Meet the mentors, Sherelle and Liz

The course features mentoring by Sherelle Connaughton and Liz Brnjak. They’ll support you as you make your way through the course, facilitating discussions and providing additional information to help make your learning experience the best it can be.

It’s worth noting that Sherelle and Liz will focus their mentoring efforts in the current week of the course and not previous weeks.

• Week 1: Monday October 5 to Sunday October 11
• Week 2: Monday October 12 to Sunday October 18
• Week 3: Monday October 19 to Sunday October 25
• Week 4: Monday October 26 to Sunday November 1

You’re welcome to keep the conversation going outside those dates, but please note that Sherelle and Liz will not be able to monitor or provide guidance in the comments or discussions.

We strongly recommend following Sherelle and Liz to make sure you’re aware of the comments they’ll make throughout the course.

You can follow them by selecting the links to their FutureLearn profile page and then selecting ‘Follow’. That way, you’ll easily be able to see comments they make, using the ‘Following’ filter.

Sherelle Connaughton

Sherelle has worked in varied health and education settings for over 25 years, having trained in the fields of psychology, research and music therapy. Since completing a PhD and Masters in Clinical Psychology in 2007, her focus has been on health enhancement, particularly mindfulness and stress management, for students and staff at Monash University. More recently, Sherelle has expanded her research work at Monash and is currently supervising four individual psychology projects that explore how learning mindfulness online may impact on stress, wellbeing, awareness and work engagement.

Sherelle has mentored every run of Mindfulness for Wellbeing and Peak Performance since it was first offered on FutureLearn in 2015 and she also helps facilitate the follow up course Maintaining a Mindful Life. Sherelle is grateful for the many positive effects she has experienced from her own mindfulness practice and is delighted to help others explore what mindfulness means to them.

Follow Sherelle

Liz Brnjak

Liz has both a clinical and organisational consultant background with extensive experience in mental health and organisational leadership. Liz has studied social work, psychology, family therapy with a Masters in Applied Science (Leadership & Management). Liz has developed and delivered self- management and resilience workshops that integrates mindfulness as tool to building workplace resilience. Her focus in recent years in building leadership capacity within organisations whereby mindfulness, resilience and well-being are recognised as critical to high performing teams and productivity. For many years, Liz was a tutor in the Health Enhancement Program offered to Monash Medical Students.

Personally, Liz has a committed Iyengar yoga practice that offers grounding and mind/body conscious awareness. This practice is key in assisting Liz to manage the demands of being a busy working mother.

Follow Liz

Please note, Sherelle and Liz will be predominantly focused on discussions for the current week of the course, rather than the whole course at any one time. So please try to keep your comments in the active week if you’re hoping to engage with them.