long story:
social worker:
Jo Mensinga graduated as a social worker (BSW) in the 1980s and worked in the sector for 15 years - mainly as a counselor, group worker and trainer. Jo has worked in the child protection, income support and family counseling sectors. Jo particularly enjoyed relationship counseling and working with women in a health setting. She also enjoyed exploring the intricacies of family systems theory (Murray Bowen), narrative therapy (Michael White) and feminist theory and approaches - particularly those that acknowledged the body (Elizabeth Grosz & Judith Butler).
Jo has always loved working with social work students and seized any opportunity she could to offer and to support them complete their field placement/internship commitments. When an opportunity arose to work in the university sector, Jo jumped at it. Being able to explore, learn and share how theory and practice inform each other in the helping professions is a great privilege as is highlighting the importance of relationships and embodied experience in facilitating change.
Jo has provided private counseling and professional supervision to social work practitioners since the 1990s. She began a private practice in 1992 to be available for supervision. She recently reduced her University commitments to allow more time to support those who wish to work with her privately.
Embodiment, yoga and somatic modalities facilitator:
Jo began practicing yoga as a teenager and qualified as a yoga teacher in the early 1990s. She taught many general classes, attended and ran yoga retreats and supported yoga students as they completed their own yoga teaching qualifications through the International Yoga Teacher’s Association.
Jo completed a Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TSY) certificate with David Emerson and Jenn Turner at Kripalu, USA in 2010 and has co-facilitated several TSY classes with a social work colleague - Simone Dewar. Jo has worked with Diane Long, a long time student of Vanda Scaravelli, who teaches a deeply embodied style of yoga and participated in many classes facilitated by therapeutically trained somatic professionals including Martha Eddy (PhD). These approaches influence Jo’s approach to facilitating embodiment classes today.
embodiment and social work yoga scholar:
Jo has always been interested in understanding professional decision making and the impact of stress in professional’s lives. The way decisions and experiences are storied also intrigues her. As such qualitative research methods, and in particular narrative inquiry, are her preferred approaches to researching her areas of interest.
Since 2010, Jo has focused on how human service workers have integrated yoga and mindfulness into their practice. Articles she has authored and co-authored can be found at https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/jo.mensinga/ , https://www.researchgate.net/profile. She has also reviewed articles for the International Association of Yoga Therapists journal and recently co-edited a special edition for Australian Social Work journal on Social Work and Embodiment.
Jo completed her post-graduate studies in 2017. The title of her PhD thesis, “My body/mind tells me things my profession and sometimes I find hard to hear: a narrative exploration of how social workers and human service workers listen to their bodies in practice” is long, but it captures well what she discovered - as social workers we need to be taught about embodiment and how to introduce the body into professional conversations. Her passion is to do just that!
available services [face to face and online]
Social Work offerings
Professional supervision
Counseling and Embodiment Therapy
Group facilitation
Organization consultancy
yoga, Embodiment and somatic Movement classes
Private individual
Small group classes
Workshops for organizations
embodiment scholarship
Research
Academic coaching
Key note presentations
Publications