Social Work Spotlight - Episode 101: Jana

Episode Date: January 19, 2024

In this episode I speak with Jana, 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 1:1 counselling and case management support, as well as offering mentoring and supervision to emerging and graduate social workers.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Jana’s practice website - https://www.wusahcounselling.com/Hints for Healing (STARTTS) - https://www.hintsforhealing.startts.org.au/The Department film - https://thedepartmentfilm.com.au/Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score - https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-scoreThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ahmdpZstPvDURxLd6TP8bD062XPR3arKU8cphU146k/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 today's guest is Jana, 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-one counseling and case management support, as well as offering mentoring and supervision to emerging and graduate social workers. Embedded in the core values of social work, Yana's practice is driven by an unwavering commitment to the well-being of individuals and the broader community. Yana works holistically by recognizing individuals as complex and multifaceted beings, existing within systems and contexts and influenced by various interconnected factors. Yana is fluent in Greek, having spent her primary years in Cyprus. She enjoys spending time outdoors and keeping active, reading books, and, and keeping active, reading books, engaging in art and craft, traveling and immersing herself in cultural experiences, as well as training in Muay Thai. Thank you, Jana, for coming onto a podcast today.

Really happy to have a chat with you about your experience so far. Thanks for having me and thanks for the invitation. Of course. I'm interested firstly in knowing when you started as a social worker and what brought you to the profession. Well, well, I think the confusion for me at least is, At what point did I officially start my journey as a social worker? Was it after I officially graduated as a social worker?

Or had I been a social worker for much longer and I just didn't know it? So I think if I sort of look at it logistically, I only finished my master's in 2019, after which time I officially registered and I started my, took on the social work title and I started my clinical journey, if you will. But I think prior to that, I had been working in the field and frontline roles and very much practising as a social worker. But I just hadn't, I wasn't familiar with the profession of social work per se and what that actually was until a bit later on in my journey.

Because you studied the Masters of Social Work. What came before that? So before that was my first Masters of Social Health and Counseling. I was quite determined to get into counselling. So I was just trying to figure out pathways essentially to get me there. So my undergraduate was a Bachelor of Arts Psychology and then the Masters of Social Health and counselling. And then went into practice for about a decade before I was introduced to the world of social work. And it was through a conversation with a former colleague who is a social worker and was explaining to me what that is. At the time, we're both. quite heavily involved with our union at work and I was a delegate. So I was doing very much,

you know, advocacy stuff. And I was, you know, having a conversation with her about getting more involved into private practice. And that's when she was like, well, why don't you think about doing social work? And that's where we had that conversation. And she explained, you know, what social work was about. I'm curious as to how that didn't come up earlier. If you'd already been working in the practice, I would have thought you'd at least be aware of. of the title or the role? Honestly, like, it's almost like I don't know where the gap for me was. I hadn't known any social workers.

People weren't identifying themselves as social workers professionally. And I think, I want to say my generation, or at least around the time when I was graduating and getting into uni, the popular sort of, I guess, profession was more through sort of psychology, going that, you know, sort of pursuing psychology degrees and those avenues. So it wasn't an idea or a concept or a profession that was spoken of or referenced by people around me or even as a type of career that you would pursue. So I don't know whether, you know, it's just something that's become more popular in our now later years.

But I was completely oblivious to the profession. Yeah. I know a lot of people who go into psychology will. do the undergrad in psychology and then the masters in psychology. Like that's their clinical psychology route. Whereas I wonder if there was something subliminal happening that led you more towards the social health and counselling side. Potentially, I mean, I definitely didn't have the GPA to get me into, you know,

masters of psychology. So I definitely didn't have the grades to pursue that avenue. And at that point, I was introduced to the social health and counseling program as an alternative, and I think it was almost like a trial program, which introduced us to quite amazing practitioners who were running the workshops for us. And so that's sort of how I deviated and explored other options. I have actually spoken with a couple of social workers who are now academics, they're teaching at uni, and they're not necessarily teaching in social work. So they're teaching in the social health or even the medical side of things. And I feel like that's exactly what we need,

but that might have been exactly what you needed at that time. So maybe it's more for the sort of generations to come, but just broadening that scope of, yeah, I didn't realize social work was a thing. And now I realized, but I'm going to kind of point myself in this direction now that I do know. But tell me about the work that you were doing previous to that. Previous to that, yeah.

