Social Work Spotlight - Episide 117: Kit

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

In this episode I speak with Kit, a descendent of the Wampanoag tribe in Canada and with German, Scottish and Irish ancestry. Kit has worked as a counsellor and trainer for over 20 years specialising in mental health and addictions and is currently a clinical supervisor and the founder and director of Nature Based Therapy in Victoria.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Nature Based Therapy - https://www.naturebasedtherapy.com.au/Outdoor Health Australia - https://www.outdoorhealth.org.auChildren & Nature Network - https://www.childrenandnature.orgRichard Louv’s ‘Last Child in the Woods’ - https://richardlouv.com/books/last-child/Richard Louv’s ‘Vitamin N’ - https://richardlouv.com/books/vitamin-n/Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass’ - https://www.penguin.com.au/books/braiding-sweetgrass-9780141991955Julie Baird’s ‘Phosphorescence’ - https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9781460710890/phosphorescence/This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17hNP3_fXvgJ2cnUOuvISOkuqpJY6ufawgGk61m_vkvw/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

I begin today by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eura Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I record this podcast, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have an intrinsic connection to this land and have cared for country for over 60,000 years, with their way of life having been devastated by colonisation. Hi and welcome to social work spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode.

I'm your host Yasminu Lopus and today's guest is Kit, a descendant of the Wampanoa tribe in Canada and with German, Scottish and Irish ancestry. Kit has worked as a counsellor and trainer for over 20 years, specialising in mental health and addictions, and is currently a clinical supervisor and the founder and director of nature-based therapy in Victoria. Her experience includes working in mainstream community health, Aboriginal health, drug and alcohol detox, and rehabilitation services and training and assessment. Kit's qualifications include a Masters in Social Work, Masters in Aboriginal Studies, Bachelor of Arts in Indigenous Studies, Postgraduate Studies in Mental Health, Alcohol and Other Drugs, Welfare Studies, Holistic Healing, Youth Work and Training and Assessment. through her work kit advocates for social and emotional justice and is passionate about bringing nature-based therapies into healthcare practice to ensure a sustainable and healthy society and planet in her spare time she enjoys being in nature with her children camping traveling and learning about other cultures

road trips and watching a good documentary thanks again kit for joining me on the podcast today excited to have a chat with you about your experience so far thank you i'd love to know firstly when you started as a social worker and what brought you to the profession in the first place? That's a really great question. And the first thing that came up when you asked that question was, I think I became a social worker when I was birthed. Because all through my early childhood experiences and my observations of life, I've always seen injustice in the world. And I've always been inclined to try and do something about it. So, you know, those early childhood experiences of connecting to nature, seeing a natural environment, observing racism in practice.

It's given me insight into our society. It's giving me insight into what is social justice, what is environmental justice, and how do we practice that? So from a very young age, I've wanted to become a social worker. And I guess when I started my journey into official social work would have been in the year 2001. When I returned from travelling overseas, I travelled for three years, travelled around the world, lived in different countries. When I was in year 10, I wanted to do my school work experience at a drug and alcohol rehab. And my mum refused to allow me to do that. She was very worried.

for my safety and she had a huge judgment on people who use substances and so I was deterred from doing that so I ended up actually doing travel agent experience. Before I became a social worker, I worked as a travel agent and I guess I combined, yeah, my love of traveling and exploring the world and learning from different cultures and societies, I see the interconnection of travel and social work as well. So it's all been part of my experience in the lead up of what's informed my practice as a social worker. So when I came back from travelling overseas, I did a set foreign youth work. And my first job was working at a crisis centre, crisis accommodation centre. So that was a really big eye opener for me. That was in St Kilda in Melbourne. And then I progressed and worked in

a drug and alcohol rehab with the same organisation. And I became a drug and alcohol counsellor. and I guess I've been doing social work for over 20 years now, mainly working in drug and alcohol, working in addictions. Currently I work in gambling addiction. And I think my life experiences have also shaped me into looking at what are my frameworks and what is my ethical practice. And it's always included nature-based interventions. And I've always authentically brought my own connection to nature into the practice I do with individuals, whether it's sessions, individual, or whether it's group therapy sessions. Yeah.

