The Salvation Army’s Community Reintegration Program (CRP) supports adults recovering from homelessness and drug dependency. With Stav’s support, knowledge and training expertise, CRP practitioners have been skilled to deliver a smoking cessation program to a group of highly marginalised people who would not normally have access to smoking cessation support.

Stav engaged with the specific needs of our client group and provided training that was highly relevant and beneficial to the program.

We have valued Stav’s commitment to providing high quality training that has directly impacted the health and wellbeing of many clients who access our program.

I am a health professional with a background in critical care nursing, project management and chronic disease service management.

I was privileged to have Stavroula Zandes work with my metropolitan health service in partnership from 2009 till 2012. Stav (in her role as Cessation Settings Manager for Quit Victoria), assisted us to set up smoking cessation services, as well as provide support for our organisation going smokefree.

Stav was able to see what we were aiming to achieve, including our broader work to address the harm from smoking in the wider local community through partnerships to promote de-normalization and smoke free spaces. The expertise Stav holds was freely shared with us during her membership of our smoking strategy steering committee.

I always received very positive feedback from smoking cessation educator training that Stav and her staff delivered to our staff and local stakeholders. Stav has both a very professional demeanour and excellent people skills; she is able to inspire people and deliver information and behaviour change education training clearly, inclusively and insightfully.

I will not hesitate to work with Stav again if the opportunity arises. I find Stav a passionate person with a very strong drive to address the harm smoking causes to people in our community. I wish Health & Wellbeing Training Consultants all the best and can recommend them to you on the basis of my experience with Stavroula Zandes.

A key focus in my retail consulting business is the development of Health Solutions – in terms of merchandising, marketing and customer engagement. As an ex and very heavy smoker, I was particularly interested in the Quit Smoking category and how to help pharmacy customers quit.

I did 3 things:

1. Attended Stavroula’s program as a Quit counselor around 2003;
2. Developed 2 categories within my FeelGood Guide program on Smoking in 2003 (in concert with The Pharmacy Guild of Australia) and later in 2006;
3. Developed an intensive counseling program using several different strategies to help quit – called No Need to Smoke in 2008 (both of the last 2 have been purchased by Terry White Chemists)

As part of these developments, I attempted to use the appropriate Australian anti smoking bodies, but none had the quality, passion and commitment of Victoria. From my point of view that was entirely due to Stavroula – her deep understanding of the topic; her compassion; her training skill; her desire to help. When it came to training the pharmacists and their staff in the program, I totally insisted that they came to one of her courses, or in the case of Mater Hospital pharmacists in Brisbane, that she took her course to them.

I am delighted to hear that she has now completed and adopted all different strategies available to assist smokers quit, so anyone who uses Stavroula gets the whole package.

I have known, liked and respected Stavroula as ‘my first choice’ in this health category – and undoubtedly she could bring her skills to bear on other categories as well.

Please feel free to call me on 03 9775 2333.

I am a dental practitioner who is enthusiastic about preventing tobacco smoking in the community. I have worked with Stav over many years during her educational role with Quit Victoria. Stav, like me, is passionate about encouraging and assisting others to kick the habit of smoking. I have found the enormous effort that Stav puts into her work and the understanding that she brings to this area of health promotion to be outstanding.

I recommend Stav, the techniques and skills she brings to the area together with her ability to work successfully and collaboratively, to people and organisations who have a variety of needs and aspirations