So my official first job in the field was in shop protection as a caseworker for the department. And even before then, even before I took on a full-time job, I was facilitating family visits for kids and out-of-home care families that were involved in the system. And so I worked essentially within child protection, both in government roles and not, you know, NGOs or community-based organizations, either directly with children in care and families

who were involved with the system or otherwise, doing foster care recruitment, so assessing and recruiting foster careers. And I kind of remained involved with that for the most part of my initial journey, but I was really set on moving towards a more clinical role. And just prior to migrating over, I was kind of looking for a bit of a, not so much a cruiser role, but more of a stable role, I guess. That didn't involve so much running around type of legwork. And so I ended up working at the Child Protectorate.

and helpful over a few years, which kind of exposed me to a lot more, I guess, knowledge and information and, again, systematic structures and processes. And so then after I had sort of done my time there, and I felt that I had sort of reached my, capped my experience and knowledge there, I then decided to transition into a clinical goal with health. And I was there for about just a bit over a year before migrating to my current role. So I felt like I was kind of just floating and potentially still am, just in terms of trying to find the right fit of a job for me. Yeah.

What were your placements coming out of the Masters? So I was fortunate enough to have been exempt from one placement because of my prior masters, but my second placement was with starts. So I'm going to get the acronym wrong. but it was essentially the counselling service for refugees and asylum seekers. And it was such a quite unique and very insightful type of experience. Again, quite an amazing group of practitioners, an amazing cohort of clients who, you know, access the service.

You learn a lot working with people who've experienced trauma. Yeah. So it was a blessing and a privilege to be able to experience that place, they've got different locations so I think and again I kind of went between the two depending on the client need but they've got such a diverse service they offer quite a diverse service and programs within the service which is you know what makes them quite a in-depth service in terms of clients being able to access different types of needs in different ways yeah they've got so many different programs. Like they've got the schools program and the policy and the advocacy stuff that

they do, the family work. Yeah, when I worked in the community, when I was doing refugee and asylum seeker work, there was a lot of crossover because they were funded under the same program that I was. And just I remember thinking, these people are so well-resourced. I'm here by myself in this little organization that no one knows about. And they've just got such a great reputation. So I feel like that would have been such an incredible place to learn. So you were looking for some more clinical work, something that was less assessment based, more sort of working directly with families and a little bit more. Was it more like a long term, like the different role that you stepped into after that? I think it was more because I enjoyed talk therapy and having studied

narrative therapy in particular, you know, I love the storytelling aspect of that type of therapy. And so I really just wanted to be able to sit in a room with people and just being able to sort of unpack things and understand things and I'm quite a reflective person. So for me, it's about getting to know yourself more and unpacking the parts of yourself that perhaps you're not as conscious or aware of or that kind of explorative kind of pulling yourself apart so you can put yourself back together essentially. And so for me, I felt like I had gained enough skills and knowledge in my former roles within child protection that I just kind of went, you know, I'm ready to close that chapter and I'm ready to sort of step into more clinical stuff. So being able to work with people

and go on a bit of a journey around, you know, looking at what's holding me back from developing, progressing, changing those kinds of things. So it was, for me, it was about, I was more interested in individual work more so than group work. And so I didn't quite know which area of practice I wanted to get into. I definitely knew my strength was working with young people and adolescents, I think because that's where I sort of started off. And so I enjoyed conversations with teens more so than I did with, say, adults, it's a different type of the nature of the conversation and the discussions very different.

