Social Work Spotlight - Episode 100: Who Left Us Unsupervised?

Episode Date: January 5, 2024

Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode. I’m your host, Yasmine McKee-Wright, and for the 100th episode of Social Work Spotlight I’ve invited five previous guests to return to the podcast who were all very early on in their careers when we previously met, to let us know what they’ve been up to, where they are working now, and how they have developed personally and professionally. Join me for this very special milestone celebration as I speak again with Anna, Emily, Haylee, Kate and Maddy.This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VQMGB2wECxE8h6wNvrMDtZHqPZwG6mqulcJBukceRWU/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, Yasmin Lupus, and for this episode we have a bit of a change to the regular structure of the podcast. Given that this will be the 100th episode of Social Work Spotlight, I wanted to do something special. So I've invited five previous guests to return to the podcast, who were all very early on in their careers when we first met, to let us know what they've been up to, where they're working now, and how they've developed. personally and professionally. Join me for this very special milestone celebration as I speak again with Anna, Emily, Haley, Kate and Maddie. Today I'm doing something a little bit different to celebrate the 100th episode of the podcast. So if you've been a regular listener, you might recognize one or more of the voices you'll hear today. Today I'm bringing together five guests

who have previously had their stories and experiences featured on the show, returning to update us on where they're up to now and where their early days of social work have taken them. So I'll begin briefly introducing you to everyone and then I'll let you hear from them about what they've been up to and how they're making our world that little bit better. On the line we have Anna, Emily, Haley, Kate and Maddie. So in alphabetical order, I'll ask you each please to introduce yourself which episode you were featured in and what point in your social work journey that snapshot in time was from over to you Anna.

Thanks, Jasmine. Hi, everyone. I'm Anna. I was featured on episode 53 in March 2020, so a bit over a year ago now. That was at the beginning of my career. So I had first graduated in November of 2021 and had first started my grad job also in November of 2021. So fresh out of uni was very new into the workforce and yet had no idea what job I was doing when I started the job and two years later, it's been lots of learning and growing and still lots of learning on the way.

But yes, very excited to speak about what I've learned and the projects and clients that we've been working with. Thank you. Emily. Hi, hi, everyone. So I'm Emily and I was featured on episode 63 of this podcast in August of 2022. So just over 12 months ago as well. At that point in time, I was about to hit two years in my second full-time job. I was working as a social worker at a youth service based on the North Shore and having a good time.

And yeah, just sort of getting back into youth work after moving out of that space for a while. and sort of getting back in touch with my casework skills and role and seeing how I could grow from that point. Amazing. Thank you. And next is Haley. Hi, I'm Haley. I was on episode 48, which she was out in June. I think at that point in time, we were in quite a significant wave of COVID, so I was working in the COVID ICU. I just left my previous role in a sexual assault service, about two and a half years into my career. year plus or minus either side of that. And in that time, I've actually returned back to the position that I had left but as a senior clinician. So kind of full circle, possibly post-COVID,

and really happy to be here and reflect on that experience. Lovely. Thank you. And Kate. Hey, Kate here. I just want to say that I'm coming at you from Gatigal Land and I was on episode 15 back in 2020. So I probably was a few months into my social work career back then and working in community mental health, which I'm still in, but I have been in and out of it over the past few years since 2020. Thank you. And finally, Maddie. Hey, my name's Maddie. I'm coming at you from Longoland. I was on episode 32, which was out in June 2021. I was in my third year of my bachelor's of social work. I was

like weeks out from going on my first placement, but we were doing the whole working from home thing. I was working at like an employment service at the time, which gave me like a good foundation to go on placement and kind of complement in my studies pretty well because I was working with like a lot of different cohorts that were experiencing like various types of social issues, especially in the context of COVID.

It's so wild to cast our minds back to what it was like for us at that point, both working and studying and just how challenging it was. So, yeah, almost feel like if we can have gotten through that, we can get through anything. So still in alphabetical order, if we can, ladies. Can you maybe let the listeners know at this point in your career now, how you feel you've developed, it could be professionally, could be personally,

could be both based on your experience since that time? Sure, I can start. So it's been two years since I've started my grad job. So I started, yes, especially as a grad at KPMG as a management consultant, which is quite different to social work and didn't really understand what management consulting was. And since the two years has passed, definitely my understanding of consulting has definitely broadened and understanding how the government uses consultants to deliver projects

has lots of learning in that area and in terms of professionally been on a wide range of projects so our team is called policy economics and public impact and I'm aligned to the health, age care and human services and lots of our work is within the public sector and working alongside government for so not-for-profit and private organisations to deliver lots of programmes. And within the two years, I've been able to work across lots of different sectors and clients ranging from child protection to domestic and family violence, to age care and social and affordable housing. So I had lots of experience across different sectors and with so many different clients as

well. So within that time, we've been able to work with the E-Safety Commission to design a support service for victim survivors of technology facilitated abuse. I worked with the Department of Health and Age Care to help them consolidate an age care program. We've worked with the Queensland government to redirect money to put more money into early intervention so that children won't flow into the child protection system and into tertiary care. So the breadth of experience that I've been able to get has really just been quite incredible and learning so much from the way that, like, how policies created, how programs can be evaluated so that it could be improved and evidence-based.

knowing how to run or work alongside other people, because a lot of our work is project-based. So being able to work as a team and being able to see how you can work together to make a difference. It's been really cool. And lots of learning in so many different areas, like learning how to work with data and using Excel as something that I had no idea how to use. but learning how to make meaning out of the numbers that you see is really important and visualising that data. Yes, in terms of professionally, I think just so much more understanding of the different sectors across the human services and age care and also health.

And just to see issues on a macro level and how policies can impact change, how funding can really impact outcomes. how programs need to be evidence-based and reviewed and how we can use data to make evidence-informed decisions. I think that's been really cool. And just being able to understand that you do get to work across so many different sectors, but as work as a consultant, it's very much you get in, you do the project, and then you get out.

And so I guess I don't really see much of the implementation side of our project. it's just different when you don't really get to see how your work has long-term effects. But I think that's just the nature of consulting in general. But yeah, in terms of personally, I think it's been a lot of growth as well. I think the biggest growth is just trusting in yourself more and knowing that you do have the skills and ability to conduct the work and being able to lean more on people. who you admire or respect and have things to learn from. And so that's really been something that I've done more this year

is to reflect on what I'm good at, but also reflect on areas that I can develop on. And that's been speaking up when I don't know the questions or answers, being able to voice my opinions more and to, yeah, trust that I can do the work. it's just backing myself more. So yeah, I think that's been a bit about my two years. Incredible. Has the social work team grown since you've been there? It did initially grow when I first started. So we had a few associate directors come and join the

team, which was great. So a few social workers did join. But we have had people leave as well. So there's been a little bit of change, especially with the recent. And I think there's a trend with government trying to use, be less reliant on consultants. So I think there's definitely been that impact on the market and people staying as well. So a lot of fluctuation at the moment. Do you have much input into the types of projects that are taken on or the types of funding that comes to you? Or do you just kind of get told, hey, we're working on this project. What's your input?

No, we don't get much say about what projects we get. get put on. I think at the end of the day, they do look at the skills that you have and the goals that you want to achieve and try to align that to the projects that they currently have. But it really depends on the market and what project is available at that time. And I think with consulting, there is an emphasis on billable hours. And so that's the hours that you get to spend on client work. And so if there is a project where you are able to be utilized, then it doesn't really take into consideration what projects you want to be on. But with saying that, I've been really lucky to be able to work on really interesting projects. So I'm really grateful

to have had such diverse experiences across so many different sectors and clients. And I think that's the beauty of consulting as well, as much as sometimes it can be really hard that you you have to be quite flexible and agile and adaptable. And so you might be working in health or age care or human services or climate change or, yeah, just so many different types of sectors and clients. But you learn so much from that and being able to lift what you know from one sector into another sector has been really valuable. And so I've been able to see how governance is implemented in childbirth.

protection, but also how that can be translated across to age care. So I would say being able to have so many different experiences actually serves you in the long term. And I think that's something that I would give to new grads joining consulting, is that really have an open mind about the projects that you are on. And even if it's something that you might not have an interest in, there's always going to be learning opportunities and opportunities to bring knowledge that you gain from one project, one sector across to a different sector. So, yeah. Amazing.

