Meet the team
Sarah Duncanson Director
Sarah has extensive experience in education, training, and Paediatric Advanced Life Support. She has been involved in clinical education at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and with the Australian College of Critical Care Nursing, and has held roles in Paediatric Intensive Care as a Clinical Nurse Consultant, outreach and retrieval nurse. Her special interests lie in children with congenital heart conditions, family centred care and clinical leadership/ mentorship of junior nurses. She is a Mum of 3 energetic boys and a new little girl, regionally based and owns a farm!
Grace Larson Director
Grace is a paediatric intensive care nurse with over a decade experience in paediatric nursing education. She also brings experience with quality and safety and consults for the Australian Midwifery and Nursing Federation on nurse safety issues. She has a special interest in children’s procedural pain and sedation, and she completed her masters in that field. She is regionally based with her three young children and manages a heritage apple orchard with her spare time!
Senior Nurse Educators
Amelia Duncanson
Amelia is a paediatric nurse with over 16 years caring for children in the acute Paediatric medical and respiratory setting. Millie finds it such a privilege caring for children and their families when they are experiencing adversity and navigating the healthcare system. She knows the difference that the small things make to their hard days and is very skilled at adapting to suit the needs of the family- whether that is taking vital signs in the playroom, supporting a mother to breastfeed whilst doing a dressing change or providing an empathetic approach around medical anxiety in children (and sometimes parents). Millie lives in rural Victoria with her 4 young children and husband.
Rhiannon Ward
Rhiannon is a nurse with over 18 years nursing experience in paediatrics (medical, respiratory) she has a special interest in caring for children with additional needs such as cerebral palsy or those with acute or chronic complex medical needs. She lives with her two children, husband and three cats and Kelpie in rural Victoria.
Rhiannon loves being able to empower families in caring for their children - being able to provide emotional support and the hands-on skills to ensure their children can thrive.
Carly Fogarty
Carly is a paediatric nurse from the UK who moved to Melbourne and pursued a career in Paediatric Intensive Care. She has completed further postgraduate studies in Paediatric Critical Care, Paediatric retrieval medicine and Extra Corporeal Life Support and nursing management. She has a passion for the intensive care environment, in particular children with cardiac conditions and has recently completed a humanitarian trip in Fiji, supporting children undergoing cardiac surgery in a developing country.
Carly lives in regional Victoria, where she has taken a position as a Nursing manager of a neonatal unit. She met her husband in the ICU (also a nurse, now a firefighter!) and together they have 2 young children.
Helen Barker
Helen is a paediatric nurse from the UK with over 18 years experience. Her speciality lies in Neonatal and Paediatric critical care but she has has completed further postgraduate studies in Paediatric critical care and a Masters in Public health with a focus on crisis and disaster management. She has worked as a secondary school nurse for the department of education and an undergraduate teaching assistant at James Cook University. Her skills and experience were instrumental during the COVID-19 pandemic where she was part of the Infection prevention and control outreach team for the Department of health. She went on to become the regional manager of the COVID quarantine program.
Helen lives in rural Victoria with 3 young children and her partner.
Our Story
Grace and Sarah, co founders of PAEDS education service both have extensive clinical experience in Paediatrics as registered nurses. With 3 decades of combined experience, many of these spent in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, Grace and Sarah have worked in advanced clinical leadership roles together including Clincal Nurse Education, Clinical Nurse Consultancy and as nurse educators on humanitarian missions for cardiac children in underprivledged regions. They have also worked extensively in the critical care sector outside their workplace, providing Paediatric Advanced Life support training to regional and rural healthcare sectors as well as through the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation.
With this combined experience and a passion to spread the word about Paediatrics, Sarah and Grace founded PAEDS, Paediatric Assessment and Education Specialists. Their vision to support regional and rural healthcare with Paediatric skills and knowledge soon spread to educating the community with vital lifesaving knowledge and skills in the form of first aid training (Nationally recognised as well as a custom designed Baby and child first aid course). 2022 has seen the expansion of PAEDS into the NDIS sectors, supporting children with complex medical needs by training their carers with specialised paediatric knowledge and skills.
Both Sarah and Grace have completed their Bachelor of Nursing as well as Post Graduate diplomas in Advanced Nursing Practice, Paediatric Critical care, as well as Graduate certificates in Immunisation nursing and a cert IV in TAE. Grace has completed her masters of Advanced Nursing practice, with a minor thesis based around Pain management for painful procedures in ICU and Sarah is currently a masters of Advanced Nursing practice student.