But again, each one has its own challenges. And so I essentially just kind of applied for different types of roles, not quite knowing where I would land again. Although I was familiar with a lot of the services that were advertising vacancies, I found the transition tricky in terms of qualifying because I didn't have the clinical experience working therapeutically with kids per se to sort of satisfy the criteria for a lot of them. So the process in being able to secure an actual clinical role took a little longer than

you know, what I had hoped. But I think sort of my first step into a clinical role, I was quite excited to be able to call myself, you know, a practitioner, a clinician, and, you know, identify myself as a counsellor. And so it was almost, it felt very natural for me to kind of step into that role. But I think it was also trying to navigate the systems that I was working with.

You kind of almost forget that you're still working for a system within a system. and that other challenges and various will sort of kind of present along the way that will keep you from doing the work as holistically as you'd like. And yeah, so I guess for me it's about getting a good feel for it to know whether it's the right thing for me, if I'm on the right path, and being able to make the most of this experience and being able to offer myself as a practitioner for however long this might continue for in whatever sort of capacity I can, and then re-evaluating and re-assessing before deciding what to do next. Yeah. It is quite a system. You've got a lot of people from very different backgrounds who might

not necessarily see things the way you do. Is that really challenging for you? I find that challenge in every system that I've worked in, because you know, you're always going to have competing perspectives and changes. So it's always about being able to have a conversation with those other parties that you've working with to find common ground and to kind of sort of being able to share, come to an understanding about why we have different priorities and why things need to be done a certain way. You become very strategic in the way that you practice because, you know, ultimately you still want to be able to achieve certain outcomes of clients, but perhaps you're not going to do it in the straightforward way that you're, you know,

intending to or hoping for. You just have to sort of find a roundabout way of being able to do that. And given that narrative approaches and some of these other counselling techniques require a larger amount of time to work with someone, do you find that there's a restriction and how long you can spend? It can feel limiting in that sense. You know, you might have all these sort of hopes and goals for working, but you're just, you know, there's so many external factors that you're beyond your control, that you're just sort of trying to get through the day all the week and just make sure people are sort of keeping afloat and surviving essentially sometimes. Do you get a chance to work with families? And are you the only social worker within that space?

Are there other psychologists? Who do you work with? Yes, it's a good mixture. I think there are a lot more, I want to say social workers than psychologists. And I don't necessarily know whether people cling on to that identity as much or a kind of where that label is openly as much. So it's not something that we necessarily kind of go around going, you know, identifying ourselves in those terms. But you definitely see it in the way that people might practice or in the way that people might approach certain things at work. What's your favourite thing? What do you love most about the work you're doing at the moment? I think kind of just having fun in the work so that it's not always, you know, so serious and, you know, feeling like you're still doing purposeful work.

And I know you've just recently gotten your accreditation, your accredited mental health social worker. That was a process and that was really challenging for you. But what got you started? What made you think that was something you wanted to pursue? Yeah, I won't lie, it was a nightmare of a process. So effectively, I wanted to get into private practice because for different reasons, it would allow me the freedom in my practice that I was really craving for, you know, freedom and flexibility to work in the way that felt right for me and that worked for me. I also wanted to be able to provide a counselling service that was affordable to the public because I feel like we just don't have enough and the ones that we do have, they're sort of backlogged.

So people are struggling with being able to access counseling on a regular basis and that's affordable. So for me, it made sense to be able to, I guess, pursue that avenue. I do like the combination of working both being a part of a system, but also being able to do a bit of my own kind of freelance work, so to speak. Yeah. But essentially because I wanted to get into private practice and do my own counseling stuff, I launched my own business last year. and so to be able to provide an offer subsidised counselling to the public, I thought I'm going to give it a go. I'm going to apply for my accreditation just so I can get my Medicare provider number.

I probably didn't, I guess, appreciate or realize how complex the process be. I knew it was going to take me time. So I was prepared to put in the work and take my time with it. But I think the experience of going through it, had I not had the people around me to support me through it, I probably would have been a lot worse off, but I had a good network of people to kind of guide me and mentor me and support me through it, which helped. Yeah. Is that support specific to counselling or private practice, or is it more just the people trying to encourage you to stick with it?