And I would hope that the outcomes, at least, from each project might then inform future projects because you'd have a lot of questions that come up from answering questions. So at least hopefully you get to see a bit of a progression in terms of the projects that are picked up by the company. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think a lot of the work that we do means that, especially, the recommendations or considerations that we put forth in our reports, hopefully they get

pulled across to action and then from those actions there's further work to be done. So I'm really excited especially to see the development of we did a piece of work for the Child Protection Department of Communities in Western Australia to see how they're spending their money across statutory services and currently they do want to put more money in into early intervention so that the flow through of children coming into that home care system is reduced. And so from that piece of work, I'm really excited to see how more pieces of work can come out of that. And yeah, being able to be on those projects has been really cool because I wasn't a data person or an economics person, but coming into this role, it was really eye-opening

to see how decisions are made especially for human services. And being, able to point to this is the data that we have and in five years time this is how many children will be in our home care system and this is how much it would be costing the government has been yeah really powerful when you can see the cost savers that government can have when less children are taken into care so yeah really cool amazing thank you Anna over to Emily yeah we're to start So I guess in terms of development for me, I might go about this a little bit like chronologically. So I am actually no longer at the place of employment where I was when I did my podcast in August of last year.

And if I think about the development that I had in that organization, even in the few months, I was still there after the podcast, I got to develop a bunch of skills that I hadn't necessarily been aware I had or utilizing previously. I had managers at the time that had seen that I was. I felt pretty comfortable with data entry and IT and that sort of stuff. And so we're allowing me to grow my skills in our, say, contractual obligations on the data side and sort of helping me grow in my understanding of like systems and that sort of stuff. And so there was an emphasis at that point or an understanding that they were sort of

mentoring me towards leadership, which was very lovely. And I'm very appreciative of them that they saw that potential skill and that they were willing to foster it. As sort of my time at the service continued, due to like changes and staffing changes, I sort of took on more responsibility and that sort of stuff. So I also, through that process, learned quite a bit about myself in terms of my ability to recognize when I'm not doing so great. So we're just with the changes and the extra responsibility, I ended up suffering with pretty significant burnout. And one of the, of the sort of developments, I guess, for myself in that space was how much I needed external supervision.

So I'm very grateful to Haley because she recommended a really great external supervisor for me. And so I connected with her fairly regularly towards the end of my time at the service just to help me manage that burnout. And I can't sing her prayers as highly enough. She's such an excellent supervisor. And through my supervision with her, we sort of reflected and started to recognize that part of my work, A part of my approach to working is that if I know I can do it and I can take the burden of someone else, I will do it myself. And so she helped me to recognize that I feel a lot of responsibility for my fellow

staff members and that if I can see that they are struggling or that they're really busy, I will just sort of do it anyway if I have the capacity to do it, even if I don't necessarily actually have the capacity to do it. I just think I can probably get it done. and so having that external supervision was really helpful to sort of bring that to the forefront of my understanding and my sort of awareness of myself and help me to sort of better understand like I do need to be moving on from this space. I can't afford for my own personal well-being to remain with the sort of workload I was having. And also within that, so those supervision sessions,

like when I started applying for different jobs, I was sort of really struggling about where I wanted to end up and what space I wanted to move in. Like I was currently working in youth and I'd worked in youth before and I really enjoyed that space. I really enjoyed working with young people. But I was sort of struggling as to where to go next because a lot of the youth focused jobs that I was seeing felt like they weren't a progression for myself and my professional like identity and development.

And so I was sort of struggling with the do I take something for now just, you know, with the plan to move on, but I didn't, like I sort of was really hoping to find somewhere where I could sit comfortably and stay for a while. And so I sort of was exploring other spaces to move into. And when I'd been talking to colleagues about jobs I was looking at, they were sort of going, oh, you should be looking for team leader jobs or management or senior clinician or at least something higher. Like that's the sort of work you've been doing. You should be moving into that space and through sort of talking it through with my external supervisor, I sort of had this realization that like that might be in my career path, but I don't want it yet. And it's not something

I, I'm actively seeking at this point. Like, I still really enjoy direct client work. And I'm not ready to give that up to worry about contracts and management. So being able to talk that out with her was really great. And sort of one of the other things that I came to realize is that I actually really like the idea of social work education. And so part of being able to go through this process of understanding and reflection and supervision was coming to the recognition that somewhere in my future career, I'd actually really like to go into like lecturing or or tutoring or tutoring or somewhere in a space where I can actually help people grow and learn in their social work career, which is something I sort of already knew about myself because I love supervising students.

but it was the recognition that like I can actually do that as part of a career path for myself. So there's some of the things I learned while I was still at the previous organization, but I actually, where I ended up after all of that is I actually ended up in the mental health space at a brief to moderate level intervention service in Western Sydney. And when I sort of applied for the job, I was like, okay, this looks interesting. I actually applied for their drug and alcohol clinician. So I was like, that's not too dissimilar. I've done drug and alcohol before.

or it's just sort of something I'm familiar with, but it's just a different space. And what it has turned out to be is a very, essentially it's a counseling job where I'd come from casework. And so my first couple of weeks and my team lead has heard me talk about it regularly in our supervision, a lot of the first couple of weeks was me sort of struggling with the idea of like,

do I really know what I'm doing here? I've done drug and alcohol counseling before in a very structured program with a very, clear idea of we are talking about your drug and alcohol use and had found myself in a mental health service with a focus on drug and alcohol but still a mental health service and being essentially left to my own devices to counsel people because they had faith in my abilities and just really struggling with that but am I actually doing this do I actually know what I'm doing why are they leaving me unsupervised?

I need more help. And so I have supervisions with my team leader. And she would tell me, like, we have confident in you. We trust that you know what you're doing. But I was like frantically doing as much professional development as I could in the meantime just to try and upskill myself. And so I think that's part of the,

like in terms of professional development for this one, like the moving into the counseling space has been really wonderful for my professional development. I have done a lot of additional training and upskilling to grow my skills, to grow my knowledge, which has been wonderful. It's also helped me sort of recognise that I'm interested in the mental health accreditation, which I haven't really sort of considered before. And so now I'm sort of thinking about it and wondering how to go about doing that.

I've sort of started looking into that. But I think just as also in a professional space, in a personal space, it's been an adjustment, but a nice adjustment to be in a, being in a workspace where I'm, you know, I can, I'm coming to terms with that I do know what I'm doing, at least at the bare minimum. I remember the basics of counselling they teach us in social work, that it's, most of it's about relationship building anyway. So I think it's personally been a very fulfilling couple of months in this role to know that, like,

I, you know, have kept, have retained some of those skills and knowledge and I'm able to, you know, see with the clients that I'm working with that despite my reservations, they seem to be really getting something from what I can, what I'm offering. And it's just sort of, I'm also in the space as a, in a slightly more senior position than some of the other clinicians. And so still being sort of given that trust and faith that I can also help, you know, be a guide to some of the other clinicians in the space is lovely too. So it's been a good 12 months or more of growing and learning for me and I imagine it's going to continue to be that as I go forward, but it's all very positive growth coming out of some challenging times. Yeah, incredible. And look, I've spoken with so many

people who have been thrust into leadership or management roles well before they felt prepared or before they wanted the role. And I myself have been through the same process where I've thought, am I doing this just because it's expected of me? You know, if someone higher up leaves, then you're kind of almost expected to jump into that role because maybe you've acted in it or you've got the capacity. Did you find it difficult trying to rationalise to the people around you, why you weren't wanting to go for those roles, at least not now. Yes and no, there were some that really got it, like when I explained it to them, that like, I really enjoy my direct client work.

