About Melanie

Melanie Hocking is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker with 20 years experience providing therapeutic support to West Australian families across mental health, primary health and women’s health services. She has completed postgraduate study specialising in perinatal and infant mental health. Melanie is experienced in evidence-based psychosocial interventions including parent-infant psychotherapy, CBT, narrative therapy, interpersonal therapy, solution-focused therapy, family therapy and play therapy.

Melanie is warm, empathic, and non-judgemental in her approach to working with families. She ensures a safe working relationship in which parents can both explore their worries and embrace the joys of early parenthood. Melanie works with parent and baby together to support their relationship and learn each other’s cues so they may ‘find each other’ through the first hazy days, weeks and months of baby’s life.

Melanie recognises pregnancy and the postpartum period as providing important opportunities for both the personal growth of parents and for the healthy social-emotional development of babies and young children. She acknowledges the challenges that can be faced for new parents in leaving the house to access mental health and early parenting services and has developed Bloom’s service model with this in mind.