It was probably more people within the profession. I think people around me, so sort of my family and friends, didn't quite understand what it was, what the accreditation was or what the process involved. They just saw me becoming manic over how crazy stressful it was. And probably saying, well, you're doing this. This is ruining you. Don't bother. Absolutely.

Yeah, they were completely oblivious to what it meant. So the core supports were people that were either social work. or who had who had gone through the process themselves and could sort of mentor me and provide guidance and review my work. And I had my external supervisor as well who was able to sort of kind of encourage and build my confidence around taking on that process. So it was kind of, yeah, the mixture of professional people who were able to sort of contribute their own little bit in helping me get through it. What sort of support do you think you'll need ongoing I've spoken with enough people that will tell me you can very easily get isolated.

And sometimes it's really just about keeping that core group of people around you to keep you grounded. So for me, it's other than trying to stay connected with all these sort of online social media groups where you try to sort of share ideas, ask questions and get some knowledge and things like that, other than beyond that, for me, it would be around how do I keep myself in reflective, practice. So how do I make sure that I'm keeping myself accountable? It's going back to the knowing what you're doing and why you're doing it and being able to name it. So just having a bit more purpose and structure and intention in the work. For me, you know, sometimes it's hard because you might, as much as I'd like regular supervision, you know, it can be financially difficult,

but also time wise trying to book in those sessions. So sometimes a lot of stuff comes up between sessions and you just, you know, you don't know who to go to and so you'll just sort of usually speak to your colleagues about things. But often than not, you know, you're trying to figure things out on your own as you go. So I think, you know, there's definitely a need for more accessible sort of support groups and programs. Like for example, like the ASW mentoring program, this was my third year into it. And I found that very helpful in being able to support someone else who's starting the journey, but also keeping myself kind of accountable to my practice. Because it's being able to share what I know, but making me think twice about what do I know,

you know, how do I actually apply myself in practice? So I think that that's a good example of how people can sort of be able to tap into a group or a program that's going to help sort of keep them in check with their practice. It's kind of like having a student. It sounds like in some ways of just being able to constantly remind yourself of this is the thing I do, but why do I do the thing that I do? And having gone through the accreditation process, I feel like you've got a lot more words for that. You've got a way of keeping accountable. You've got the ways of demonstrating what you're doing. It's probably just a matter of continuing that sort of journey and tying back into the stuff that you had to present in order to get the

accreditation in the first place. I think the initial, part of the accretation where you have to speak to your experience and match up all the standards. I think that was a good aha moment in kind of going, I actually do, you know, know this stuff and I actually have knowledge and examples and experiences around this stuff. But it was an opportunity to kind of sit with myself and reflect on what I actually know and being able to put it into actual words because that's probably what I struggle with the most in being able to explain what I know and naming it sometimes. Yeah.

How do you divide your time now? So you've got the private practice. Yeah. Will that change over time, do you think? Oh, for sure. I feel like how I'm operating now is probably not sustainable long term. So it's a good, for me, it's a good way in being able to set myself up, you know, towards building my private practice.

But it's not something that I would say sustainable long term to be able to do as much. For me, it's about finding ways of self-care and switching. off between the jobs and knowing my limits so that I'm not, I guess, over-exerting myself or over supplying myself. So just being able to do enough to get a job done and do a good job of it that I'm sort of proud of. So essentially, like, I've got my, I'll call it a 9-to-5 job, got my daytime job. Your uncle job.

Yeah. And then I have a bit of a break in between and then I just take on some clients in the evening. Okay. That is a lot. It, yeah. Full time, Monday to Friday. It is, it is. I've always been the type of person where I enjoy being productive and I enjoy keeping busy

and I probably can't sit still for long without doing much unless it's a holiday where I can switch off. But I feel more purposeful when I'm making the most of my time. But having to rethink what enough looks like, I guess, would be satisfied with what you're doing. I've got to say, like, I think that's something that I've learned to define and really be good at over time. It took me years to be able to have good boundaries and to be able to not lose those boundaries as I've come into like a new role. Because you can easily drop your guard or kind of merge into the existing culture, you know, of a system. and I've had to really push back on, you know, how much of myself I'm able to give.

Sure. Yeah, it's about sustainability at the end of the way, right? Yeah. But I think we're trying to promote early access and prevention of good mental health and well-being as young as possible. So, you know, it's about being able to normalise these concepts for people. And I say to clients, it's the same as you go into the GP. to get a physical check done. That's what a counsellor does.

You're going to go to your counsellor to talk about your mental health and it's normal and it's okay and we all have our ups and down. So it's about being able to normalise those conversations and those experiences. So I think people are starting to be a lot more, I guess, accepting and less afraid of the stigma and sort of being able to reframe it in a positive way and then promoting that and encouraging that in adults as well. because a lot of the times, you know, counselling in general is seen as I've got a problematic child

and I'm going to send to a counsellor to have them fixed to deal with the problem. And it's about being able to shift that narrative and that understanding in those labels to a more positive kind of, I guess, idea of what counselling is and can be. Have you noticed any other changes, whether it be around the culture or anything else in this area that's been changing over time?

What I would like to see more of is supporting the systems and the staff to perhaps understand behaviour in children in a different, in a new way, from a, you know, a trauma-informed perspective more so than the child being the problem and the problem being intrinsic. I think, again, depending on, we're still seeing sort of some barriers and some stigma around access and counseling in culturally diverse populations. And so it's about how that's explained and understood, you know, for those families, how that's framed for them because mental health is such a, the concept of mental health is, again, defined in different ways across different cultures.

So I think we just need to keep working at being able to help define that in a more positive way. We're never going to have like one universal definition of it. But at least in being able to talk about being able to be okay and what that looks like in different families and different cultures. I wonder if that even might look like having counsellors from diverse backgrounds. Oh, for sure. So there's more representation. Yeah, definitely.

I think there's still work to be done in terms of how we're culturally appropriate for our different clients of culturally diverse. backgrounds. Yeah. Culture is a funny thing in terms of, I always found in every organisational system that I worked in, how people understand culture, it can vary. And often than not, it's how we experience culture within our families and growing up. That's what helps us sort of to understand what culture is.

So there's, if the culture within a system or within a cohort of people, professionals is non-existent or there's quite a mis-existent, or there's quite a mis-misperatured, match that's going to then spill into or influence how they practice and how they see things and how they do things. So I think there's definitely, you know, there's potential for us to do a lot more work there. And like you said, being able to employ culturally diverse practitioners would definitely be a good step towards, you know, strengthening that or kind of bringing that diversity into the practice. I don't know how long the accredited mental health social worker process has been around.

For me, it feels like it's a very new concept. Maybe it's just because I've been doing the podcast for what, three and a half years by this point and it's only something that I really knew about because of doing this. That sounds like something that's developing, though, is that greater awareness of the skills and the contribution that social work can make in this area. Do you know much about how that's being progressing? Well, it's funny because when you talk to people about the accreditation, a lot of people who are social workers aren't even registered with the ASW.

So I think, again, we still have a lot of work in terms of solidifying and strengthening the profession and the actual membership body to get it a lot more cohesive and unified and, you know, mainstreamed. So it honestly does back home me sometimes in terms of I don't know where they're heading with it and what kind of transformations they'll introduce down the road. I know, for example, when my supervisor was helping me through the process, when he went through it however many years ago, it looked very, very different. It was a lot more easier and much more simpler than what it is today. So it has shifted and changed a lot of things that I went through. Did it make sense

to me, but it is what it is, or you can't sort of really argue for much change when you're going through it. But I think I'm hoping that it'll become a lot easier in the sense that it's a lot more straightforward, not as demanding in terms of time and money and energy and whatnot. It's all destroying. Yeah, it's all destroying, yes. But I understand that they do need to have a process to be able to assess and recognize people for their qualification skills, whatever it is that they're trying to do. Yeah, but maybe just make it easier for people to demonstrate what they know. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