I'm always fascinated by people who from a young age have a passion for social work, given that I personally didn't really know that the profession existed as a younger person. Did you have a name for it? Did you, when you say you always wanted to be a social worker, what did you anticipate that would be and what was the pathway in your head? Again, that's a great question because when I reflect on that, the first thing that comes to mind is teaching because I've always been interested in sharing knowledges sharing knowledges from my own experience and I also saw that I wanted to be a teacher

and interesting I am now a social worker slash trainer and teacher. So when I look at well what is social work and yeah as a young child we don't know what social work is but for me reflecting I look at I want to support people to be their authentic self. I want to make people happy. I want to help people. I want to explore why people do what they do. And I remember at a very young age, I think I must have been 12 at school. We watched a movie called Mississippi Burning. And I was in absolute tears thinking, how can white people treat black people so harshly when they've actually done nothing wrong? And then reflecting on my own indigenous heritage and learning more as I got older about my Native American heritage and then working in Aboriginal healthcare here in Australia and studying Aboriginal health.

And Aboriginal studies, I started to reflect on, you know, those early childhood experiences of inequality. And I think, again, yeah, from a young age, I was curious through my observations and want it to understand more, what's happening here? What's going on in our society? What can I do to make a difference in the world? How old were you when you came to Australia or were you born here? No, I was born in Vancouver, Canada, and I came to Australia when I was nine with my Australian mother.

Okay. I'm also reflecting now on the huge void of education that was provided to me as a kid. around Indigenous Matters, First Nations issues. And I'm wondering if prior to the point of coming to Australia, in Canada, at least there was some exposure or a sense of people are understanding some of these issues a bit more broadly. It was never really spoken about. And what I remember both in Canada and also in Australia

within that education system is colonisation was glorified and that it was a positive thing that the countries were colonised. And we learned about Roman history and we learned about conquering. And we learned about the right way that indigenous people were primitive or savages and we needed to help them. And the interesting thing is, my understanding now is a 51-year-old woman who has you know, studied a lot and had a lot of lived experience and also reflected is that we actually need to be learning from Indigenous peoples on how to have a healthy functioning society.

And this is what I bring into my frameworks as a social worker, indigenous world views and indigenous perspectives of looking at the interconnectedness of everything and the importance of our connection to the natural world, but also connection to other human beings. Because we are nature. We're not separate from the natural world. And so what we do to nature, we are doing to ourselves. And colonisation is just a form of capitalism. Yeah. And was your own family heritage and experiences obvious to you, or did you have to go digging to find out more? Yeah, no, I need it to go digging to find out more. Being indigenous was taboo.

It was looked down upon. And I was very fortunate that my father followed his genealogy and ancestry. And we always knew there were certain things in life that guided us to knowing there was an indigenous connection. And I think when I was doing my bachelor degree in Aboriginal studies, I started to reach out to my father and explore more our own heritage.

And he gave me all the documents. And I found my tribe, which I'm now a member of. And you know, for me, it's still a continuous journey discovering my indigenous roots. But it's always been innately there. And it's always guided my life without having to name it. But now I can put the pieces together of the puzzle. Have you seen a film called After the Apology?

It came out a few years ago. No. Okay, I might pop it in the show notes, and I think it's really important for social work especially, but it's a documentary that was filmed. It was looking at the fact that after Kevin Rudd's apology and the changes that were meant to be happening around deaths in custody, young indigenous kids in jail, there were supposed to be changes. And apparently the numbers have gotten worse since that point and not better. And so four families got together to develop a guide that was then distributed to other government

departments and officials and saying we have the knowledge within our tribes. We know what the best way of going forward and protecting our families is. Here is how you can do it. So it's that knowledge sharing. Obviously, it shouldn't have needed to happen in the first place, but trying to incorporate that knowledge and that understanding and that experience of what keeps mob together into those government departments to hopefully help the matter that's not getting any better. Yeah, really, really powerful stuff. But learning about your own Indigenous heritage alongside