I don't want to give that up. Some came back with the response of, oh, but find yourself a team leader position and you can do both. And I was like, true, but like, so for the most part, there were many that were quite understanding once I explained it. The people that were really understanding were very much the people in the profession, like they were counsellors, they were psychologists, they were the ones that were already in the profession. I think where I found a little bit of pushback about my reasoning was talking to people

who were from outside allied health, talking like, say, with my parents around looking for a new job and, you know, my dad would be like, you should be going for a management position. It should be, you know, it should be all about career progression because he comes from a very corporate business space. And so for him, it didn't sort of make as much sense that I was like, but I don't want to progress at this point and like progression doesn't necessarily look the same for me in allied health or in social work as it does in a corporate business model my sense of progression is not like clinician team leader manager CEO like it's caseworker to counselor to growing my expertise in certain areas to moving back into casework in a more specialized area like it's my understanding of

progression is not like super linear it's like i'm just growing my skills and knowledge and becoming more specialized to becoming more knowledgeable and more skilled. Yeah, it doesn't mean you're not ambitious. Yeah. Now, Emily, how do you know Haley? Did I know that you knew each other? Probably not. We went to uni together.

Ah, okay. What is more wild? There you go. We noticed on the email chain, we were like, oh, yeah, we know each other. Yes. That is hilarious. I just thought I brought you all together, but clearly not. Incredible.

Thank you, Emily, for sharing. I'll move on to Haley. Yeah, I was looking at this question. I was like, oh, I don't know. I don't know how to summarize two and a half years of growth, but probably, I guess, very similar to what Emily mentioned because we are in timeline-wise, the same point in our career about five-ish years out of uni.

I feel like the last time I was on the podcast, I was talking about a two-year-itch and needing to go into like hospital, social work, that real, you know, discharge planning thrust into ICU from community sexual assault. And here I am back in community sexual assault. But as a counsellor now, which is a very big change from when I was previously there as an intake worker. So I guess very similar questions to what Emily raised in terms of, you know, not feeling

the most confident in the skills and the capacity to be able to provide support to people that have experienced quite significant traumas, whether that be, you know, something that was recent or historical. So I feel like that's something that's really developed over time. I think, you know, as a new social worker, I really wanted to have like something really quite clear or a skill or a particular model that I practice, you know, that you can just kind of pick it off the shelf and provide it to somebody like, you know, here's your 10 sessions beautifully done.

and I think now I have the confidence in my capacity to draw from different theories and different models to be able to provide tailor-made support to clients and really understanding that that is what's trauma-informed care, not can I deliver CBT perfectly. Developing that kind of self-advocacy, working most of my career in COVID and then coming out of it, but also working in the space with survivors of sexual violence. experience as a burnout have definitely been real. I feel burnout doesn't really describe that experience because I think, you know, when we learned about it at uni,

it really individualizes that experience. I kind of think about it like a, you know, a candle being blown out for me. That wasn't what it felt like. It was that real, like, spiritual kind of hurt and kind of, you know, there's this desire, I think, sometimes to individualize that experience where it's really kind of a collective, you know, particularly working during COVID when a lot of teams were understaffed, you know, referrals were quite high and, you know, you look at your own individual practice and you're like, but I'm doing my supervision, you know, I'm going to

external supervision, I'm doing my yoga and my deep breathing and I'm taking my work hat off before I get home, but you're still feeling that hurt and that kind of, just that pain. But it wasn't because of the client work and it wasn't because you needed to take time off work. It was just that the systems weren't there to protect. So I think that's what I really learned and kind of advocating for myself and my needs within that, not pushing myself to, you know, do that extra on-call shift or, you know, provide support to people where I might not have the capacity because equally my needs and my team's needs need to be taken into that account. as well and just really bringing it back to that collective experience rather than the individual

hurt, I think. That was a big step for me, but I also think it was a really big shift in my counselling practice as well with clients because I think we quite often individualise the experience of mental health and the experiences of trauma, particularly when it comes to sexual violence and all the changes that are happening in this space, you know, that really like we hold it together. you know and kind of being able to provide that support to my clients and you know working with different community survivor organizations outside of my primary role has been really helpful to kind of bounce back if you say that or kind of re-centre and re-ground myself so I think really the confidence

in my own practice but then also self-advocacy and feeling really confident in knowing when I can't do something or yeah that's so hard when you're clearly feeling that strong connection to the profession and really passionate about it but the system is letting you down so it's not as though you were questioning am i doing the right thing or am i even in the right place it was just how do i make this situation better that's really tough yeah such an interesting experience particularly you know, I guess all the different, there's lots of changes happening in, you know, that space of sexual violence when it comes to law reform and, you know, everything that's been happening in the media. And then at the same time, you know, working in a team that, you know,

classic government, you know, we restructure, we change and just kind of trying to hold space and trying to ground and connect and be able to provide that safety for clients because at the end of the day, you know, I guess we do this work together and we all need to be able to come into that space safely and just, yeah, it was an interesting experience, interesting reflection. Do you still have to do on call in the community or is that just as an impatient? Yeah, absolutely. I guess we're kind of a hybrid team within health. So we both provide the ongoing counselling, but also that crisis support for anybody that's presenting with a recent. and assault, but also I guess there's been a restructure across the state in terms of quite a

significant focus on responses to sexual violence, domestic violence and child protection. So it's been quite a big push in terms of that early intervention, whether that might be an ED or whether that might be in the community and then of course balancing those ongoing client needs. So it can be quite difficult too. And that was really the kind of point where, you know, you, I guess, have a reduced staff load, but also and trying to manage that crisis care, but also managing the care of your, you know, ongoing clients in the community that you might see regularly, weekly or fortnightly and having to balance, you know, the needs of different people and, you know, feeling that kind of the spiritual pain because you're not able to work in line

with your ethics. Yeah. And it's just fearing out, okay, well, where does this pain sit and why is it there? And I think often systems like to talk about it in terms of the work and the people that you're working with and hearing their story, but that's not in. Often that's the thing that kind of refills your cup because you're like, oh, this is that collective sharing and holding. Yeah.

And you hinted at some external or secondary work. Did you want to talk about that? Yes. So I've always had a love working in the space of sexual violence, which is a really odd thing to say, I guess for people that don't work in the space to hear, but really have quite a strong passion in terms of learning from those that have lived experience and being able to provide platforms or safe spaces for them. So I've been able to do some really great work with some community organisations, ones that haven't really started and helping them and build their own. platform in terms of what they can offer but then also providing some group facilitation or monitoring as well which is just it's such a step away i think from the work that i provide i guess in my paid job but also to the same respect it probably goes back to where i was first employed at sampson which

was for male survivors of child sexual abuse so it's kind of also a full circle to the same respect and i think sometimes in government roles, maybe the ability to provide groups or, you know, things that maybe are a step away from your normal day to day. It's quite nice to be able to also be able to balance that in terms of your community and volunteering work as well. Yeah, that's really cool. Thanks, Haley. We'll move on to Kate. Wow, everyone's got such broad experiences and it's interesting to hear everyone's journey, especially we all sound like we've been in. social work for five years or less. Yeah.

