PhD graduate Allyson Wilson honoured for research that’s changing mental health policy and practice

With over 300 citations by clinicians, researchers and policymakers, Dr Wilson is a nationally and internationally recognised leader in trauma-informed mental health care. Her work has shaped policy, practice and education through a human rights lens that challenges coercion, institutional control and biomedical reductionism.

Her evidence-based recommendations have directly informed the Agency for Clinical Innovation’s Trauma-Informed Care in Mental Health Services across NSW: Framework for Change, a co-designed initiative involving consumer researchers, service users, carers, clinicians and managers. Her research has been cited by the Australian Productivity Commission in its Mental Health Inquiry Report and contributed to resources developed by multiple state health departments.

Internationally, her research features in the Scottish Government’s Trauma-Informed Practice Toolkit and has been foundational to peer-reviewed studies in Asia with her influence extending to nursing scholarship in the United States.

In 2025, Dr Wilson collaborated with University of Stirling to co-develop an educational resource on trauma-informed care for mental health nursing students. She was also a featured speaker in the national webinar Lived, Living and Clinical Experiences of Trauma-Informed Care, hosted by the Matilda Centre for Research in Mental Health and Substance Use at the University of Sydney.

“My PhD journey grew from humble beginnings, shaped by the quiet resilience and complex realities that come with life, navigating systems not built for you. It also grew from a place of deep listening to people, to systems, and to the silences in between,” Dr Wilson said. 

She says her commitment to social justice and relational ethics "interrogates the gap between policy and the realities of the lived experience".

“What I came to realise is that trauma-informed care isn’t something you simply ‘implement’. It isn’t a checklist, tick-box or two-day training on five principles. It’s something you live. It’s felt in the small, often unnoticed moments and, it is deeply embodied,” Dr Wilson said.

Her research provokes a rethinking of trauma-informed care. It asks us to confront the discomfort and to consider whether systems that are designed to heal, may inadvertently cause harm. True trauma-informed care, she argues, emerges not from frameworks but from our messy, often ugly, uncomfortable, vulnerable, everyday truths in human experiences.

Allyson completed her undergraduate nursing degree and Master of Clinical Science (Mental Health Nursing) at Southern Cross University before undertaking an Honours project, with First Class Honours in Trauma-informed Care. 

She says the project motivated her to delve deeper, ultimately leading to a PhD exploring whether trauma-informed care can genuinely exist, and if so, what it truly looks like in practice. Her perspective is grounded in the lived experience of a mental health nurse working in acute mental health settings in Australia.

“It was a journey of learning and unlearning. I had to let go of what I thought I knew and sit with discomfort and uncertainty, that’s where the real insight emerged,” she said. 

Dr Wilson's PhD was also a personal and emotional journey. During her studies, Allyson balanced full-time work, family and carer responsibilities, and the profound challenge of supporting and later losing her father through terminal illness. She credits her success to her family, friends and, an incredible supervisory team, including Professors John Hurley, Professor Marie Hutchinson and Professor Richard Lakeman.