Australian Indigenous heritage, I'm guessing there's a lot of the same mistakes that have been occurring, yeah? Yeah, it's very similar, very, very similar. And I think we can't expect the same system that created this mess to fix it with the same level of thinking. And I think that's why nothing's changing because when we look at social work and I still remember a conversation I had with my supervisor when I completed my master's of social work and we were in a supervision session and he was a fantastic supervisor and he really appreciated critical thinking. And is it that social work is just part of the system and what is real social work and what is critical social work, what is radical social work? And I think for myself, I see myself as a critical social worker

and a radical social worker that part of my work as a social worker is to work across all levels of social work when we look at the micro, the macro and the mezzo. And for me, it's do we dismantle the capitalist system because when we look at the high rates of incarceration, especially for indigenous peoples, and we look at the healthcare system and closing the gap, the gap's not closing. Because it's all funded and led by the system that created the problem, I guess. And how do we decolonize systems to be able to promote, you know, self-eastern empowerment and hear really hear the voices of indigenous peoples because a lot of my working

and social work has been as a forensic counselor so I work with a lot of people on court orders or on parole and what I'm finding is and from my own research and understanding is prisons are a business and they make profits and this is what we're up against we're up against corporations and that have an agenda, is the agenda to support and have a healthy society or is the agenda to tick boxes and is the agenda to make profit? And we see that in mental health, social work and over diagnosis of people, but for every diagnosis there's a pharmaceutical. And so the pharmaceutical is a profit making business and correlates with the DSM-5. And so, So as a social worker, yeah, I'm very much a critical thinker around our systems and what's

failing people. And I see mental health and incarceration as two big ones that can be changed, but what are we up against? I think being a student is such a powerful position. And I know most students won't see it that way, but there's a great emerging theory called disruptive social work. And I was talking to my own student about this recently and suggested she would go off and do some reading and formulate her own ideas on this. But it's that idea that social work students are perfectly positioned to question, to examine, to critically think about what they're doing and why they're doing it and even why their supervisor is doing things a certain way within a system. So yeah, I think

those are the right questions to be asking as a student, not how do I fit the mold and how do I become the type of student that my mentor or my supervisor is. Absolutely. And I think that's the exciting thing about social work. Is there's so many different areas of social work that we can get into, you know, whether it's counselling or case management or advocacy or research or, you know, challenging the systems that also oversee what social work is? Yeah. So in that time, you said you've done your Bachelor of Indigenous Studies. You've got the, or was it a Masters of Indigenous Studies?

I have both a Bachelor and then I went on to do a Masters as well. Okay, all right. This is why I'm confused. So you've got that, you've got your diploma in welfare, alcohol and other drugs and you've done further training and holistic healing. How do you feel all of that knowledge and experience has led to the type of social worker you are now? Yeah, look, all my training, if I can go through and reflect on, on my journey of doing social work for the last 20 years, it started off with youth work. I did my search foreign youth work,

transitioned into alcohol and other drugs. So while I've been working in the space and informed me my own practice through my experience, that's led me to know what to study next. And so almost it's just this flow of no set intention of I'm gonna study this and nothing was planned out. Everything that has led me to be a social worker today

and where I am practicing has been intuitive and it's been an authentic rollout of what I've been learning and where I need to go. And so, you know, I did youth work. So I thought, let's start with young people and then that led into working in drug and alcohol. So, well, I need to upskill and drug and alcohol. And then when I was working in a rehab in drug,

an alcohol, I'm thinking, hang on a minute, they're not looking at the whole person. They're only looking at the physical being and the mental being. What about the emotional and spiritual being of the person? And so I went and did a diploma of holistic healing because I wanted to learn more about the people I was working with. So I guess that informed my practice. And then I worked in community health and I started working in Aboriginal health. And I thought, I can't work in Aboriginal healthcare if I don't understand the history of this country or I don't understand Indigenous Australians.

So I went and did my bachelor's of Indigenous studies while I still worked in Aboriginal health within community healthcare setting. Then I went on and did the Masters because I wanted to learn more about the international Indigenous story and how our society is shaped by, well, what Australia is. very newly colonised, the world's been colonised for a lot longer. You know, my own people were colonised over 400 years ago.

And so this got me thinking about, well, what is colonisation and how has it impacted other countries and societies? What can we learn from that? What are they doing now? And so then I did a postgraduate in mental health, which is very mainstream, because I think you need to understand both ways. You need to learn the language of the main.

mainstream mental health sector. And so for me, it's always been this fine dance and synchronicity of mainstream healthcare and holistic healthcare. And I guess that's what's informed to my practice. And what is your practice now, where have you ended up? I see myself as a holistic social worker. I see myself as a nature-based social worker. I see myself again going back to my childhood as just a person who wants to make a difference in the worlds.