And it's awesome to see where everyone's at. So the episode that I was on was, I can't believe that it's been three and a half years, to be honest. And yeah, I've been in mental health pretty much that whole time. In terms of, yeah, professional development, it's, I mean, I can list a few things that I've done in my short, I guess, three and a half, four years where predominantly I've worked in community mental health. I've worked in adult teams. I've worked on to cover staffing rates or lack of staffing really. The mobile assertive outreach team and crisis intervention in mental

health. So the crisis service, I've worked in suicide prevention as well, which was actually a new initiative by New South Wales government, which was part of the towards zero suicides, safe haven and suicide prevention outreach team. So I worked on that and helped implement that and open the services and worked on criteria and procedures and whatnot. So that was interesting as well as then being a clinician for the team. And now I'm in early intervention psychosis. That's predominantly what I've been doing. I've also stepped out of health for a period of time and worked in education as a student support officer at a high school, which was really interesting. However, I think I missed working on a team and working with people from a similar background

or who have a similar language and how we can explore contexts. I think it was interesting to see the priorities of the different sectors. So education, obviously, education is prioritized. I was one social worker in a school, so there were a lot of social issues and supports that students needed, but it sometimes was difficult to provide the services to students during school hours because they had to be in class. It was a very interesting experience, so that was more, I guess, early intervention and prevention work. So you'd be looking at doing group programs and working with the youth centre closely across the road. working with families, you're doing a whole lot of different things

and working closely with the school counsellors as well. So did that for a little while and then went back to health. And yeah, that was when I went into early intervention psychosis. And I'm also on the sexual assault on-call roster that I've been doing for a few years as well. Yeah, so after working in the school back in health and I've been back in health for, I don't know, a few months now and I'm enjoying it because you're working with families and young people between ages of 12 to 25 and up to 30 for women

as psychosis is often experienced later for women. So, yeah, working with families and teaching them about different diagnoses and symptoms and developing safety plans, recovery plans. So a lot of clinical note writing, which I guess is a skill that I'm a skill that I'm I've definitely developed over time, considering clinical note writing takes a while, and you kind of learn little shortcuts of how to write a nice, succinct, quick note. Otherwise, you'll be there writing an essay probably until the next day. But yeah, it's a lot of different experiences of working with different cultures,

different age groups and population groups as well across the different services, different abilities as well, different sexualities, so gender identities. It's been really, I guess, enriching in terms of learning about people. And I think that's where those skills of listening really are important and being able to build rapport because that in itself is a skill. And it's really helped, I guess, with me developing ongoing care and support for people, just knowing their backgrounds and making sure that I'm working from a trauma-informed person-centered approach as well and focusing on people's strengths and shining a light on people's strengths because as we know in mental health there's a lot of focus on the biomedical model and sometimes it's difficult

to challenge that even though it does get challenged and the great thing about the district I'm working and now they have a strengths manager who is slowly shining a stronger light on strength-based practice and rather than focusing on strengths as being an approach that you can use, it's a practice that's embedded within everyone's practice that is used and considered throughout the whole of someone's care with the service. So I really find that fantastic. That's something I've developed as well, my skills in strength-based practice. And in terms of career progression And I'm on the pool for the strengths manager role, so I'm just waiting to act up in that position.

And hopefully I'll be doing a quality improvement project soon as well. And I've supervised students and wanting to continue that because as Emily mentioned, she really likes the education part of things, which I do too. So I'd like to maybe in the future be in education and maybe even at TAFE. I know that they have certificates in community development and community services, welfare, mental health, things like that. But overall, I think it's, yeah, developed a lot of different skills in different areas, especially mental health and the overlap with drug and alcohol. And I really think that is an area that needs to be explored.

And a lot of mental health clinicians and drug and alcohol clinicians, we need training in both areas. So I think those dual diagnosis clinicians are really valuable, which of course I knew, but you kind of really see the impacts. And one thing I guess I've learnt and it's kind of confronting at times is I remember working, for example, going from health where I was working with adults who have a diagnosis of, let's say, schizophrenia. And then they've had encounters with the criminal justice system. their schooling didn't pick up on issues at home, for example. They've ended up in mental health services, and unfortunately they're likely to stay involved with mental health services. And it was kind of interesting when I went to work in a school.

It's kind of like you're coming from that prevention model, and you can kind of see these issues from the start where maybe a kid's exposed to domestic violence, and they're Aboriginal, and they might also be waiting for a course, court hearing. And it's kind of sad because you can see, basically, if you don't intervene early, you can just see the trajectory and it's really depressing. But thankfully, schools are starting to get student support officers and social workers, youth workers, in which is very valuable to hopefully curve that trajectory. And there's a lot of different change going on across different sectors.

even the government, I guess, recently announced that they were going to be funding prevention and early intervention group work and stuff around toxic masculinity, which is really fantastic because that's for, you know, teaching young boys and young people about healthy relationships and how to express emotions and how to express gender appropriately or anger appropriately, things like that. So those things are imperative. But in terms of personal development, I guess. I think at the moment I am, you know, doing a master's of counselling at UNSW, which is really interesting. And as part of my self-care, I do like floristry and self-care is really important. And I know burnout has been mentioned and I think it's

kind of scary how quickly we can burn out. So it's really important that we keep up with things that we love doing outside as well as getting supervision. And yeah, I think in terms of my social work career, maybe education in the future at the moment I'm really wanting to do community development, capacity building, humanitarian work. But that's a whole other discussion I could have. But yeah, I guess that's pretty much me in a nutshell for the past three and a half years. That's a lot. Well, when you say that you're seeing the impact of trauma over time, is it because you're seeing a similarity of presentations, or is it because you get to work with someone for a long period of time or a bit of both? I would say it is a mixture of both,

seeing similar presentations and working with people over a long period of time, so you actually get to know the person and understand their experiences. And with that in mind, you can actually view and understand them through a more trauma-informed lens. So I think a lot of the time when people come to mental health services, they're viewed through their diagnosis rather than through their trauma. So everything's interpreted through their diagnostic symptoms rather than through survival responses and trauma. And I guess when I was talking about this in particular, I was referring to like when

I was working with young people in the trajectory. of their potential life outcomes with their trauma in mind. So it was just interesting when working in a school where I could see that all of these things were happening, being part of the, or involved with the justice system, being in foster care, coming from a family where there was domestic violence. You're seeing these early signs of trauma and from my experience in adult mental health,

you can see them at this point in time when they're a young person and see how their life could be. And that's from my experience in adult mental health. So you're seeing the outcome before it's happened and it was kind of heartbreaking because you're seeing these kids that are intelligent and have all this opportunity,

but it's not fulfilled because they're getting caught up in the criminal justice system and, you know, there's things going on at home which really impacts their schooling and their educational attainment. So it was really interesting because you're seeing all these social factors and how trauma impacts opportunities and is interlinked with the social determinants of health and these outcomes of young people. But I would say, yes, the impacts of trauma that you see over time are from similar presentations and working with people over a long period of time, but it's also working in that prevention, early intervention space and education, to working with more crisis intervention or the point where someone has a diagnosis,

where these kids don't in it when I was working in education, always have a diagnosis, but it's those early signs of trauma, but then they get caught up in the mental health system, they get a diagnosis, and then the trauma is not really considered, and that's what is really, I'm sorry, seeing, which is really quite heartbreaking because it's not being, the trauma isn't always being addressed. Yeah. And you mentioned having a diversity of interest. I know you're big into music as well. Would that be something that you could potentially incorporate into the counselling or is it a little bit like you want to keep them separate? I'm a fan of music and art therapy. So I really think

there are ways that people can express themselves and they're often overlooked. I definitely incorporate it into counselling, especially if I were working with younger people or actually any age, really, who doesn't want to like get a drum or an instrument and like thrash it and see what it sounds like and create something and use it as a way to express something if you listen to different pitches or different tones and it's, you can say, that's anger or this is happiness. It's like a way to slowly build skills around identifying emotions. and other areas.

Oh, that's great that you get to use that and that you've had the opportunity to work across an enormous perspective and coordinating with different services, both within the crisis management, suicide prevention, and also in the schools. So there'd be so much crossover, as you were saying, in terms of the skills that you've developed over that time. So really lovely to see.

And when you say you're interested in humanitarian stuff, is that potentially working overseas as well? Yeah, I guess initially that's why I got into social work because I always wanted to be an aid worker, but it's actually a very difficult sector to get into, and the Red Cross has changed their recruitment, and you used to be able to do a lot more volunteering as an aid worker, but now they've stopped doing that quite a few years ago.

So, yeah, I think international and cross-cultural social work is definitely an interest of mine, and I think maybe that's the influence of growing up overseas and being exposed to different cultures and religions. And I don't know, I just, yeah, would love to work with different people and learn about culture as well and incorporate that more into practice. You've got plenty of time, so I'm sure it'll happen.

Thanks, Kate. Thanks. I'll move on to Maddie finally. So since my episode, I finished my degree. So I went on to do a whole. replacement at DCJ and the interstate transfer team, except it was during lockdown. So one of the requirements is that they had to go interstate every six weeks. And all the borders were closed. So that was like we had to get really inventive, do home visits over FaceTime and stuff like that.

I really brushed up on a lot of policy in the placement there because there wasn't too much more to do. And then I went on to do a placement at health and community mental health, which I really liked. But then I got like a proper grown-up job after I graduated. And it was like, I don't know, it was like somebody had thrown cold water in my face. And I was like, oh, this is very different to being a student. So I've been out of uni for about a year now and been working in child protection with specifically adolescents.

And it's been very interesting. I thought that I really wanted to do it because I enjoyed my placement. in child protection when I was at uni. But I kind of quickly realized it wasn't really that suited for it. I'm not like a very pushy person. And I really struggled with the statutory element of it. I had a really supportive manager and my team was probably the only team like in our office

that didn't have massive amounts of turnover. So there was like that nice consistency there. But it's just been like an exhausting year, I guess trying to get used to, I guess, holding more risk than you would as a student. And then on top of that, also learning like a whole legislation and then learning about services in the district I was working in. And then also developing like de-escalation skills really quickly. And I think the thing that I've developed the most professionally is having difficult conversations because, like, naturally I'm just very non-confrontational. And I had to get over that real quick.

And so I'm glad I gave it a go because I feel like I got pretty okay at having difficult conversations and then I would spend the night before catastrophizing and then I'd come to work and I'd have a difficult conversation and then I'd be like, oh, okay, like that actually didn't go so badly. And so then subsequently my confidence grew as well, which has also been like a big thing for me during placements and initially working like a real job. So I think personally in terms of development, I've been very humbled high social work. I think I graduated being like, yeah, this shouldn't be too hard, whatever, like that very

blasé student mentality and then I got to an actual job and then I guess very quickly, I really resonated with what Emily was saying like really very quickly being like, I don't know what I'm doing, who gave me this degree, this was a stupid decision, you know, why you're letting me run around without adult supervision, but somebody told me, I think it was my supervisor at my first placement, somebody told me that it takes you a year to get casework and I get it. Yeah. Was there sort of a point at which that switch happened for you? Was there a specific scenario or a decision that you had to make that made you really think, oh, okay, yeah, I do get it. I belong here? I wouldn't say I belonged there because I actually don't think I love casework.

I think just practicing, I've had some really complex cases, especially with adolescents involved in the child protection system. Like, they're complex. And I think just doing it day and day out, I was like, okay, like I'm starting to get it. Like I'm starting to see, I'm starting to understand like what services are suitable for various situations. And I'm starting to understand how to like have difficult conversations with people that are productive and not combative. I think it was just mainly practice and considering I'm an incredibly impatient person that was quite I guess draining for me. I think I got maybe like four months in and I was like I just feel really defeated like I feel like I'm not doing anything like I really gained an appreciation for

like the flaws and benefits of systems I used to write all my essays at union systems theory because I thought it was easy and then I realized actually it's the most important one but yeah I guess I think I think a lot about that I don't know has anybody heard that story about the the starfish like there's a boy that's walking along a beach and there's just hundreds of starfish everywhere and he's throwing in the starfish like one by one and this guy comes up to him and he goes you know what are you doing like why are you bothering there's too many starfish you're not going to save all of them and then the boy throws the starfish in the ocean and he's like well I have helped that one. I made a difference to that one. And then he like throws another starfish and he's like,

and I made a difference to that one as well. So I kind of just started thinking about all my clients starfish, throwing even just a little bit closer to the ocean. Yeah. No, it's beautiful. It's a great analogy, but also I think it says a lot about your own confidence as that was building. Yeah. At least you're throwing them in the right direction. Yeah. You're not throwing them away from the water. That's fantastic. And where do you see it heading? Are you enjoying it? Are you enjoying it? the working with adolescents more now. What do you want to do with it? Oh, my last day was today.

I'm starting a position in health on Monday, working in drug and alcohol. The community, right? There's a lot of community mental health happening right here. Well, yeah, I think that that would be suited a bit better to me. I've actually also just been accepted. I want to do public health at the uni. Amazing.

So I think that because of all of the systems and how they impact on like people's lives and, you know, sometimes they can cause more problems than not. I think I really want to kind of maybe head into policy at some point and like gain a better understanding of how this interacts with this to create this health outcome and stuff like that. So I'm pretty excited to do that. Yeah. Well, my colleague who sits next to me in the office, she's not a social worker, but she calls her self token social worker because if she had the chance she would have definitely studied social work.

She just finished her master's in public health and it took her a long time but it's got that flexibility that you can just take it module or subject by subject. So she definitely thought it was worthwhile doing. Well, I suppose it's interesting you say that like you token social worker because I feel like the field I've been working in as well, I could almost pick who had a social work background and who didn't. And like it's been really good. I got an appreciation for working in a multidisciplinary team, but also almost like sitting here with like some social workers, it's like very refreshing because it's like a lot of validation because I guess when you're in multidisciplinary teams needed to justify your position to people who wouldn't naturally

take the position that you would. Yeah. Yeah. Incredible. Can I jump in and just say one thing around what Maddie was saying there around like the starfish and just and just helping, you know, a little bit in the right direction. That was one of the lessons that I learned similarly like very early on in my first like adult job after the degree. I started in drug and alcohol as my first like full time job and I remember going to sessions with clients and feeling like I wasn't making any progress or that like I'd try and refer them to mental health because their mental health was sort of a bigger priority and it wasn't getting anywhere. And I had a team link. at that point who was very blunt, very frank, and was just sort of like, maybe this isn't the time

for them and maybe this is not the right time for them to be accessing support. But she's like, you need to check your expectations of it's not about what you think you can achieve. It's about what they're capable of achieving. And she's like, the number one thing you should be focusing on is can you give them a positive experience of seeking help? Because if you can achieve that, you have done a world of good because it means when they're ready, and when they're able to, they will seek support because they've had a positive experience. So I think even if it felt like you were budding your head against systems and things, if you were able to give those adolescents a positive experience of engaging with a support service,

you've done your job well. All right. Let's kick over to Anna. If you could say anything to your past self, your social work student self or your newly graduated self, would there be any advice or what do you wish that you had known? I think those two years has been, like a lot has happened within those two years that my fresh graduated self would not have ever known she would experience. And I think I'm very grateful to have had that experience of working across so many different sectors and clients.

And for me, as a social worker, I always thought I would be in human services. And so I thought, yeah, I'm here to be on human services. human services work, but if I had to go back, I would say definitely spread your cast out wide and be really open-minded to working across so many different projects because that's where the learning is and be really comfortable with being uncomfortable. And I think that's been where a lot of my growth has been is when I didn't really know much about this sector, but going into a project and being able to work alongside people who know so much more than me has been a great way to learn. And there were so many times when I had no idea what was going on. And I think

being able to develop the skills of asking the right questions, being able to be curious about the work that you're doing, having attention to detail, and being able to, yeah, be really, committed to what you do, it will serve you very well because especially in a job that's changing so much and there's a lot of unpredictability and where the scope can change. Being able to remember why you're doing the work that you do and the impact that it can have is really grounding. And I think for me as well, two years ago, I didn't realize the importance of having such diverse skills in your team and oftentimes you could be the only social worker there but you could also have someone who has a background in economics in health just so many different things and being

able to lean on the expertise of other people and together you can really make a difference and have so much more power in what you can achieve in terms of other things I think being able to be more confident in my skills as well is really important and being able to back yourself and a lot of the times no one really knows what's going on and having the confidence to call that out and to yeah lean on who may know a little bit more than you and to trust in the process knowing that i might not know what i'm doing but there's a process that we can follow when questions that we can ask and leaning more on the client as well and being able to work together to come to a conclusion. It's been lots of learning and I'm really excited to see in the next two years

what I'll be doing next. I think the fact that other people within your company or organization recognized your skills and your strengths and helped to foster that. So that helped to increase your confidence in your own. Recognized you could kind of figure out who were the right people. to lean on in terms of learning from others. So perhaps you didn't see it straight away, but someone else saw that in you and helped to foster that. So it's really lovely. You find yourself in a place where people can see that,

even if you can't see it for yourself. Yeah, definitely. And working in a supportive team goes a long way where there are people that you can trust and people that, you know, who would look out for you. And that would give you those learning opportunities as well. Yeah, for sure. and Emily?

I'm going to say the thing that I sort of would tell myself for, I wish I knew back then, is to not hesitate on finding an external supervisor. Obviously, like, you know, if people have the means to do so, like having someone separate from your organization is really, really beneficial. Like, it's not, like, I had supervision

within the organization, but the difference between organizational supervision and that real, like, reflective practice supervision and having someone, the difference was remarkable for me because organizational supervision, even with the best team leader, their supervisor, it's still very focused on the dynamics, the politics within the organization and being able to speak to someone separate from the organization and being able to have those really open conversations around how I'm being impacted by the work or how I'm being impacted by

the workplace and whether I was really struggling, being able to have conversations with an external supervisor to be like, I'm really finding this tough, but I'm trying not to let it impact me in the workplace because I don't want my colleagues to feel bad that I'm impacted. And so having that external supervisor has been just an absolute life raft for me in the past couple of months, just to try and help me really understand how I'm doing, really recognize how I'm doing, and to try and help me identify and build strategies to sort of keep myself safer. float and how to help me then transition out of the place of burnout into a space of recovery and support me through that recovery process. So within obviously having the means to do that,

that would be sort of my biggest learning. I wish I had known 12, 18 months ago because I put it off thinking, oh, I'll be fine. I don't really need it. Yeah, would have saved me a lot of trouble. Emily, if I can like jump in there as well, I think your experience of burnout and like talking about recovery, I think that's really important in talking about hope for social workers. Because at uni, it's burnouts always like this big scary monster and you can't get over it and you'll be ruined and there's no point trying to come back from it. And honestly, I feel like you're the first person I've ever heard talk about coming out the other side of it.

And, you know, as somebody who's pretty exhausted at the moment because of work, it's actually like giving me a lot of hope to hear you be like, no, you can. you know, you can come out the other side of it and there you can work out strategies and learn more about yourself and reflect on your practice and stuff like that. So yes, thank you. I'm clearly covering it well. But I think, like similar to Haley, I think my expectation of like what burnout would be would be this like end of it like that's, you know, I've fallen out of love with my career. I've, I'm done. I need to leave the sector. And I think that wasn't at all what I experienced. Like I think one of the biggest struggles for me with my burnout was really

dealing with the guilt of not feeling like I'm doing well enough for my clients and really struggling with that because it really was against my my values, my ethics, to not feel like I was doing my absolute best to support my clients, which was a really hard place to come by, a really hard place to sit in. But I think the really lovely thing in that was that I had fallen out of love with my profession. Like it was clear that I still really valued this. and really wanted to stay in it, I just needed to find a different environment to do it in. And so I think that's where, you know, being able to have those conversations and having that space to debrief, to reset, to have someone outside the bounds of the organization be like,

yeah, but let's really just focus on you. Because often in my tendency, which again, found through supervision, is that I tend to not focus on myself if other people are struggling. And so having that space where someone was like, actually, no, we just got to focus on you and how you're doing and we need to look after you gave me permission to be like, actually, I need to do something different. I need to get comfortable with letting go and moving on to look after myself to be able to get back to the social worker that I want to be and be able to practice and exist in line with my value and my passion. So yes, there is another side to it. It's an ongoing space. I had a group supervision session this week and almost burst into tears.

So it's an ongoing thing. But yeah, it is possible to come out the other side of it. I think it's really easy to confuse that feeling of exhaustion with burnout. And it's not that you're not enjoying your work or feeling valued or having that contribution and doing the work that you want to be doing. It's just sometimes the work is hard. And that's the reality. And they say that the number one predictor of vicarious trials.

is just exposure to the content, exposure to traumatic content. So as a profession, we are about much more susceptible. And it doesn't mean that we're not meant to be doing the work that we're doing. If anything, it means that we care about what we're doing and we want to do a really good job. So, yeah, having that support is really important. I'm glad you found that. Shall we move on to Haley? I have to say I'm so glad that you're doing the alphabet and not me because for a while,

I definitely thought I was in front of Emily, even though my name starts with H. Like, I couldn't comprehend. I guess, like, for being, I'm going to hate myself from saying it, is I would tell my new grad social work self that we don't do this work alone. And I don't think as a new grader, I would really comprehend that to the fullest extent. And I've had people say it to me throughout my career. And I've been like, well, you're not the person in the room. like, you know, I'm the person being wheeled out. It's not the same. But I think, you know,

that means a lot of different things. You know, it means that we're in partnership with the people that we're meeting with, whether that be clients, families, you know, other people within the multidisciplinary team. We're also in partnership, you know, with our external supervisors, our direct team. Yes, you might be the person that's individually meeting somebody, but you're not doing it alone. You're doing it with like a whole system supporting you if it's working really well. And I think sometimes I come and go from that because sometimes it can really feel like you are doing the work by yourself, which is why my younger self would definitely hate me for saying it. Yeah. But yeah, like just really building a really good, strong team around you, whether that's

your professional circle, whether that's, you know, in your personal life, you have a team, you're not by yourself. And even though when it feels really hard and you're really struggling that you're not standing there by yourself. I love that. All right, Kate. I've been thinking on this one, and I did write something down, and it was in terms of, like, kind of touches on what everyone has spoken about in terms of burnout and also not working by yourself and sharing the risk and whatnot.

But I think for me, especially, it would be setting boundaries and not being afraid to say no and not being afraid to say that you don't know something. and it's not a reflection of you or your skills or anything. It's sometimes we just don't know and it's okay to tell your colleagues that or even your client and like you can say, hey, let's look at it together. And I think one thing, which is again spoken about that I don't think to a very big extent, it's imposter syndrome. Like you're going to have it.

Like that's where that self-doubt comes in and like what Madison was saying before and Emily was saying before. It's like, oh my gosh, why am I being allowed to talk with people and do this role? I do not have the skills. Well, firstly, you do have the skills. You do have the knowledge. You just might need to, you know, work with your colleagues and build that confidence up because that's really what is potentially going on there. and it's a process and it might be a slow one, but it ties in again with, I guess,

setting those boundaries, because if we don't have confidence and we don't have resilience skills or a self-care plan and we continue to push through on our own, then we're going to burn out. We'll get compassion fatigue and we're not going to be able to perform at our best for our clients. So they're kind of all, I think, interlinked as well.

But yeah, I think supervision is one big thing that is really, really important and that critical self-reflection. Yeah. And can I ask those of you who have external supervision, is that something that you have to do outside of regular work time or they'll give you that time as work time? So in my organisation, we can do it in work time, but it's at our own expense. Is that the case with you, Emily? I have taken my external supervision during work hours. I haven't explicitly asked if that's okay. I've just sort of scheduled it and no one's told me it's not. And like Haley, it's at my own expense as well.

I just wanted to ask if it was a tax deduction. Yes, it is. It should be. And so is your AASW membership and your union fees. And I just went to the tax person and I can tell you. Any books that you get for education? Yeah. And any seminars. Brilliant. We love to hear it. I went to a conference in Melbourne. I am claiming that.

