Kyli Hedrick

Dr. Kyli Hedrick is a registered psychologist, with a Master’s Degree in Community Psychology, who has worked with people from asylum seeker and refugee backgrounds for close to 30 years. Over her career, she has worked across four key areas: providing direct psychological support to people from asylum seeker and refugee backgrounds; offering clinical leadership, supervision, and support to teams working in this context; leading national and international research programs focused on the mental health of asylum seekers; and holding senior roles in lecturing, curriculum design, and professional development training, including with a focus on migration and health.

Kyli is the founder and Director of a small private psychology practice for people from immigrant, asylum seeker, and refugee backgrounds in Melbourne’s inner west. Her PhD (undertaken at the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, The University of Melbourne) examined the epidemiology of self-harm in asylum seekers, in both detained and community-based populations. Kyli has held research fellowships in refugee mental health in Australia and Scandinavia and contributed to both national and international suicide and self-harm prevention policy. Between 2017-2019, she was an Invited Expert Member of a National Mental Health Panel for the Government of Nauru, where she conducted independent mental health assessments and provided psychological reports for asylum seekers medically evacuated from Nauru. In addition, Kyli has provided invited expert advice to State coroners (on deaths in immigration detention), as well as to professional associations, and industry groups on the basis of her program of research and practice expertise.

Kyli has received outstanding researcher awards from the Australian Psychological Society, teaching commendations (RMIT), and been awarded internationally competitive travel, research, and conference grants from funders in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Sweden, and Denmark. She continues to hold an active Honorary affiliation as a Research Fellow at the Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, The University of Melbourne.