About Bruce Perham

Bruce Perham is a Social Worker, Family and Narrative Therapist.

Bruce spent many years in the not-for-profit sector primarily at the Multiple Sclerosis Society and Alzheimer’s Australia (now Dementia Australia). In 2008 Bruce commenced working in private practice as a Mental Health Social Worker and established his company Let’s Talk Differently Pty Ltd.

Bruce’s first exposure to a prison in 2009, was through an EAP provider who had the Department of Justice and Community Safety contract. This was to conduct a psychological debrief for five officers who had been involved in a prisoner suicide. Over the next decade or so Bruce has been in and out of prisons all over Victoria providing counselling and training. Bruce has undertaken extensive training around the impact of trauma experiences on people and particularly workplace trauma within the Correction and First Responder fields.

In 2017 Bruce travelled to Florence Colorado USA to do the four-day instructor training to deliver Dr Caterina Spinaris’s signature course From Correction Fatigue to Fulfillment. This is a full-day course developed by Dr Spinaris and is based on her work with Correction Officers over a twenty-year period.

In 2021 Bruce wrote his first book Code Blue: Prison Officer in Danger which was a reflection of his decade-plus years working in the corrections industry. Bruce’s second book The O’Rourke Interviews: Counselling a prison officer with a tough story to tell will be published in April 2022. Bruce will now focus on transforming his Let’s Talk Differently website into a health and wellbeing resource for correction officers and non-custodial staff that work within the Justice System.