And is that term nature-based therapy your own? Have you coined that? No, I haven't coined nature-based therapy. Nature-based therapy is a word that's been used for quite some time to look at nature-based interventions and nature-based work. There's a lot of publications and research on the benefits of nature-based therapy. There's also green social work practice. There's ecotherapy. There's virus therapy. And I guess these also have become westernised.

Because for me, nature-based therapy fits with my work practice because it goes right back to how indigenous peoples have been living for thousands of years, very closely a lot of with nature and there's really no word for that. That's just life. Yeah. I'm thinking then if you're working in a space of gambling addiction, how you pitch that process and the benefits in traditional fields. So so much of the, I guess, traditional health care and that model is driven by outcomes and

funding. How do you make sense of that and help other people to see the benefit? Yeah, look, that's a really great. question and what I do is I give them the experience. So we'll go through some processes together, whether it's nature-based mindfulness. And I either do that over phone or telehealth. Wherever the person is, if they're on a laptop or a phone, I usually invite them to go to their front yard, their backyard or to do the session outdoors. And I guide them through some nature-based mindfulness and then, you know, we evaluate that as they're going, whether it's

they take home practice. I look at ways they're engaging with nature already. So that's part of conversations we have. What's your relationship with the natural world? How do you integrate that? The other thing I do and how I bring it into practice and how do we evaluate that is I entwine it with mainstream ways of doing things. I entwine it with CBT, motivational interviewing. I entwine it with looking at stages of change model. And an examiner, example of that is using nature as a metaphor to understand life. So when we look at transition and we look at stages of change, especially when we're working with addictions,

I relate it to the seasons. I relate it to spring, summer, autumn and winter. And we look at, well, where are you at with that? What behaviours do we need to let go of? If we're in autumn, autumn's a time of letting go. And then using it's a time of letting go. the analogy of growth and sometimes we need to let go of habits and we need to sit in darkness and uncertainty once we've let go of those behaviours that have served as coping mechanisms really

you know every behaviour has a strategy of benefit as well when we're looking at the pros and cons of someone's substance use it's obviously benefiting them in some way or else they wouldn't be doing it yeah and so we look at well what does that look like once we let go of that And so I bring in the metaphor of nature and then bringing in that understanding of, well, how do we set goals and new intentions and create new environments and new possibilities if we haven't sat with that through winter? And so that leads us on to spring and those discussions around, well, how does nature work? It's exactly the same way we work. Yeah, we're coming out of hibernation. We're looking to other opportunities to explore.

that makes a lot of sense to me in terms of the client's perspective, but if you're having to talk to a funding model, say, NDIS or a GP practice, Medicare, that sort of thing, how do you pitch it? How do you show someone that your form of social work is going to be effective in this area? Again, great question. I guess I don't have a plan. What I find is at the moment I offer private practice at a medical centre. So obviously GPs. And I just sent a email reaching out and saying, this is what I do. I can offer walk and talk therapy sessions. We can do sessions inside a brief overview. And they were very excited because it aligned with their own philosophy around healthcare. Yeah.

As a holistic medical center. So yes, they do GP practice, but they were also open too. So I guess it depends who you're pitching. to and who you want to collaborate with and who you want to align with. And so for me, it's really important that I work in collaboration with and I guess create opportunities and apply for opportunities with people who are aligned with my authentic self and I guess my view of what is healthcare. But I've recently set up a nature-based therapy foundation.

So I have a health promotion charity. And at the moment, we're going through that exact process. Just to have the Nature-Based Therapy Foundation registered as a health promotion charity was a very interesting process in having to prove that nature-based therapy is a valid modality in health care. And so through this process, I had to find evidence-based research articles around how nature-based therapy can be used. used as an intervention to support health promotion and healthcare in general. Yeah. And when we apply for funding through the foundation to facilitate programs, we have many, many articles. I have over 300 evidence-based research articles saved in a folder

for lots of different areas. Nature-based therapy has been beneficial, not just in social work, but in working with disability, working with Eurodiversion clients, working with aged care, working in palliative care, working with education systems, with early childhood, with PTSD. And so when we find the research and we present the research, that's the validation. My other question I love to pose to people is, What is your experience of nature? Where is the evidence in your own personal life?

When you're feeling stressed and overwhelmed and you're taking your holidays, do you rush off to the city? Or do you go camping? Do you go to the ocean? Do you go to the forest? Where do you take time to rest and relax? There's the evidence.

