Dr Tomomi McAuliffe

Lecturer in Occupational Therapy

School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
t.mcauliffe@uq.edu.au
+61 7 336 52084

Overview

Tomomi is an early career researcher who has a strong interest in parental health and wellbeing in the context of disability. She has worked in mental health practice before changing the direction of her career to the tertiary education sector. As she worked with people who were mothers in clinical context, she became interested in the power of mothering role and occupation. This interest has led her to complete her PhD study to investigate family routine management and its everyday impact on mothers of autistic children. With her PhD, she compared the experiences of mothers of autistic children using their household status (i.e., single versus couple) as well as region of residence (i.e., major city versus regional areas) to highlight the similarities and differences between these groups. Tomomi is also interested in mental health among international students, especially those students who come from non-Western cultural background. She has presented her research both at national and international conferences.

Research Interests

  • Health and wellbeing of parents of children with disability
    The main theme of my research is parental health and wellbeing, such as work participation, mental health, life balance, and management of additional responsibilities when there is a family member with disability. Keywords: Mothers of autistic children, supporting and promoting health and wellbeing of parents; co-designing supportive programs, advocating the needs of parents; mothering occupation and roles; single parents, family centred practice; family support; families of children with disability; family health and wellbeing
  • International students and their mental health
    The second research theme I am interested in is the mental health of university students, in particular, that of international students.
  • Intellectual disability
    I am interested in the area of intellectual disability. In particular, I am interested in how health professional education can prepare students to work with people with intellectual disability competently.
  • Family routines in the context of disability
    I am interested in how health professionals incorporate family routines in designing their interventions when working with families of children with disability, in particular autistic children. Keywords: Time-use of families of children with disability; use of family routines in clinical practice; family routines management
  • Regional and remote practice
    Accessibility of services in regional and remote areas, in particular among families of children with disability; impact on service delivery

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Curtin University of Technology
  • Bachelor (Honours), James Cook University

Publications

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Supervision

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Publications

Journal Article

Conference Publication

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors: