Social Work Spotlight - Episode 102: Michele

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

In this episode I speak with Michele, 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 Seva House in the Hunter region. Michele has worked extensively with children, young people and adults who have experienced complex trauma as well as supporting young people who have caused harm to others. Michele provides EMDR Consultation and Clinical Supervision to professionals and develops and facilitates training in EMDR and Resource Therapy. Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Michele’s Clinical Practice – www.sevahouse.com.auMichele’s EMDR Consultation Practice – www.emdrelational.comEMDR and Resource Therapy Training – www.sevatraining.com.auGabor Maté – Authenticity vs Attachment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3bynimi8HQ & https://redefineschool.com/gabor-on-authenticity-attachment/Linda Thai’s training - https://collectivelyrooted.thinkific.comEMDR – Notice that Podcast - https://www.instagram.com/notice_that_podcast/Arnold Mindell - http://www.aamindell.net & https://online.processwork.eduEarth Based Psychology – book by Arnold MindellMetaphysical Anatomy – book by Evette RoseUnlocking the Emotional Brain – book by Bruce EckerPolyvagal Informed EMDR – book by Rebecca KaseTreating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense – book by Jan WinhallThe Others Within Us – book by Robert FalconerEvery Memory Deserves Respect EMDR – book by Michael BaldwinThe Art and Science of EMDR – book by Rotem BrayerEye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) 3rd Edition – book by Francine ShapiroRivers Way – book by Arnold MindellThe Wisdom of your Dreams – book by Jeremy TaylorOur Polyvagal World – book by Stephen PorgesGabor Maté’s In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts - https://drgabormate.com/book/in-the-realm-of-hungry-ghosts/Social Work Spotlight podcast episode with Amy (Michele’s colleague at Seva house) - https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/uRRwl1dVNFbThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1R0vp9ui0legCso99FYpO3xJ9jreZ3_HcjMNYKPzmVX8/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

in each episode. I'm your host, Jasmine Lupus, and today'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 is passionate about her work in trauma and works extensively with children, young people and adults who have experienced complex trauma such as sexual abuse, domestic and family violence, addiction, personality disorders and mental health issues. Michelle also works with young 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. Thank you Michelle for coming on to the podcast. It's really lovely to meet with you today and I'm excited to have a chat with you about your experience in social work so far. Thank you, Yasmin. Thank you for inviting me as well. I'd love to talk first about when you began in social work and what got you into the profession in the first place. Yeah, okay. So I was a single mother. So I was a mature age student when I went to university working as a teacher. And I was going to be a teacher. And one of the teachers at the school I was working in said, you should be a social worker, you know, instead of going into teaching. And

My experience of social workers was that they weren't very nice people. So my parents died when I was 10 and I was raised in an orphanage, so in a children's home. So social workers back in the 70s weren't very nice people. And so when he said, I should be a social worker, I sort of laughed and went, I don't think so. And he said, no, you're always advocating for the kids. Go home and have a look at the course and the curriculum. And he said, you'd make a great social worker. So I went okay.

So I went back home and looked and went, oh, yeah, actually, that looks. okay and that's what led me into the field of social worker still didn't know what I wanted to do as a social worker didn't know if I wanted to work in child protection or didn't think about being a therapist to be honest way back then but yeah that's what got me in and and I loved it and four years later I came out and went into case management I'm in early intervention and before that I'd done a little bit of a stint in Centrelink didn't like that didn't last very long in Centrelink so that wasn't certainly for me but yeah went into case management and and just working with families with domestic violence and mental health and drug and alcohol

issues. But that, yeah, that was my first job out of university. Yeah, I loved it. So it was the right degree for me. Yeah, yeah. And what was the adjustment period like for you then having gone from being a teacher's aide to going back to study, having the kids, how did you get through all that? Yeah, well, I was working from home as well. So I was a potter. So I was a teacher's aide, as well as doing pottery and selling at markets. So there was a lot of late nights, waking up at three o'clock in the morning with a laptop on my lap. I did my degree by distance ed, so I did it through Charles Sturt University, and every semester I would have to go down for a week's residential school, which was actually quite a lot of fun. But yeah, I didn't find, it's interesting because I always

had this, I was a ward of the state, and being a child from that sort of background, I thought University was for different people. So I was actually quite surprised that it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be that it was actually quite enjoyable. And I really did love it. So I didn't struggle at university. So it wasn't really a struggle. There were late nights because I did it full time as well as working, but I didn't struggle with the subjects or the work. Do you think that's got a lot to do with the teachers, the lecturers that you had at the time? Yes. I really like Charles Sturt University because all the lectures were still practicing. So they all still worked so they worked at the uni so they were academics but they also were still working in the

