STARTTS employs ninety-eight part-time and full-time staff from a range of professional backgrounds including psychologists, psychiatrists, researchers, social workers and educators.

Many of STARTTS staff come from refugee backgrounds and are familiar with the cultures and experiences of our diverse client group. Like STARTTS’ clients they have overcome significant challenges to build rewarding new lives in Australia. Read some of their fascinating stories here.

Our staff come from many countries and together, can speak more than 20 languages including:

• Afrikaans
• Arabic
• Assyrian
• Bengali
• Bosnian
• Burmese
• Croatian
• Dari
• Dinka
• English
• Farsi
• French
• Karen
• Khmer
• Kihunde
• Kinande
• Kinyarwanda
• Kirundi 
• Korean
• Krio
• Lingala
• Luganda
• Pashtu
• Portuguese
• Serbian
• Somali
• Spanish
• Swahili
• Tetum
• Turkish
• Urdu
• Vietnamese

We employ bicultural staff to work with refugees. Bicultural counsellors are qualified professionals who have a good understanding of both a particular refugee communities’ culture and Australian cultures.

We also employ trainee bicultural counsellors from more newly arrived refugee communities, such as Sierra Leonne and Sudan. Trainee counsellors work closely with experienced counsellors in a three-way therapeutic relationship. They act as cultural bridges, explaining the client’s, beliefs, behaviours and ways of communication to the experienced counsellor and vice versa. In the process, they are trained as counsellors. Most already have some counselling or community development experience. Many are also studying social work, psychology or another discipline.