Lynne Blighton has a bachelor’s degree in Social Work from the University of Queensland, a post graduate certificate in Advanced Social Work Practice and is an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker. Lynne entered university in Australia at age 35 with an expansive life and work experience. She was bought up as a member of a large extended English farming family where children were expected to work just as hard as the farm workers and remembers being taken out of school to plant cabbages in the freezing cold. Life was different back then.
Lynne’s parents had a neat plan for her life: at 16 she was sent to a Domestic Science College to learn to cook and sew in preparation for marriage to a farmer. All Lynne ever wanted was to be an artist. Lynne left the security of her home in England at age 22 with the life savvy of a 12 year old, and set off around the world looking for her own adventures and destiny. What a journey that turned out to be. Lynne learned the hard way about how life can pick you up and knock you down; how some people are to be trusted and some are not; the power of human manipulation over the naïve; the benefits of having a stable environment to live in; how people are affected emotionally and physically when their stability is removed and how easily human beings can resort to using addictive substances to ease their pain and confusion. Lynne personally discovered that when people reach out for help our caring systems often fail to provide any real assistance and our Justice System has little regard for the truth. She also met some fabulous people whose strength and wisdom enthralled her and provided a set of values worth striving for.
Lynne has worked as a social worker in government and non-government positions both in Australia and in London, UK during which time she has established Domestic Violence services, set up systems of governance for non-profit groups, set up court support systems, worked in Child Protection and Fostering services in London, worked inside prisons and hospitals in Australia and in Centrelink, Disability Services and the Department of Communities. Her experience in both countries was that welfare systems are poorly resourced and when things go wrong authorities seek out a person to blame; and politicians pontificate about budgets while little children suffer.
Our education systems generally fails to teach us to understand the basics of life - a healthy mind and spirit are at the heart of our human ability to keep a health body and assist us to bounce back from life’s disasters – of which each of us will have our share.
Dissatisfied with the system, Lynne self-funded her own private practice in Cleveland, Queensland where she dedicated her life to developing strategies that work quickly to assist people to take control of their life. Her strategies were constructed from a family therapy and communication theory knowledge base. Lynne’s greatest learning has been that each of us has been given the capacity to take control of our own life and trying to control others is a waste of our precious life.
Her knowledge and life wisdom have been captured in The Fragile Puzzle books and courses.