field and so they were really engaged with what we did. Yeah and was there one that stood out for you? I think they all stood out for me for different reasons. I mean the course coordinator was lovely. We had Wendy Bowles. She was a pretty out there social worker as well. She was very passionate and sort of she was very alternative as well even though she she lived on a farm Charles Sturt Uny was down at Wogga Wogga and she lived on a farm and that so she was quite farming but she was also really alternative and yeah I really liked her and she told stories of the 1970s she worked in the cross as a social worker and and things like that so yeah amazing and what were your placements then so my first placement was in Centrelink I had a placement there that should have told me not to go

back there but it didn't. And then my second placement was actually where I got a job was actually with brighter futures. So that was my final placement. And that's actually they offered me a job while I was doing my final placement there. Okay. So I didn't even, yeah, so I stepped straight out of finishing uni, straight into a full-time case management job, which was quite good. Yeah. So you kind of already knew what to expect to a certain degree. But it then still is always a bit of an adjustment of I'm no longer a student. I've got more expectations now. Yeah, for sure. And, and, and, and And I was also a sole worker, so they placed me in an office by myself inside another NGO. But I was very comfortable by then.

I had really good mentors. I had really good social workers around me that were working there as well. I was given a lot of, I suppose, freedom as well in my placement because it was a fourth year placement as well. So I was given a lot of freedom in the work that I did. And that was really good. Yeah, no, I loved it. It was great.

I see that you've also done some extra study. Can you tell me about the Masters and how? that might have influenced the direction you took? Yeah, for sure. Well, the master started when I went to sexual assault. I worked as a case manager for a number of years. And what I found was some of my children were being sexually abused on their visits through the family law court.

And that sort of gave me a passion for that sort of work. So I wanted to get into that work. So I was very lucky I applied for a job in New South Wales Health. As a sexual assault worker, they train you then extensively. You do lots of intense training to become a therapist, like a counsellor. to do that work. So it was when I first started that job in New South Wales Health. I was there for about a year and I decided to do my master's in social work of advanced practice. And then I was very lucky because I also did a part of it with the police university at Bathurst doing a couple of subjects on deviant behaviour as well because that really interested me working in sexual assault. So that was yeah, that was quite good. I enjoyed that as well. And the major was in mental health. So I majored in mental health in my master. because that's what I was seeing was impacting a lot on the children's neglect and also the capacity to protect as well. You know, so when someone's suffering significant mental health,

there's attachment ruptures within the family, which then also allow other people to come in because the kids are vulnerable, the non-offending parent is vulnerable, and so it just makes kids more exposed to that. So I was really interested in that as well. It sounds as though you were predominantly interested in working with younger people, but that exposes you to working with older people as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't work with kids just on their own because they don't stand alone there, you know, and it's not their responsibility.

So you invariably work with all of them. But in sexual assault, we only work with the victims. We don't work with what's called the significant others very often, unless we have capacity. But my clients were adults, children and adolescents. So the majority of them had suffered child sexual assault. Some of them were adult victims, but the majority of them were child sexual assaults. And then I had the children that were recent victims and adolescents as well.

And were the services set up separately for younger people versus older people, or were they kind of all thrown in together and treated the same? So I worked up in the Upper Hunter. So once again, I was a sole worker up there. And the Upper Hunter is an hour. So it was an hour and a half strife of a morning. an hour and a half drive of an afternoon to get home, which I thought was quite good.

It sort of gave me a bit of separation. I could listen to podcasts and do some mindfulness on the way home. But I was a sole worker up there. So in a rural area, there's not many services. My team was based in Newcastle. So once a month I would go down there and spend the day down there with the team. But up there, I was just on my own. You're not even part of the social work team up there.

You are a different stream. You come under violence and prevention stream. So even though there's other social workers up there, which was great, they weren't part of my team, so to speak. So I loved it because I got to manage the service how I wanted to manage it, go out, do education in schools, in high schools like Love Bites and things like that. So it was a really nice varied role. And we also, because we didn't have a service that worked with children under the age of 10 that caused harm to others, I was also trained in that. So I would also work with that population as well, which was really interesting. It's a lot of responsibility for someone who's relatively new in their practice, in their development.

What sort of support did you need back then? I actually didn't need that much support. I'd been working already for probably about four years, only five years. And I think age comes into it. I think life experience comes into it as well. If you're pretty well grounded, I also do a lot of, did a lot of training. So that's what I threw myself into. I was very lucky in the Netherlands Society.

they had a big funding bucket for training. So I did a lot of training with Mary Joe McVee and really talented social workers like that. And the same within health. A lot of training within health as well. But my team were there if I needed them. So I had a clinical coordinator based in Newcastle. So if ever I was in doubt or anything, I would give her a call. I was always able to just jump into a health car if I needed to and go down there for support if I needed that. And it sounds like the thing that was most important to you was that flexibility to kind of make the role what you needed it to be. Yeah, yeah.

