About
Our why
Our environments have a huge effect on our psychological state and our workplaces are no exception. From Experience helps employers navigate through the information and apply it practically in their workplace.
Having been a business owner in the Tourism & Hospitality Industry for over sixteen years, Bianca Welsh has seen over 300+ employees through her restaurants, mostly young people under the age of 25. In her role, she has witnessed first-hand the impact a workplace can have on the mental health of employees and, with the right knowledge, the important role employers can take in the well-being of staff beyond the restaurant floor.
Through tailored peer-to-peer sessions, we give business owners, managers and anyone in a employee-facing role the tools they need to help identify mental illness or poor mental health in the workplace and the ability to provide the right support so they can get back to work. By opening up the conversation around mental health and removing fear and stigma in the workplace, we can significantly increase the overall happiness, productivity and retention of staff members, while saving business owners time and money.
From Bianca’s lived experience, she has witnessed first-hand the positive outcomes amongst her team when someone is simply able to listen wholeheartedly without judgement or prejudice, gently nudge in the right direction for professional help, or to be able to identify if someone isn’t right and genuinely ask if they are ok at an appropriate time. Our aim is to remove the fear of delving in to the space of mental health and illness and empower leaders in our communities and workplaces to have the important conversations. The results can be hugely positive not only for the receiver, but for the workplace and broader community.
Our Founder & Lead Educator, Bianca Welsh (Bbhavsc)
Bianca has always lived in Launceston, Tasmania, bar the five months in her motherland of South Korea where she was born and adopted from. Growing up in a mostly Caucasian environment and experiencing racism from an early age, this perhaps formed the basis for Bianca’s resilience and desire to prove people wrong, that she isn’t a meek, timid and shy Asian girl, but a fierce, confident and determined woman.
With a taste for the industry during her early years working in a franchised fast food chain during college, Bianca chose to enroll in a Diploma of Hospitality Management thinking she would pursue a career in hotels. It wasn’t long before Bianca experienced the atmosphere and adrenaline of service in a restaurant and never looked back.
After a few part-time roles, she eventually made her way to the award-winning Stillwater Restaurant as a casual waiter, quickly working her way up to a management position and then, at the age of 21, was offered a business partnership in a brand new venture called the Black Cow Bistro, an upmarket steakhouse in the Launceston CBD. Bianca went on to also become a part-owner of Stillwater Restaurant, as well as their latest venture, Stillwater Seven, a boutique accommodation offering. All three businesses are well regarded and award-winning each in their own right, but this team is never one to rest on their laurels.
Most importantly are her roles as a wife to her husband, James, and mother to their young son, Claude.
James is well regarded in his field as a Sommelier, working alongside Bianca across the businesses, as well as a sufferer of mental illness. Bianca grew a desire to learn more about how the brain worked as a result of wanting to both help her husband and manage a challenging situation within her workplace.
After embarking on a psychology degree at the University of Tasmania and studying part-time for 7 years alongside running the businesses, Bianca graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor of Behavioural Science (now Psychological Sciences).
The human resources role Bianca has taken up within her businesses has seen her support her team through experience’s such as grief and trauma to suicide, sexual assault and rape, as well as mental illnesses such as eating disorders, depression, anxiety, bipolar, substance abuse— and not to mention, poor mental health. She learned that it would take more than showing compassion towards these situations when (and if) she was made aware of them.
Studying while working has given Bianca a unique insight into real life examples of what she was learning about at university. Practically applying this information helped Bianca improve relationships with her team and turned their turnover rate from the industry average of 80% down to less than 20%.
Bianca is passionate about sharing her knowledge and experiences to help others navigate this complicated space. In January 2022, Bianca and her husband James experienced the loss of their baby boy at 37 weeks - a Termination for Medical Reasons (TFMR) due to an illness which crossed the placenta and caused significant brain damage to their son. A devastating situation for a much loved and wanted son. The grief and trauma they have experienced has been immense and tumultuous but through Bianca’s journey of healing she has sought to learn how best to heal herself and hopefully others. She is currently upskilling in the world of grief and loss and is hoping to turn this lived experience in to something constructive as a way to honour her son - Herbert Elio Theodore. Bianca and James have an older son - Giacomo Claude and have another baby on the way. Navigating Pregnancy After Loss (PAL) is possibly the second hardest thing after saying goodbye to their son, however they are taking it a day at a time and hope to have a healthy baby in their arms mid August 2023.
As seen on
Bianca has featured on the podcasts below, click the image to go to episode on Apple Podcasts.
Bianca has been personally recognised over the years with awards she’s most proud of including Young Restaurateur of the Year in 2015 in the nationally run Electrolux Appetite for Excellence program. She was a finalist for Young Tasmanian Australian of the Year in 2016, Young Professional of the Year in the Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Awards in 2017 and the Tourism Minister’s Young Achiever in the Tasmanian Tourism Awards in 2019. She has sat on five not-for-profit boards, two of which are current (Tourism Industry Council Tasmania and the Launceston Chamber of Commerce) and dedicates time to speaking in high-schools with the Beacon Foundation to get students ready for the workplace. She has been contracted to events around the state including events with Dark Mofo, the National Tourism Awards as well as private functions.