I mean, like if this was the process of being accredited, I'd be more comfortable than going through it, you know? Yeah, just have a conversation with someone. Yeah. I did notice that Ashton Hayes, the wonderful Ashton, has just recently been elected as a director for the ASW board, which is wonderful. Ashton's being on the podcast, and she's got her own practice,

which is around supporting people to become accredited mental health social workers. And I'll put a link to her podcast as well. She's got a great podcast that interviews people who have gone through the process as well. But, yeah, I think in terms of that representation and just making it a little bit easier or having the people to support you around it, I think that will be incredibly helpful for people going forward as well.

so you're not doing this on your own. 100%. And I did tap into Ashton and I did access some of her wisdom. So I thank her for it. She's very passionate about making it up an easier or a fair process for people. So I appreciate her work. And I remember when I was sort of casting my votes, I did read everyone's profile in detail.

And as simple as her background seemed and her intentions, I just kind of appreciated that she understood what we're going through at a ground level. I think what I would like to see more of is, you know, a lot of the times I want to get more involved in policies and changes and all these kind of more systematic stuff, but to me it's overwhelming. I don't know where to start. I don't know how to go about it. So I think, you know, it would be great to be able to have avenues to be able to get more involved in bigger, systematic, wider sort of changes so that you're feeling like you're actually making a difference and that you are truly a social worker.

in every aspect of the term. So it would be great to be able to sort of encourage and find ways to get people more involved in some more of those processes. And I feel like there is some level of promotion of that within the ASW, but for people who aren't involved in some of those working parties or for people who aren't even registered,

I feel like there's a huge gap there of people that could potentially contribute to those conversations. For sure. And I think, you know, I always get the emails and I'm like, I get inundated by emails so much to the point where I'm just like I tune out. So sometimes it's about being able to filter what's relevant and what's not, and what applies to you, what you relate to.

Yeah. All of that. Let's say you've been doing this for a number of years and you feel like you want to change or a different kind of challenge. What do you reckon that would look like? Would you like to work overseas? I would love to. I think I was kind of evaluate where I'm in life and I guess how much energy I have for

something. I definitely don't like the idea of sitting at a desk or behind a desk. I feel like I have too much drive and energy and want to sort of affect change that, you know, I'm always kind of looking for an opportunity to do something different. So last night I watched the movie The Sound of Freedom. I know if you've heard of it. I've heard a lot about it from other people critiquing it. Yeah, yeah.

And for me, I'm like, I just wish I could just jump in and do. my part, you know, you always want to, because I'm very hands-on. I want to be able to jump in and practically, you know, do something to make a difference in this world. So I think I would like to be able to at some point in my life, get involved in do some policy work. But ultimately, I think being able to set off into the world and just get involved in, you know, where there's a need, I think is where my purpose ultimately is.

But I just have to do that before I'm too old to be able to move. I feel like you'll never retire, though. You're the kind of person who'll always be finding something to do. So maybe that's your retirement plan. Yeah, yeah. I definitely want to. Like I've got these great big ideas. So I don't know how, you know, eccentric I am sometimes.

But, you know, I would ultimately love to be able to, you know, develop my own resources and do more creative stuff. But yes, I would go into, you know, I'd happily lecture and do workshops. And I would happily facilitate, you know, supervision and help people grow and develop in their own identity. Yeah. Yeah, I'm sort of always hungry to do stuff and do something different because it keeps me on my toes and it challenges me and it pushes me outside of my comfort and what I already know. So I think where there is an opportunity, I will consider it. Yeah, I was speaking with another early career social worker Jasmine who did the drumbeat training.

And so she's been implementing the drum beat program with some of her high school kids and just a way of helping them to either cathartically get stuff. out of their system or to be able to talk in a rhythm or to just disconnect from whatever is happening for them. So fun stuff like that seems to be popping up all the time. Yeah. So it'll just be a matter of how that is going to look like in practice because of again time constrictions. For sure. Are there any resources that you would recommend people check out? So Starts have a podcast as well. Oh no way. Okay. It's called Hints for Healing. So I'll put a link to that. But, yeah, they interview various people within their staff on, you know, specific topics. But I find that really interesting, especially having a professional background in refugee work.

