has worked alongside Prof. Martin Seligman and Dr. Karen Reivich delivering the University of Pennsylvania’s ground-breaking positive psychology and resilience programmes at leading schools in Australia and the UK (Geelong Grammar School, St Peter’s Adelaide, and Wellington College). Collaboration with a cluster of six NZ schools for almost a decade means Denise has a deep understanding of the challenges and approaches required to transform school wellbeing.

Her corporate background informs her work with senior executives across the globe. In addition to corporate wellbeing work in New Zealand and Australia, she teaches strengths-based team development to senior managers from global organisations at an international Business School. Originally an equity analyst and dealer-broker on the London Stock Exchange, Denise specialised in management assessment and development as a management consultant with Deloitte and KPMG in the UK and NZ.

Dr Lucy Hone, NZIWR Director

Dr Lucy Hone is a research associate at AUT University. As well as having her scientific research published in leading academic journals internationally, she writes for the Sunday Star Times and Psychology Today. Having been trained by the thought-leaders in the field at the University of Pennsylvania, she completed a PhD in public health at AUT. She now assists organisations – from leading law and aviation firms, to schools and health practitioners – to design and implement wellbeing initiatives creating sustained and meaningful change. The widespread respect for Lucy’s work is demonstrated by two large-scale projects she is currently running involving dozens of NZ schools, backed by Ministry of Education funding…

The sudden death of her 12-year old daughter, Abi, and friends in 2014, forced Lucy to turn her substantial academic training and professional practice to foster resilience in very personal circumstances. The blog she wrote in the aftermath of Abi’s death attracted international attention and resulted in the best-selling non-fiction title, What Abi Taught Us, Strategies for Resilient Grieving (Allen & Unwin, 2016), now available as Resilient Grieving in the US, UK and NZ. She is now much in demand as a Keynote speaker and workshop presenter fostering resilience among diverse populations and organisations, both in NZ and internationally.

She is a member of the NZAPP’s executive committee, a policy advisor for Canterbury’s All Right? campaign, the conference convenor for the Positive Education New Zealand conference, and NZ’s Global Representative for the International Positive Education Network. 

Dr Emma Woodward, Clinical Director

After working as a Social Worker with older children and adolescents in East London for several years Dr Emma Woodward decided that the only effective way to support children and young people with their mental health was to get in earlier and teach them the protective skills they needed in the first instance. So, in 2006 Emma changed careers and undertook her Doctorate in Child, Educational and Community Psychology at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Emma now has over 20 yrs experience working with children, young people and their families to support their mental health and wellbeing.

After moving to NZ in 2014, Emma worked for the Ministry of Education where she ended up as Practice Leader for the Intensive Wraparound Service. Emma is now the Director of Psychological Services at The Child Psychology Service in Auckland and the Clinical Director at the New Zealand Institute of Wellbeing and Resilience. Emma supports children and their families with a range of concerns (predominately anxiety in school aged children) and delivers training nationally around NZ on using strengths-based approaches and Positive Psychology when working with children, young people and their families.

As mother to three wonderfully lively and curious boys, Emma has a specific interest in how we use the science of Positive Psychology to support today’s children to develop the skills that they need in order to thrive in their tomorrow. Emma has a warm, genuine and curious approach to her work and her passion lies in enabling clients to use their strengths to support self-motivated and lasting change.