That's such a social work way to think of things in terms of your tool belt and your resources. and being able to pull it out based on whoever you're talking to, whichever context you're in. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. In terms of having the social work community brought into this, I did see that you're a convener on a practice group, which is great through the AASW. What other kind of practitioners are on that group with you? So the Green Social Work Practice Group has lots of different people from not just social workers,

interested in green social work practice, but also other allied health care professionals. Okay. So we're looking at occupational therapists, mental health clinicians, people who are working in the education system, so early childhood education, that are interested in how do we work with nature? And also looking at how does nature impact our quality of life and how does climate change impact our quality of life as well? And I think we're seeing this more and more now.

I know back home in Canada, we've had a terrible summer with bushfires. And a lot of towns have been wiped out from the fires they're having. And I know in Australia, you know, floods have had a huge impact and bushfires as well. And looking at how do we bring in climate? climate change, the current crisis, natural disasters, into our practice, not just as social workers, but I think healthcare, and I don't like to separate social work from health. Because I think social work is part of the healthcare system because it's really looking at society and how does society work. What is the health of our society? And I believe that our society is

sick and people are trying to adapt to a sick society and this is impact our own mental health physical health emotional health spiritual health but also the health of our environment when you look at how do we live and how do we access our resources yeah that comes down to food security and food consumption as well do you get an opportunity to travel back to Canada very much to see how things are going there Yeah, look, I work back home about four years ago to see my dad who sadly passed away three years ago. So I go back, yeah, every few years to connect with my family. I still have a brother living over there and he's a nurse. We have great conversations around, I guess, social work and healthcare systems and the difference between the Canadian healthcare system and the Australian healthcare system.

I am planning to go back home and do my PhD social work. Yeah, amazing. At the University of British Columbia, they have a very, very good program. Yeah, a couple of episodes ago I was speaking with a social worker who is married to a Canadian man and lived there for quite a while. And that's where she started working as an equine facilitated therapist. And that just is incredible. And that's kind of her in road as well. If she wanted to go back to Canada, she's got plenty of connections there. And it's a great way to use your experience if you were to do that. Given that you were talking about the authentic

rollout of training and work and how they interact so well, do you have a timeframe for that? Do you have any sort of expectation as to when you might do that? It might be just when the kids are old enough. Yeah. That's something I'm, yeah, very much trying to contemplate because I've had discussions with UBC around

how I can do my PhD in social work. and I'm looking at doing a nature-based social prescribing research program because at the moment, I don't know if you are aware, but Vancouver, well, British Columbia, the state of British Columbia, is the first state and Canada is the first country to roll out a registered nature-based social prescribing program. Wow, no, that's incredible. And so this is a perfect time for me to go in and do a research project around this as part of my PhD in social work. My youngest child is eight and so I have to go to Canada to do the coursework for a minimum of two years. Yeah. And so do I uproot my children for two years and go to Canada?

Or do I wait six years until my third child has finished high school and take my youngest child who would then be 14 and for me I guess I'm feeling into this space as to what is the right time and just sitting with it not having any expectations but knowing that the opportunity is sitting there and that is where I want to take my social work career and maybe I go more into research into getting valid evidence-based research around nature-based interventions and how we can apply it to social work is where I'd love to go. But there's also another opportunity to study. Another space I'm looking into and I've done some study into is psychedelic assisted therapy. Yeah. And the role that this plays in mental health and mental health social work.

And that's another course on Vancouver Island that does psychedelic assisted therapies through Vancouver universities, specifically for social workers and allied health professionals. Yeah. And so for me, I guess in looking at my further training opportunities as a social worker, I'd probably do the 12-month course first. And who knows, I might do some research in my PhD around the use of psychedelic assisted therapies and nature-based social prescribing, combining the two together to inform mental health social work practice. Yeah. So I guess having, having the kids at this age where they're very formative and needing to sustain connections with people and stability isn't necessarily a barrier. You could make that work, it sounds like,

which is good for other people to know if they're feeling as though they can't make a huge shift in their career in their life while they're looking after kids. Yeah, that's a really good point and it's something I've always reflected on. Since I did all my university studies and integrated my career as a social worker. I've had four children. And, you know, I remember times bringing my children into university and my lecturer being able to, you know, hold my baby while I was taking notes. Now, this was in the indigenous unit of the university. Whether that would have been acceptable and allowed in a mainstream university to do social work. And then we question social work in our own lives has been social workers and how do we as women and caregivers have a career

