Dianne Akurangi
Registered Clinical Psychologist
BSW (Hons) · MA (Hons) · PGDipClinPsych
Member of: NZ Psychological Society
Dianne has lived in Rotorua since 1995. She worked for ten years at Oranga Tamariki (previously Child Youth & Family) as a Social Worker in care and protection and youth justice. She interviewed over 600 children in cases where abuse was alleged and provided evidence in court. Her Masters Thesis investigated the impact of children’s disclosures of abuse on police officers. In her role as Senior Practitioner, she developed a keeping safe programme for children, trained professionals on interviewing children, and provided supervision.
Dianne retrained as a Clinical Psychologist and graduated in 2006. She worked at Department of Corrections for seven years, primarily conducting psychological assessments of youth, recidivist, violent and sexual offenders in prison and in the community. Comprehensive reports were provided to a variety of referrers, including court and Parole Board. While working for Department of Corrections, Dianne provided individual and group based therapy, primarily using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Motivational Interviewing. She regularly provided training and supervision to Corrections staff.
Dianne then spent seven years working as part of a Multi-Disciplinary Team at Infant, Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (iCAMHS) providing assessment and therapy for children and youth with a range of presenting issues (such as anxiety, depression, deliberate self-harm, trauma, behavioural and family issues, ADHD, and Autism Spectrum Disorder). Therapy modalities used include Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy and Feedback Informed Treatment. She developed and facilitated a successful group based therapy programme for youth with social anxiety. She held the position of Associate Professional Advisor.
Since 2009, Dianne has had a private practice offering assessment and therapy for children and adults with a variety of mental health difficulties. She receives private referrals, as well as, referrals from GP’s, Oranga Tamariki, ACC, Ministry of Education, NZ Fire & Emergency Service and NZ Police. She continues to enjoy providing clinical supervision to psychologists and a range of other professionals.
In her spare time, Dianne enjoys spending time with her husband and children.