Our team
Esra Erkilic
Principal Psychologist | Founder of Empowered People & Co
Esra Erkilic is a Registered Psychologist with a deep commitment to walking alongside individuals navigating trauma, adversity, and complex life experiences. With over a decade of experience spanning crisis care, domestic violence services, and forensic settings, Esra brings a rare combination of clinical expertise, lived insight, and fierce advocacy to her work. She has supported both victims and perpetrators of crime, and her passion lies in helping clients reclaim their sense of safety, identity, and power.
Her therapeutic approach is grounded in evidence-based practice and delivered through a trauma-informed lens. Esra draws on a wide range of modalities tailored to the unique needs of each client, including CBT, TF-CBT, DBT, ACT, EMDR, Schema Therapy, and play-based interventions. She has a strong interest in working with complex trauma, personality disorders, neurodiversity, and emotional regulation across the lifespan from children to older adults.
Driven by her own experiences as a carer and a woman of culturally diverse heritage, Esra brings warmth, curiosity, and real-world understanding to the therapy space. She is also the creator of a growing suite of therapeutic programs and resources, spanning post-incarceration support, children’s storybooks, and emotional regulation kits, designed to empower individuals and communities beyond the therapy room.
Above all, Esra is building something that extends beyond the therapy room. Through Empowered People & Co, she is creating a space where people feel heard, supported, and empowered, working toward a future where psychology drives community empowerment, systemic reform, and meaningful, lasting change.
Nicoli Camargo Almeida
Provisional Psychologist & Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner
Nicoli is a Provisional Psychologist and Positive Behaviour Support Practitioner dedicated to helping individuals navigate life’s challenges with clarity and confidence. She works with children, adolescents, and adults, offering support for a wide range of emotional, behavioural, and developmental challenges.
Her approach is collaborative and personalised, focusing on understanding each person’s unique experiences and building on their existing strengths. Nicoli aims to create a warm, safe, and non-judgemental space where clients feel genuinely heard and supported, allowing them to explore their thoughts, emotions, and behaviours with confidence while working towards meaningful and lasting change.
Nicoli draws on evidence-based therapeutic approaches and tailors her interventions to suit each individual’s needs, goals, and stage of life. She is passionate about empowering clients with practical strategies and skills that can be applied in everyday situations, supporting emotional regulation, resilience, and improved overall wellbeing.
Nicoli also provides comprehensive psychological assessments, offering clear, detailed insights to assist with diagnosis, intervention planning, and access to appropriate supports. She is committed to delivering reports that are both clinically thorough and easy to understand, ensuring clients, families, and referrers feel informed and confident in the next steps.
She values strong collaboration with families, educators, and other allied health professionals, recognising that a holistic, team-based approach leads to the best outcomes. Nicoli is dedicated to ongoing professional development and delivering high-quality, ethical, and compassionate care aligned with best practice standards.
Claire Local
Provisional Psychologist
Claire is a Provisionally Registered Psychologist currently completing a Master of Clinical Psychology. She has experience working with children, adolescents, and adults across school-based, university, and therapeutic settings, supporting a range of emotional, behavioural, and wellbeing concerns.
She adopts a person-centred, strengths-based, and collaborative approach, creating a safe and inclusive space where clients feel heard, understood, and actively involved in their therapeutic journey. Her practice draws on evidence-based approaches including Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based strategies, Motivational Interviewing, and positive psychology-informed interventions.
She has particular interests in neurodiversity, forensic psychology, and supporting individuals and families navigating separation and parenting arrangements. Her work is culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and mindful of the broader environmental and developmental factors shaping wellbeing.
She has a background in psychology and criminology and is part way through a Juris Doctor, further developing her interest in the intersection of psychology, law, and forensic practice.
Outside of her role, she enjoys family time and outdoor adventure sports, balanced with quieter time spent reading self-development and fantasy literature.
Zee Terzi
Practice Manager
Zee is the backbone of day-to-day operations at Empowered People & Co, bringing clarity, structure, and calm to the complex moving parts of a growing practice.
With a strong background in Human Resources, Organisational Psychology, Recruitment, and Customer Success, Zee oversees clinic operations, compliance, systems coordination, and stakeholder communication with exceptional precision and care. She is deeply trusted for her discretion, attention to detail, and ability to manage sensitive information with professionalism and respect. Her calm, approachable manner creates a sense of stability for both the team and clients, and her work behind the scenes enables clinicians to focus fully on therapeutic and assessment work.
Beyond operational management, Zee plays an integral role in the ongoing development of the practice. She contributes to the refinement of systems and workflows, supports the planning and implementation of new projects, and brings thoughtful input into how the business evolves. Her strength lies not only in maintaining what works, but in helping shape what comes next.
Zee is known for her ability to create order without rigidity. She supports clinicians behind the scenes while ensuring that clients, referrers, and stakeholders experience the practice as seamless, responsive, and deeply people-centred.
Guided by strong values around trust, collaboration, and quality, Zee helps ensure Empowered People & Co remains not only well-run, but deeply aligned with its mission to provide thoughtful, ethical, and high-quality, client-centred care. Her blend of strategic thinking, organisational leadership, and genuine care for people positions her as a key contributor to the practice’s long-term stability and future growth.