in social work when we're trying to balance both and I've found that to be very very challenging. I think yeah, as a mother and a social worker, the biggest challenge is finding the balance between the two. Evan my masters of social work, I had to do four years part time because of my family. Yeah. A lot of my social work career has been, I wouldn't say held back, but it's gone at a more slower pace because of my family commitments. But in saying that, it's been a positive experience too because having children and being responsible for the raising of other humans has also informed my social work practice. Yeah. So I don't see, you know, my personal life and my professional life is beautifully woven together. And I think that's how it should be a social worker is we don't just wear a hat as a social worker.

We're not human. But we have to be authentic as well. Yeah, a couple of times someone has suggested in a health setting, mind you, that I need to take my social work hat off for a second and think about a problem in a different way. And I just, I just refuse. Just said, no, sorry, this is a package. this is who I am and don't ask me to be someone else because that goes against my values and my professional judgment so thanks but no absolutely yes i agree i love that yeah oh it sounds as though there still is so much work that needs to be done in this space though so what changes ideally

would you like to see over time in the australian context to enable the work you do to have a bit more impact or even to enable people who are considering working in this field have a better time of, or just an easier transition maybe. Yeah, look, I'm on the board of Outdoor Health Australia and a member of Outdoor Health Australia, which is a governing body for allied health professionals wanting to work in the nature-based space, which is great. You know, we have, we're creating spaces for people to do this work and to go into, go into go into more research around this work we actually have a pillar that we're working on to do more

research in this space and where i'd like to see australian social work go is to be led by indigenous voices and indigenous peoples and i'd like to decolonize social work as such and go right back to reframing what is social work so how do we decolonize social work and what does that look like and what does that mean and it means that each of us each individual needs to decolonize themselves in order for that to happen. So it really comes from that individual. And to really think about what is the practice you're doing and how does your practice align with your authentic self and to bring your authenticity into your work and your lived experience

into your work and not to see it. ourselves as you know professionals but to just bring in that human aspect of relationship and I'd love to see more research done in Australia because a lot of the research done for nature based therapy has been overseas right and so I think Australia needs to do more research on the benefits of nature therapy and there is a lot of research but is it getting recognised and Now the voices being heard to be integrated into the systems. I recently did a webinar that's going to be on the Mental Health Academy website for CPD on an introduction to nature-based therapy.

Amazing. When does that come out? So that should come out in the next couple of months. Okay. My introduction to nature-based therapy workshop has also been approved by PACFAR. for CPD. Nice. So it is getting validation. You know, we are looking at nature-based is a valid modality that can be integrated into

healthcare and social work. So we're just taking the steps now to slowly plant seeds. I see it like we're planting a garden. Yeah. And the more seeds we plan, the more chance we have of them, you know, sprouting. I was going to say germinating. That's probably not the word we were going from. Germinating.

And if we're using nature as a metaphor, that's what we need to do. We need to create fertile soil for planting. And we need to let people know what's available and what's out there and giving people experiences and opportunities to engage in this. So given that you have, you've got the four kids, you're on multiple boards and committees trying to build a powerful force that can't be ignored. Private practice can be quite isolating, but it sounds as though that's a way that you've combated that. To use the same metaphor, how do you maintain your garden? How do you look after yourself? What does that look like?

Well, I connect to nature. I pace myself. I don't have a huge agenda and a timeframe of when I want to have it done by. I guess for me, spiritual practice is really important. I'm very much connected to my intuition and I'm guided by what comes to me and knowing that it comes to me at the right time. For me, listening to my intuition is really important and being able to say no. I'm a very creative thinker, very innovative, I have a lot of ideas. I see opportunities everywhere. And it's probably only been the last five years. And this is how I've avoided burnout and compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma that can, you know, be impacted from your own life experiences, is I've been able to maintain it because I just stay focused on what I can do now

and what's important and prioritising my self-care and prioritising my family. For me, my health comes first, then my family, and then my work. And I guess that's how I maintain balance, because if I'm not right, my family isn't right. And if my family isn't right, then I can't put energy into my work, which I feel is my purpose in life. Yeah, for sure. Do you find it difficult explaining that to people when everyone wants to. a piece of you and you're kind of torn from pillar to post? I've become better at setting boundaries. I think I've become better at, you know, letting people know I can do this now or I can't do this

