BIO

Valerie Albrecht has brought together her professional qualifications, skills and experience in writing, public speaking, speech pathology, yoga and natural therapies to the work of biography, story writing and story telling. She is passionate about offering a voice for those aspiring to tell and write their stories and also about promoting and educating toward  inclusion of all health care philosophies in health care.
Valerie has a Bachelor of Speech Pathology and has worked for over 40 years for optimal communication and quality of life across demographics and their life spans. Her aspirations for holistic health care lead her to study yoga teaching, yoga birthing, massage, reiki and hypno-therapy. ln her role as Yoga and Massage Educator for North Coast Area Health, New South Wales Australia, between 2002-2007, Valerie  introduced Yoga Birthing and Natural Therapies in maternity hospitals and conducted Honored Birth Retreats for women and their partners in many locations on the east coast of Australia.
She has taught yoga in Portugal, India and America, worked with obstetricians in rural Rajestan India, and trained pre-natal yoga teachers in India. Valerie presented for Birth India at their 2008 international conference for Indian Caesarian Awareness Week. This work became her first book Search for Mother, released in February 2010 by Inkwell Productions Arizona.



2023

This year excitingly sees the publication, launch and distribution of One Voice Medicine: Conversations with Traditional Aboriginal Healers. One Voice Medicine is a culmination of nine years of conversations, learning, listening to and working with community accepted Aboriginal healers around Australia. The conversations are about why it is vital for practitioners across sectors to embrace First People’s healing knowledge.

My upcoming book in progress concerns the concept of ‘homed’.

Canberra Heart Stories and From A Dream to a Book writing workshops are both happily ongoing.

Yoga on offer is: weekly Hatha based seniors seated and wheelchair classes at Canberra Aged care facilities and home based individually tailored sessions.

Well-being focused speech pathology continues at my one day a week practice.

Please see the calendar for events and classes and do contact me if my services can support you!

2022

This year I am excited and proud to launch Heart Stories in Canberra at Rise Sanctuary. Heart Stories is a curated story telling space for people to connect and explore the ‘heart story way’ of being with themselves and being together in community. Heart Stories are personal stories told from people’s own experience that usually shed light on bigger themes and offer connection with the story teller on an emotional level. Heart Stories invite the listener to draw meaning from the story into their own lives, thus the ‘heart story way’ can enrich, offer purpose, wisdom, hope, and perhaps lead us to new and inspiring personal and community directions and actions. 

Restorative and seated yoga continues at Aged Care facilities in Canberra, at Rise Sanctuary and home based by referral. 

Look up Eremos Australian Journal of Spirituality April 2022 for my article Food and Spirituality and watch this space for upcoming 2022 book launches!

2020/2021

Valerie continues to write, now having four published books, to practice Speech Pathology as a Clinical Supervisor and to teach Yoga in many locations in Canberra where she currently resides.



2019

Valerie continues her work teaching yoga in Aged Care Facilities in Canberra, at the Australian Institute Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Studies, as Clinical Manager and Speech Pathologist at Horizon Therapy Services Canberra and with her involvement with ANTaR ACT a NFP for Justice, Rights and Recognition for Australia’s First Peoples. The year also saw her complete a new book “Thirty Days” concerning the passing of an elder which is her fourth published book.

2018

Yoga classes continued at Aged Care Facilities in Canberra and at the Australian Institute Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies. Valerie is also Clinical Manager at Horizon Therapy Services Canberra where she supports Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapy clinicians in their practice as well as delivering therapy to clients challenged by communication. “The Story Behind The Story – biography of a Navajo Medicine Man” was released in Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.

2017

Valerie taught Yoga at Mura Pathway to Wellness, Canberra, various Canberra Aged Care Homes and the Australian Institute Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Studies. Her writing course “From A Dream to A Book” was on the curriculum at Canberra University Evening College. Story Healing sessions continued through Canberra RSL facilities where she mentored and crafted the life stories of many inspiring people. Most excitingly, “The Story Behind the Story – biography of a Navajo Medicine Man”, her third book found a UK publisher Austin MacCauley to be released in Australia in January 2018 and in the US in July 2018.

2016 – University West Australia Centre for Rural Health expanded into the Pilbara and offered Valerie the position of Pilbara Development Officer – sourcing, developing and establishing student placements and research opportunities in the Pilbara to be delivered from a new clinic in Karratha. As well more remarkable traditional healers spoke in “One Voice Medicine” bringing the book to close. Valerie also works with ANTaR a NFP for Rights, justice and recognition of Australia’s First Peoples.

2015 – 2014 – Valerie’s speech pathology work and writing for “One Voice Medicine” took her to Broken Hill NSW, the Pilbara WA, Maroochydore QLD and to Guatemala Central America from where she also worked with an Ohio based NFP: Free Smile, in the repair of cleft lips and palates with children and adults from Highland traditional villages; to a project with the Poche Center of Indigenous Health in Dubbo NSW; to Roma and Mitchell with Queensland Health and to Geraldton West Australia where she worked as an Academic Clinical Speech Pathology Supervisor for West Australia University Centre for Rural Health.

2013

Saw Valerie moving from her “Honored Birth” course teaching as she was invited by a Navajo Medicine Man to live and write his biography – life and medicine – in the American North West. This became “The Story Behind The Story – biography of a Navajo medicine Man” leading her to her subsequent project “One Voice Medicine -Conversations with Traditional Aboriginal Healers.”

2012

Saw Valerie’s “Honored Birth” course at the Australian College of Midwifery Conference Melbourne, Coffs Health Campus NSW, the Bellingen Writers Festival, Southern Cross University Tweed Campus, and the QLD Australian College Midwifery Conference Gold Coast. Honored Birth was also at Macksville Hospital NSW Parent Education Classes.

2011

In 2011 Valerie wrote her first book “Search for Mother” (published in 2010) into a course “Honored Birth” which she presented and taught in Seattle at Washington University at the Labor Support Conference, Bastyr Midwifery College,  in San Antonio Texas at the American College of Nursing and Midwifery Conference and in Sydney at the International Natural Medicine Summit.