But you also reminded me of the department. Have you seen that documentary? I can't remember it because it's not so long ago that they made it, was it? Yeah, it's pretty recent. To be honest, I can't remember if I actually watched it at the time. But yeah, there's definitely a lot of different types of resources depending on what you're looking. for really. I'm more of a visual person, so I always look for visual resources. I enjoy reading books that would give me examples of things I can practice and try with clients. Again, it's about being

able to explain certain concepts to people in a way that makes sense to them and that they would be able to process cognitively a lot easier. So I'm always kind of looking out for things, you know, subscribing to a whole lot of things that will kind of give me different varieties of resources that I can at some point have into. My next goal at some point is to be able to organise all my resources because I feel like I just have way too much and it's all scattered. So I've got to organise all that. Are there any authors that you'd recommend people start with? Not particularly. I'm like the worst to reference things off the top of my head. Or even if it's anything to do with narrative or trauma-informed practice, some of those approaches

that you've suggested. Yeah. Again, I haven't read books in, like, actual practice books and ages. There was one. I did buy The Body Keeps School, but I haven't read it yet. And there was another one that a former supervisor had recommended to me, which has a lot of practice-based guide of how to work with teenagers. And, again, they're in a very creative kind of way.

I don't have a go-to type of library of things. I kind of just gather things, and then, you know, off the top of my head, I'll be like, oh, yeah, I'll recollect. call something that I saved the other day, whether it's a quote or a picture or whatever it might be. Yeah. And you don't know what's going to come up in session because it changes from hour to hour sometimes.

So sometimes it's really hard to kind of go to things as easily or as quickly. Oh, and I did hear on the news. Today they're banning phones in school, which I can see how that could be a good thing, but also for some kids who really rely on connection. and I feel like that would be challenging. Yeah, so that's my other sort of thing that I find a lot more challenging nowadays is that I'm finding that kids are a lot more socially disconnected and they're lacking the social skills to be able to build relationships

and have interactions because everyone's sort of connecting online. Yeah. And the online platforms are providing sort of opportunities to be unkind to each other. Some put material out there that shouldn't be, you know, exposing kids to material or that they shouldn't be seeing or hearing. So I'm hoping that this new sort of implementation is going to be for the good, and I'm sure it's going to have a lot more positives. I know it's going to be a big adjustment for kids.

Yeah. But I think it's a good way to sort of really test and trial whether the introduction of friends, you know, to begin with was even a good idea, so to speak. I always say we survived without them, so I'm sure they'll do, they'll be fine as well. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, they must have realized how damage. it has been to have the phones at school in order for them to finally kind of pull the plug and say,

we're going to pack them away. Yeah. I think the experience that you had through DCJ initially set you up really well for what's to come now in terms of being really familiar or diving into what the system's expecting of you, what you need to do within the system, but also how the way the system is set up is influencing what you've got freedom to do and capacity to do because so often when you're working in a government organization in a statutory role, you do have restrictions. So you've been able to take maybe the best of that world and come into a space where there perhaps is a little bit more flexibility and you can say, yes, we still need the structure, we still need the accountability, but let's just see how we can be a little bit more holistic,

look at things in perspective. And yes, you don't have a huge amount to do with the families or with the extended networks, but there's possibility there, yeah? But really you get to work with the kids, which is what you love doing. Yeah, and I think it kind of grounds me in knowing that I'm doing this for the kids and the families, and that's sort of my core purpose, because you can easily lose sight and almost sell yourself to the demands of other agendas and priorities. So I think being able to, you know, keep myself grounded and keep myself feeling, still connected to the work and still serving with purpose, I think that's what nourishes me and feeds me.

So yes, like I've become desensitized in some way because I've been exposed to so much. And sometimes you kind of hear it or see it all and you kind of go, well, nothing phases me anymore. But I think it just reminds me of, you know, how vulnerable people can be. You're dealing with people's realities and their lives. You have to be sensitive and respectful. So it's almost kind of it keeps you again like in check in terms of the reality of what you're working with. Yeah, you really value going with people on a journey. So you love to support that exploration work and the individual work, which to a degree you've now been afforded with the private work that you're doing the private practice.