right now, but I will be available to do this at another time. Yeah. And I do that with my children as well if I need some self-care time or I need to book myself a massage or I need to go for a walk on the beach or I need to catch up with a friend. You know, I'll say, mum needs to go and do this now, but when I'm finished doing this, I'll come back and we can do this. And I guess it's the same in the work I do because, yeah, I do counselling. I offer clinical supervision. I run training programs. So my availability in my calendar is also works around school holidays. So I take leave from work to be present for my children in school holidays or I work my diary around. school holidays or whatever activities my children may have.

And so that's how I balance things out. I look at what I value and what is a priority. And then I space out my diary and my agenda around those aspects of my life. And I guess that's how I find balance. Yeah. Are there any resources that you'd point people towards? You mentioned some of that research that's done overseas, maybe conferences or even if people wanted to know more about the modalities that you're

working with where would you point them yeah look if people want to find out more about the work i do and nature-based therapy they can go on to my website which is naturebasedtherapy.com a u and that has access to the different workshops and training programs that i do if they're wanting to find out more about outdoor health australia they can go on to outdoor health Australia.org.a.a.a.u. You can also go on to Google Scholar and type in nature-based interventions or nature-based therapy. And it's amazing what comes up. The evidence-based research articles or just information on nature-based therapy and what is nature-based therapy. There's also the child and nature network. I don't know if you've heard of Richard Loof.

So he wrote The Last Child in the Woods. Okay. And vitamin N, I went over to America about five years ago to present at their conference. If anyone's interested in working with or works with young people and wanting to bring in nature-based interventions working with young people in social work, then the Child and Nature Network is a wonderful place to go. So if you just look up Child and Nature Network, you get stoppedorg.aU as well. some great research, some great articles and innovative ways people are bringing nature therapy into practice with young people. But my advice is to go out to nature yourself.

Plant a tree, create a garden in your yard, bringing dog pop plants inside, go for a 20 minute walk each day, connecting to your five senses, connecting to nature. what can I hear, what can I see, what can I smell, what can I taste. Just engaging in nature yourself, I think, is the best learning and the best insight into how we work with nature because we are nature. We're not separate from the natural world. Even the next time you bite into an apple, instead of just biting into an apple, hear the crunch of the apples,

smell the juices of the apple, taste the apple, be present. with the apple. Really, really simple processes. This is the best education. Something I find a lot of fun is even just going to a park or a playground and observing how a child might interact with nature. Because often that's, they don't care if anyone's watching them, they don't care what people think of them, they're just curious and they want to see what's going on in the world and what happens if you touch that or step on that. I think that's really fun as well. Absolutely, yes.

And that's what I always invite people to do is to be curious. And I think going back to what informed my social work practice is my early childhood experiences have been in nature. In Canada, we had a forest in our backyard. We pretty much opened the gate and we were constantly outside. We didn't have watches. We just knew when to come home. You know, this is growing up in the 70s and the 80s.

Yeah. And we were curious, you know, and what I want to bring to social work practice is that critical curious thinking as children, what we do in nature, exactly what you said in a park. Kids are curious. They want to know. Why can't we apply that same curiosity to the work we do in our society? Yeah. Or an animal even. I'm looking after some friend's dogs at the moment. and, you know, sometimes you feel like you're in a rush and you just need to get from here to there so that you can get off to somewhere else. And sometimes they can teach you so much about stopping.

And I mean, I'm not going to put my face in the dirt, but that's what they want to do. They want to smell. That's how they interact with their environment. Look to them to kind of get an idea of that's an interesting thing while they're sniffing in the dirt. What's that happening over the fence? Or what can I hear?

Is that a duck going overhand? You know, just some really cool stuff like that. Just take the time. while you're doing something else that might be fairly mundane, just observe what's going on around you. It's really important. And that's one of the processes that I use in my counselling sessions, is nature journaling.

So I get people to observe nature. It might be two birds in a tree. And we ask the question, well, what are they doing? What are you observing? What teaching can you take from that? Was it teaching you about communication, engagement? And how can you apply that teaching to your present situation or state of mind?

