Bianca Rizzo began her journey in social work as a counsellor at juvenile justice working with young people in justice system. This role involved intensive counselling with young people with complex needs, sentencing reports for court, assessing young people in custody for early release to the community and supervising offenders on community orders. This role led to a senior position social work position at Centrelink working in homeless services and delivering generalist social work service to vulnerable clients Other areas of practice experience include delivery of casework and child at risk assessments, in child protection and out of home care at The Department of Communities and Justice to vulnerable children and families.

Bianca has extensive experience providing field education, external supervision and developing and organizing placements for BSW and MSWQ at various tertiary institutions.  These responsibilities include assess, support and monitor students individual progress on placement, such as undertaking mid placement liaison visits, guiding students through the development of their learning plans and marking evaluative reports.

She currently facilitates the formal and legal process of Youth Justice Conferencing based on a restorative justice principles which aims to give victim(s) a voice, allows the offender (s) to address the harm they have causes rather than deal with the matter(s) via the court in accordance to Part 5 of the Young Offenders Act of 1997.Undertaking short term intensive case management with at risk young offenders who are referred by Police or court to have the matter dealt with by conference rather than court. This involves comprehensive assessment and psychosocial assessment where issues of substance abuse, mental health, suicidal ideations family history and other relevant issues are identified and addressed and appropriate treatment is sought for the young person. The impact of crime on the victim is also assessed and referred appropriately to victim support services.

Overall, Bianca is passionate about improving the lives of others by applying social justice principles, advocacy and person centred approach that is driven by trauma informed practice.