That's what I like. I think what I struggle with in health was that people are in silos. And for me coming from an NGO into a big government organisation, when you've got so many talented clinicians there, I couldn't understand because they don't step out of their stream. You know what I mean? So I suppose when you talk about support, the support I had was the social work team up there,

even though they weren't in my stream, so to speak. I would go up and have lunch with them because I was a level three. part of my role is to provide supervision as well. So I would provide supervision to them as well up there. So it was a really nice little team that we had and I suppose we supported each other. So we had domestic violence workers up there. We had child protection workers. We had community health social workers.

And there was a psychologist as well. So it was a, yeah, it was quite a good little team up there. So we supported each other in the work we did. Yeah. I think it highlights also the importance of networking in those community roles Because it wouldn't have just been health people that you were working with in, say, the Love Bites program or facilitating training or being able to do any sort of project, really. You need to know who are your people who is going to be the one that you refer to or, you know, it's a lot of that that you're just building your people around you. You're building your tribe and you're figuring out who are these people that I need to reach out to.

So it's not, it's not like that formal supervision as much as the informal every. day how do we problem solve that's right and and having those networks is really important and part of that is also belonging to groups and things like that so being on the domestic violence panel so being on boards and things like that so i did a lot of that work as well you know networking finding out what was needed in the community so what were we short of that we needed more of as well it's that big r word research that a lot of social workers are afraid of but it's something that we do all the time in order to demonstrate that there's a need for something right so That's great experience as well.

Yeah, yeah. It's just done in a more informal way than academically, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so when did you decide to move on from that? What was the precipitator for you? Okay, so I think I was up there a couple of years. So five days a week I was doing, though a very long days. And so I negotiated with health to do my five days in four, which made them longer day.

So I ended up working 13 hour a day. So not working, but. I'm still travelling three hours a day. Yes, I was working 10 hours and travelling three hours. So they were 13 hour days, but I was able to negotiate to do the Monday to Thursday, which suited me. So I got every Friday off. And then I started dipping my toe into private practice.

So on a Friday then in 2016, I started doing some private practice down here on a Friday. So doing victim services work, which I really enjoyed and I really love that. And I also had stepped up into the role. as a social worker manager up there. So I was doing two roles. I was doing two days a week. I was doing sexual assault. So I was doing actually the manager's role the whole four days, but I still kept half a load of sexual assault work. That was really good for me because it made me realise I didn't want to be a manager. I loved mentoring. I loved all that, but I don't like all the other stuff that goes with being a manager in New South Wales Health. So that was a really good experience for me.

I missed my clinical work. I missed being a therapist. And so what I decided to do then in 2017, we got a lovely manager who's actually still up there, which is really lovely. She's beautiful. So she stepped into the role. And then in the beginning of 2017,

I went to a 0.5 position, which is two and a half days a week. So I did my two and a half days in two days. And I did two days. I went to two days in Newcastle to a practice in Newcastle called Orchard counselling, which was run by another lovely bunch of social workers. So they gave me a lovely wraparound sort of thing. So I was doing one day up here and two days down there. Predominantly victim services work, even though I'm a credited mental health social worker.

I found victim services work was what I was comfortable with. Complex trauma I'm comfortable with. My first, I can still remember my first mental health client came to me for generalising anxiety and I just actually didn't know what to do with them. I actually had a bit of a little woo, you know? Oh, yeah. So that was really lovely. And then in 2000 and in the 2018, I decided I didn't want to stay in health any longer.

The bureaucracy, there was some things change is happening that I didn't like. They were taking us more away from the work, the clinical work that I liked, attending more meetings and things like that. So I decided no, I didn't want to stay in health. I wanted to go into full-time practice. So what I decided to do was to do two days from home. So online work, two days down in Newcastle and still. I was doing one day a fortnight in a room up here in Maitland. And the health, health wanted me to stay one day a fortnight as a consultant.

So just one day, a fortnight, I would just go up there doing consultancy work, supervision, that sort of stuff. And just sort of supporting the manager as well. And then at the end of 2019, I was getting tired of driving to Newcastle. So Newcast, it's not that far. It's 40 minute drive, but, you know, I was getting tired of that. And I thought, I wanted to open. There's nothing around the Maitland area where I live.