Yeah. So, you know, we can bring those observations into our practice. Have you heard of a book called Braiding Sweetgrass? Yes, I have and I have read that. It's such a fantastic book and I highly recommend for everyone to read it. Yeah, I was introduced to it by actually the most recent guest just before you, Sid, and it talks about Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teaching of plants. And yeah, it sounds incredible. I need to get my hands on it.

And if I can give another book to recommend anyone listening as well and for yourself is phosphorescence. Okay. It's such a great book and it talks about again curiosity and the natural worlds and how do we live our lives. All right. Well, all these great resources, I'll pop them in the show notes and people can go off and do their own reading and watching and observing.

But is there anything that you feel we haven't had an opportunity to talk about about your work or experience that you really want to mention? I think we've covered a lot. I'm trying to think about what I could possibly add to our conversation other than what I said before, inviting people to be curious and to connect with nature and to, you know, just go out and embrace it and not to be fearful of it and to use all your senses to connect to it. I know in winter it's a very hard time here in Australia, some people fear the cold. And, you know, it's like facing your fears and just embracing it and having that invigorating feeling of feeling rain on your skin

or the winds brushing past, you know, your hair or your skin and feeling the cold. And I think these moments make us feel alive. And also, yeah, if anyone is interested in finding out more about nature-based therapy or bringing it into their practice. I do offer clinical supervision to social workers or to any other allied health professionals who would like to have some support or discussions

around how do we bring nature-based therapy into my practice. And I have a, yeah, my 12-month advanced accreditation course is actually commencing in September next month. Amazing, perfect timing. So it's perfect timing. And at the end of August, Depending when this is released, I also have a four-hour online introduction to nature-based therapy course as well.

Nice. Do you find that different allied health professionals engage with supervision in different ways? Just because I know that in social work we're provided a framework so early on in our practice and training around what it could be, but other allied health might come to it with different impression of what they might get out of it. That's a great question. What I find when I offer supervision, I'm working more with the values and beliefs and the interventions that that person is using in their practice and not as such the training that they've done around, you know, we always refer to what are their code of ethics. Yeah. What's the code of ethics for a mental health clinician or an occupational

therapist or a social worker or a complementary therapist. But it's always bringing it back to the person, you know, that person-centered approach in clinical supervision, that really your qualification doesn't define you. It's not about your qualification, but it's about working with the person. Yeah. And I think that shape shifts, depending on the amount of experience you've had working in the field. I know for me, you know, my values and beliefs have remained the same over the last 20 years of my practice, but through my own curiosity and through my own experiences, which have been informed by my relationships with my clients, my clients inform me of practice. Yeah. You know, they're the best teachers, right, to get you to question why you're doing things a certain way or how you're doing things.

And so it's fluid, just like nature, everything, nothing is permanent. We don't have a permanent way we do social work or we do mental health or healthcare. And so that's what I love about, you know, clinical supervision. The supervision provides a space where we can be curious and question and reframe things in different ways based on listening to our own interpretations and our own reflections in practice. We're really just holding space for that. And I think that's why I have gone into clinical supervision is to provide space for that as well.

That's something I'm very passionate about. Yeah, nice. Well, Kit, you've been so generous with your time and just really grateful that you could share that experience and even from day one with that passion and sense of just, that drove you to studying all things, but eventually social work as well, and your early childhood experiences as you were talking about and the judgment that you experienced of people around you, even just wanting to go into work experience in drug and alcohol

counseling and mental health fields. But that connection to nature, your passion for teaching and training and really getting to the core of what makes people tick early on. And you talked about the decolonising social work and disrupting and questioning the systems and exploring corporations and their sort of mechanisms and values and how they're trying to direct things in a particular way that might not be consistent with our values. And then also not just decolonizing systems, but decolonizing ourselves in terms of that self-explanation and reflection. And you've been guided by that faith and intuition and used that as a practice for your life. So I love that you've encouraged people to connect and be curious and

hopefully this is inspired other people to get out there. And even if it's not in their professional lives, even if it's just their personal lives, just to connect. And whether that be with nature, with other people, with their cat, you know, just give themselves an opportunity to live through what other people might see in nature and in other people. And yeah, just I think that's really beautiful message. So thank you so much for that. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or kit, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlightpodcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Yalila, accredited mental health social worker, registered play therapist and private practice owner, who works in the areas of human services, early intervention, crisis relief, family and domestic violence, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander social and emotional well-being. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you will notify when this next episode is available.

See you next time.