Dr Jenny Brown has over 35 years of clinical experience in child, couple, and family health. Her primary clinical and research interest has been in Child and adolescent mental health and parent’s involvement in treatment. This has been reflected in her publications, conference and workshop presentations and her PhD research on parents’ experience of their child’s mental health treatment. The Parent Hope project has been developed from this critical research.
Jenny’s most recent book is Facilitating Parents’ Agency in Child and Adolescent Mental Health: Helplessness to Hope – published by Cambridge Scholars.
She has worked as a clinician and supervisor in the child and adolescent mental health sector and has been a visiting consultant/trainer for many child mental health teams for some decades. In addition, Jenny has substantial training and clinical experience as a social worker, family therapist and teacher (see below). In 2018 Jenny received the Australian Family Therapy Journal award for distinguished contribution to the field. In 2022 she was awarded the Polly Caskie Research award from the Bowen Centre for the study of the family in Washington DC.
Jenny is Director Emeritus and founder of the Family Systems Institute in Sydney, Australia – that has been providing training and clinical services in Bowen family systems approaches since 2004.
Jenny’s best-selling book “Growing Yourself Up: How to bring your best to all of life’s relationships” is now in its second edition. She has also published a primer on parenting called “Confident Parenting: Restoring Your Confidence as a Parent by Making Yourself the Project and Not Trying to Change Your Child”. Additionally, Jenny has published many articles and book chapters on the applications of family systems theory. Jenny’s teaching has taken her beyond Australian shores to Southeast Asia and North America.
* See Jenny Brown’s publication on her research findings: The relationship between parents’ hope and agency/self-efficacy.
Brown J (2018) Parents’ experiences of their adolescent’s mental health treatment: Helplessness or agency-based hope, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 23:4, pp.644-662.
Education bio: PhD University of New South Wales, Social Science; Master of Science (Social Work) Columbia University New York (Deans award in clinical and fieldwork excellence), Bachelor of Social Studies University of Sydney (University prize in medical Social Work); Advanced Externship in Couple and Family Therapy, Family Institute of Westchester, New York (offered teaching fellowship); 1-year family therapy training at Salvador Minuchin’s Family Studies Institute New York (Part of Columbia University Fieldwork), 1-year systemic supervision training, Tavistock & Portman Trust London; Diploma of Family Therapy, Relationship Australia.