But then what comes with that is a lot of professional development, a lot of figuring things out as you go along. But, you know, hopefully you will find that balance over time and something that makes you feel fulfilled while helping to still affect the greater system or the greater structure that you work within. So normalizing some of those mental health challenges. And, yeah, your passion for working with kids really shines through. And I think just further developing the private practice into what you want to be and what you can be proud of is the next thing on the agenda. and that will take time, but you've gone through this huge, huge milestone and huge thing that

was incredibly daunting and could have just brought you down at any point and made you just forget about it completely. So I think that resilience is incredible. Thank you. Do you have any, I guess, maybe advice for people who you mentioned earlier that you'd gone through the application process and just getting really discouraged with the job seeking process. Is there anything through that experience, perhaps, that stood out to you as something that you can really draw from and maybe make easier next time? I think not being afraid of asking for help, because I guess there is a bit of, you know, shame around if I ask the help, does that mean I'm not ready yet to take on the process?

You know, I'm not quite there yet. It's a very confusing and a otherwarming process, so I think it's okay to ask for help. It's a matter of who you go to ask for help because not everyone's familiar with the process or knowledgeable enough. People were generous with me in offering their time and their advice to me. So I'm grateful for that. So I think being able to then pay back and offer that to other people as well, which is partly why I do the mentoring program,

but wanting to be able to share that generosity back, I think is important for me. Being patient with yourself, having the confidence in terms of, and again, some people might find it arrogant, but being able to sort of speak to your work with pride and not feeling like you have to dim it down. Being able to say this is what I know and these are my examples and this is how I've done things. So just be able to have that confidence in that pride in your work and treating it more like a learning process, I think. In anything I do, there's always something to learn from it. you know, in hindsight, would I do things differently? Most probably. But again, it's about where to you from here. It is just another step in the process. So it's about, you know, allocating the time, allocating the funds and just tapping into the right resources, I think. Yeah. And you've

probably built such a great network, even just through that process. And even people have told me applying for jobs, they've then been contacted like two years down the road. by the same employer saying, hey, you weren't perfect at the time, but you really stood out. Like, we were really impressed and are you still looking for something? So seeing everything as an opportunity, I guess. For sure. Yeah. It's hard because, unfortunately, this day and age, a lot of people are selecting jobs based on, I guess, the financial gains and how attractive the working conditions are and things like that.

And I wish people were recognised more for what they bring to the role and what they have to offer. But again, we live in a culture where we're not allowed to sort of be proud of what we know and what we do. And I think we need to change, you know, that attitude and embrace what each one of us is able to offer and contribute and share. Because again, we're trying to do collective work at the end of the day. So being able to speak to that stuff and own it is a part of that collective wisdom in the knowing and the doing. Yeah. In such a short time, you've achieved so much. And I would love to see that passion growing and you've contributed so much already to this collective wisdom. So thank you for coming today and having a chat with me. And I think that's contributed even further. And

hopefully people will be further inspired to take a chance and to sit through something that's really hard. But in the end, keep your eye on, you know, why you're doing this, what's the purpose and who am I doing it for. That's it. Thank you for the opportunity and I hope people do take something out of it, even if it's the smallest of things. But again, I'm always sort of like an email or a call away for people to reach out and ask a question because I know how intimidating it is to be able to reach out to people. So, you know, again, I'm just another resource for people to be able to gain some insight or knowledge or some support through whatever they're going through.

That's very kind of you. Thank you. And again, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you. Likewise. Thank you. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Yana, 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 Michelle, an accredited mental health social worker, accredited EMDR consultant, clinical resource therapy trainer, as well as partner in private practice and director of EMDR relational and training at Siva House in the Hunter region. Michelle has worked extensively with children, young people and adults who have experienced complex trauma, as well as supporting people who have caused harm to others. Michelle provides EMDR consultation and clinical supervision to professionals and develops and facilitates training in EMDR and resource therapy. I release a new episode every two weeks.

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