Yes. I am really curious like when the imposter syndrome kind of finishes. I mean, I feel like I still feel that all of the time. And we were actually having a joke about it in my team because we've got new people starting soon. And I have always been the youngest person employed within my team. And I feel like a kid just like running around, like mad, and, you know, just the excitement for new people coming and, you know, similar kind of career points as well and just how that's going to be like. Not to be Debbie Downer, but almost 20 years into my career never. But that's usually when something will come up that throws you for a loop.

So it's not that you're not confident doing your role or that you don't know the legislation and how it trickles down and how you apply guidelines. It's more, if there's something that's new, instead of doubting yourself, maybe seeing that as something exciting and something new that you can learn or just turn to your colleague next to you if hopefully you have that opportunity

and just say, can you remind me? Like, I think you've had a similar scenario, what did you do? So using that as a learning point rather than I think what you're suggesting is, you know, there can be a tendency to automatically, like, have this reflexive impulse of, oh, I don't know that, therefore there's something wrong. It's just, no, rephrasing it and going, that's new,

that's interesting. How am I going to thought my way around that? You mean use our actual counselling skills on ourselves? Maybe she's born with it. That's horrible. Maybe it's a narrative therapy, reframing. It's like it sounds like a bit of external supervision right there. You You know. Yeah. We don't have time to wait for that. You've got to lean on your team. All right, Maddie.

I suppose the advice I would give myself was, first of all, like, girl, you're going to be humbled hard. So just be prepared for that. Just because you have a shiny new degree, you don't know everything. But on the other hand, so manage the imposter syndrome because you don't know anything and that's going to stick with you. A very confusing space. but I also would probably tell myself, like, learn how to have honest, difficult conversations

very quickly and very well, because nine times out of ten, if you can nail the honest, difficult, challenging conversation, if you can challenge people whilst being dignity driven and transparent with them and not over-promising anything because you're feeling uncomfortable, then it goes well. I've actually, in the last 12 months, since I've kind of switched to being honest with people and not beating around the bush because you were talking about some really sensitive topics, being honest about like things that people need to change if they want things to improve, I can't think of a time when it's backfired.

And I think that that's something that I wasn't prepared for that became like very, very important, at least in like statutory child protection was like critical. I guess it meant the difference between like somebody really resisting and somebody collaborating. I think people appreciate that integrity of acknowledging when you don't have all the answers because yes, we come out of the degree, we've got the shiny new accolades, but we're almost led to believe coming out of uni that we will have all the answers and that we must know everything. So I think a client will appreciate you just saying, I'm not sure, because that is that honesty, that's the truth. That is that I will go and find it.

I will find the answer for you and I'll come back and we'll get through this to kill up. And I guess that forms part of your trauma informed care as well. Especially in my role, it was more challenging people when there were concerns. I mean, we would start to treat people. Issues would arise. we would be like for the safety of the kids like this certain thing needs to change and you know you're seeing people who are at like the lowest points of their lives most of the time and like in crisis and have a number of different things going on they can make them feel overwhelmed and not being

able to think clearly because they've got housing issues they might have drug and alcohol issues as well they might be fleeing domestic violence they might be also like living in poverty and then you know, you're turning up and being like, hey, on top of all of that, I need you to stop doing this or I need you to change this about yourself. And so I think, you know, holding onto hope for clients and then like helping them hold on to hope. There have been times when I've been like, oh man, like I'm a bit tired. Like I don't know if I can hold them to hope much longer up because I just kind of feel like, you know, sometimes I felt like the odds were against some clients. But I guess working through it with them and then, you know, even small wins, like I haven't

smoked weed in a week. And then you're like, awesome. That's a week longer than somebody who haven't. Yeah. I like that bit about hope. I feel like I read something way back in the day on placement. I think it was probably like Carmel Plascus or something because I wanted to be a family therapist and that was my deal. And it was like hope is like a constellation of stars. Sometimes you're a star and sometimes you need the light to be reflected onto you or something like that and it was like I always feel like for my clients sometimes when they come in after a crisis it's like well I can hold on to the hope because I know that and I can reflect that to you because I know that in X amount of time you won't need me to do that. I feel like it's just something nice that we can be

able to hold for our clients when they can't hold it themselves. Yeah. Also what I'm hearing is social work the scope is so broad so the impact reaches wide and and the skills are so useful in so many places. Everyone has done something so incredibly different, but we're coming back to the same sorts of skills and abilities. And same like reflections that we're not in it alone, and we talk to other people and the skills of everyone around us. Well, this has been a great group supervision, guys.

I think that knowing when to move on piece is really important as well, though, because yes, you've all had a similar amount of experience, but, you know, some of you have been in the same role. Some of you have moved around. And I think just really using that professional development opportunity through supervision has been a really rich resource for you, but also building your network, building your tribe, your team. We're a social profession after all, right?

It's in the title. So you need to be drawing on those other people that are around you and coming back to your values and focusing on the dignity of the person, and as you were saying, and yeah, just reminding yourself of why you're doing what you're doing. On the topic of working in, I guess, in a role that aligns with your values and stuff like that, somebody, I was kind of whinging about work to someone a couple months ago and they were like, they sort of said something along the lines of like, you've got to believe what you're selling. It was kind of like a big light bulb moment because I was like, oh, I'm not really believing in what I'm selling here.

Like I can't sell it genuinely. I can't, I guess I can't put my heart into it. if I don't actually believe in it. And that was like a big moment for me in terms of like, all right, I got to get out because I'd sort of been teetering, I guess. I think sometimes with new grads it can be easy to feel like they need to prove themselves. So like, I'm going to jump into like the most hardcore crisis work. I'm going to work in an ER on my first job. I'm going to pull like all these overnight shifts and stuff like that because I'm going to prove myself and that just kind of ruins you and don't do it.

God, poor Haley, I see you during COVID, right? I see you, uncle, sexual assault, all of the... I definitely did that, and I would not recommend. But at the same time, I am equally very thankful that I did that, you know, and I had that mentality in placement, like, I'm going to do the hardest shit. So when I get out there, nothing's going to shock me. And that wasn't the case, but I think, you know, very similar to Emily, you know, when you do experience burnout, when you do, you don't feel that fatigue,

like also giving yourself time to recover and what that looks like, but also that it's not a linear process. So you absolutely can do the really stressful stuff and the awesome trauma work and meet people where they are, but you can also do that in a way that you can care for yourself as well and advocate for your own needs, just as much as you teach your clients to do that. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Like as exhausting as it's been, I'm like, I'm glad I did it. Because, yeah, you're right.

It is going to be a breath of fresh air when I walk into the new job on Monday morning. And, you know, it's not like, I'm not going to say super hectic. But like, it's not like massively crisis driven. And it really does like, I guess, accelerate your professional development. Because you can kind of back to something. Be like, well, if I can stick this out, then I can stick out anything. I will say it's weird stepping out at the crisis work. It feels uncomfortable sometimes.

You're like, oh, God, what's going on? You mean I don't have to be in 10 places at once? Yeah, where's the panic? My blood pressure is strangely low. I had lunch today, not at my desk. Great. That's true. I think, make sure you take breaks.

That's important. I mentioned something before about, like, building a tribe. And I think one of the things that I, like I did in the past year, which was something I'm probably really proud of in amongst, like, just the client-based stuff, is that I was working with two other social workers, and we decided to host a World Social Work Day breakfast in our community. We just, we were sort of like, we're in this organisation.

We know there are other social workers in the area. Like, we really want to build connection. Like, we really want to build this support network. As we realized, Haley and I know each other, so, like, we have this lovely group of friends from uni that we may only see each other once, three six months, if that. But we have this brains trust.

We can sort of call on if we have any questions. And I think when we put together this world social work day breakfast, we very much wanted to build that community, that brains trust in the area so that we had opportunities for connection, opportunities for resourcing, but also just opportunities to talk and share and grow over shared experiences. And I think that's one of the things that, like, I really enjoy around the social profession, like often, like I said, it does feel quite isolating, particularly if you're in a space

where it's a multidisciplinary team and you might be on the social worker. But when you meet another social worker, you sort of form this very quick connection and being able to hold on to that and grow it is this really lovely space because you know how they work. You know what their core values are of their profession and it just makes things really just nice and easy and a great place to sort of keep connecting and keep building on. I don't know if other professions have that same magnetism. I've been the only frontline social worker in my entire program for years, and we've just had two new people come on board that have social work backgrounds. And as soon as I, like the email comes around saying so-and-so has just been offered this role and they have a social work background.

I'm onto it. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm grouping them already. And to everyone else around me, That seems really strange, but for me, it's just like, no, no, no. Like, we've got to stick together. Yeah, so I don't know if it's not, maybe it's not as common in other areas, but it's definitely something we do. I've definitely already looked you all up on Lincoln while we've been talking. So, yes. It's like two puppies meeting each other when social workers meet each other

because they get really excited. Except we don't sniff each other's thoughts. Yeah. Thankfully. Oh, my God, another one. referring back to something that Madison said ages ago about having honest conversations with your clients and whatnot. And I think that's really important. And one thing that I think that a lot of people take for granted is transparency and just being upfront about or just having an introduction

when you meet clients about privacy, confidentiality, record keeping, who has access to the information and just being clear and honest about your role and how the process works and breaking it down very basically to people who are new to the service or even people who have been in a service for a long time because some people have never had that explained to them. It really surprises me when that happens. So it's really, really crucial part of building that trust and that rapport and making sure that they understand the service and the pathways to complete. or giving feedback or giving compliments and just generally what we do.

Because otherwise, a lot of people I notice, their needs get missed out. They're not getting housing applications done because they don't know that we can support them with that or they don't know that we can link them in with carer support and different things like that. So it's really important that they know the function of our role to make sure that they're linked in with the appropriate care. It's actually just so lovely to speak to everyone here. In my day-to-day work, it's so rare that I get to be in a room full of social workers. And I forget how grounding it is to be reminded of why we do the work that we do.

And it is hearing you guys talk about, you know, how sometimes hard it is and the burnout. And I think that really, like, struck me. And I think for someone who doesn't do direct practice, it's just a great reminder of there is a level of sacrifice to help people. And it's really encouraging to hear that you've all persevered in that and sought ways to continue on to do the work that you do. And yeah, I just want to say thank you for doing that. And it's just so lovely to be able to be in this room and so privileged to hear everyone speaking. about the work that they do. It's so lovely having, as you said, so many people in the room at one time, but also just refreshing to feel the excitement. And I see this with students as well,

as you're just so excited about everything. Everything is new. Everything is interesting. And you've got so much more that you want to contribute over the years. So yeah, I love hearing from people who are newer in their careers because sometimes especially, I don't know about other people who are further on in their career, but sometimes you do get a little bit stuck or you feel as though you lose that spark. So it's lovely hearing from people who are new in that journey and have so much more energy and more drive and passion for what they're doing. Is there anything else before we finish up that you guys wanted to chat about your experience or advice or anything really. I was just going to say Anna, it was so cool hearing about the different projects that you're

able to work on in that space. I mean, as somebody that quite often uses resources from the ES Safety Commissioner and just like hearing around, you know, how those projects probably have come together is so cool as somebody that, you know, probably picks it up at the end of the day when it's like already neatly packaged and then like takes it into a client session. I was like, that's so awesome. Yeah. It's really nice. to be reminded of the versatility of social work. It's also really nice to hear about a social worker who actually loves data, because most of us are maths would leave us out of it. So it's really nice to hear that there are people among us who actually really enjoy that side of things.

Well, I feel like that wasn't innate, right, Anna? Like you kind of had to learn how to make sense of the data, more evidence-informed, and you can kind of see the back of why am I collecting all of this? Yeah, definitely wasn't a skill set that I was like equipped to do from social work. But I think like it's definitely made me think about postgraduate studies and other areas that could equip me to understand data more and to help visualise data and use data to make evidence-informed decisions. But yeah, definitely not a skill set that I had, but I really do understand the value of it now and how important it is for us, especially in the human services to be able to make decisions off evidence-informed decisions and data.

And so, yeah. But I think, like, having worked in both government departments, NGOs, and I think I probably speak for the others, we often, you know, come across the issues of policies and systems being set up, and they're very binary, and it's very, like, we need quantitative data only in trying to fit a client into sort of the data requirements. It's really lovely to hear that there is someone, you know, in that space who has the social work background,

the knowledge, the values, to sort of go, yep, how can we make this work in a way that's really quite human-centered rather than just like, let's tick a box and write a number. Totally. I suppose to as like, I think I've been in the field like the least amount of time compared to everyone else. And I guess as somebody who's like that new and is kind of being like, all right, well, and I just going to do casework forever. It's just nice to hear about, yeah, the fact that you're doing such amazing things on like

the policy level because I'm getting the vibe. I just think social workers get bored really easily. One of my old supervisors told me that all social workers are undiagnosed ADHD. So, so like I feel like it's nice to know that like, all right, well, when I get tired of this, then I'll do this. I'll do something completely different and I can do it because the skills are transferable. So yeah, it's like just really exciting to hear about some of the stuff you're doing. Totally.

And I think if you have like direct practice experience, it makes such a world of a difference coming into policy or evaluation or program design. Like using that experience is so powerful because when you're talking to a victim survivor, building that trust is so much more. It just comes so much more naturally to them as well. So yeah. I was actually going to ask, like, does the consultant get to consult with other people? Like, are there people that are doing the practice that you? you can then reach out to and say, does this make sense on the ground? Totally. Yeah.

So, for example, when we're working with the E-Safety Commission to design a support service for victim survivors of family, domestic, and sexual violence, that project involves talking and holding consultations with victim survivors of domestic family and sexual violence. And, yeah, it's so great to know that the program that is being designed will be informed by the people who have lived experience and who have such rich insight to pull into the program design. So, yeah, I am really fortunate to be able to speak to victim survivors

and to be able to work in a place that really values that experience. And especially co-design in a program that really needs voices of people who have these experiences. So, yeah. Yeah. That's such a nice shift. I don't know that I particularly witnessed throughout the five years or whatever years have been practicing that real shift to the lived experience model and the sharing of victim

survivor stories, whether that be, you know, in the space of sexual violence, domestic violence, but also in the mental health, the drug and alcohol space, like really giving voice to individuals that have like a lived experience rather than just relying directly. on a professional viewpoint, not that we may not have our own experiences and whatever, but really drawing and highlighting on that. And I think that's something that's kind of grown, at least I've seen it grow, particularly throughout my time in social work. Yeah, that's true, Haley. I think in mental health, like we have a lot of peer workers with lived experience. And I think, unfortunately, in the system that we're in at the moment,

there was, and sometimes still is a bit of pushback and people don't always in it, multidisciplinary team meetings, the peer workers sometimes are not heard. And I think as social workers, we do understand that lived experience is important. And it's also such a good tool to have a peer worker to actually build rapport with our clients that sometimes, I mean, we're not going to relate or get along with every single person. and that we work with. So peer workers are such a tool and I think it's part of social workers' job to make sure their voices are actually included in MDTs and making sure that they're present in MDTs and that we champion them as well. I think that's part of social work's role.

Ladies, I'm just so grateful for the opportunity to speak with you all again, for your generosity of time and thrilled to hear what you've been up to and where you're heading next. And yeah, I hope we can all keep in touch. I feel like we do need to form some sort of little group supervision something and just touch base, expand our tribe a little bit. But, yeah, again, I'm just so grateful for you all. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Such a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for having us. Thank you. It's been great. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion, 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 Spotlight Podcast 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 Yana, an accredited mental health social worker, with over a decade of experience working as a practitioner and clinician within community-based and multidisciplinary services, working with individuals and families, providing one-on-on-a-old,

on one counselling and case management support, as well as offering mentoring and supervision to emerging and graduate social workers. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notify when this next episode is available. See you next time.