And so I approached Amy. the lovely Amy you've spoken to. And so Amy had come up, I'd already pilfered her out of a school and took her up to health. And so I thought, well, why not I'd pinch her from health and bring her into private practice with me? So I approached Amy and I also approached Dixon and other social worker up there and said, look, you know, I want to open up a private practice in Maitland. Would you be interested? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and that was it in 2000, end of December 2019, we found the house we wanted. And that became Siva House in Maitland, and that's where we still practice from today.

Yeah. When you were going through uni, was there much talk of social workers in private practice as a sort of scope of social work type thing? Because for me, it didn't even, it wasn't on my radar at all. No, no, there wasn't. They didn't talk about that. And I found even going into sexual assault, it was only because I went into sexual assault, and you were a counsellor in sexual assault that I came across that type of work. There's a little bit of that work in one of the resi schools,

but nothing, not as a therapist, don't mean, not as actually a therapist. Yeah, yeah. And that's really sad, I think. And when I did my degree, I don't know if it was all they ever talked about was narrative therapy. There was nothing else anyway. It's like there was no other therapies that they talked about. So in social work.

And when I was in sexual assault, I trained myself in act. I trained myself in compassion-focused therapy, which was chair work. So I'd already started doing some parts work way back in 2011. I trained in Act in 2008 when I first trained in Act. I was the first social worker. I was actually the only social worker in the training that I went to. Everyone else was psychologists or GP. So I've always been a bit out there, I think, in the way I wanted to work.

What was the process like for you of completing the accreditation, the accredited mental health social work course? It's going back, what, eight, nine years ago now. So it's hard to remember. It wasn't that difficult. I know it's harder. Now there's an exam now. There was a lot of writing.

There's all of essays from my memory. Like, you know, a lot of case scenarios. You had to give questions and answers and evidence base and why you were using that theory, what was behind that, that sort of stuff. But I found it very much like uni. So there wasn't an exam though when I did mine. Now there's an exam, I think. So it's a bit different.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just had such mixed experience. guess with the people that I've spoken with and some have just said it's the hardest thing they've ever had to do and almost made them want to give up completely and others have said like yourself it's fairly straightforward so I guess it comes down to and maybe this was your experience but maybe it comes down to just the degree to which you're prepared to kind of give it a slog but also

you've got your ducks in a row so you know how long it's going to take you you've got all your paperwork all your evidence determined already and you kind of just going through the process Yeah, I think so. I think, I mean, that I found that the same with uni. Do I mean, like I think I said to you before, I had this impression that university was going to be really hard and really difficult, but actually it wasn't. I find if you're passionate about something, you want to learn about it. Yeah, true. You know, you actually want to, you want to learn. So people who are less familiar with complex trauma, would you mind explaining that for people? So complex trauma is usually around multiple things that have happened time after time, after time, after time. after time, that's the complexity of it. So it's what we call cumulative harm. Usually happens in childhood. So usually early childhood, we say now, like, you know, in the training I've done now with the neuroscience training and being an EMDR therapist, where you look at it usually before the age of seven, before the prefrontal cortex kicks in. And that can be things like

not having your needs met either. So it doesn't always have to be being abused or physically or sexually or it can just be like emotional neglect actually not getting your needs met. And if that happens cumulative time after time after time, then complex trauma or complex PTSD occurs, you know, and then there's a big crossover then between the behaviours of complex trauma and other disorders such as borderline personality disorder and they're now looking even at autism and ADHD. They're the same markers. So, you know, what came first?

you know, did the disorder come first and then the trauma or did the trauma come first and then the disorder? But yeah, it's interesting and they're much more, if you want to think of them, interwoven. So they're interwoven within the networks. So these beliefs of who I am, which is usually before the age of seven. So if you're crying as a baby, a newborn baby, you're not being picked up, you're not being confident, you're being left in a cot or you're being left in a bounce in front of a TV or you're getting breastfed and mum's not even looking at you, looking at a phone, like simple things like that can lead to these beliefs that I'm not lovable, I'm not enough, you know. And when that keeps happening, it strengthens that belief about

yourself. And then they go to school and the teacher might yell at them and can't you just be quiet, little Michelle, you know, or sitting in the corner. So once again, gee, I'm bad or I'm not this on. So these, they just get piled upon and piled upon. And then that makes them It makes them vulnerable to people coming into their lives and taking advantage of them. It makes them vulnerable as teenagers in the relationships that they choose. Then they go into adulthood, once again choosing unhealthy relationships, feeling that they're not worthy, feeling that that's not for them. Even for me going to university, it was like this is even coming out of university, I was very

quiet, even as a mature age student, because I speak very bluntly, I speak very plainly, I don't speak eloquently, I suppose. I definitely don't have that now. But back then it was, I'm not good enough. You know, I'm a home's kid. I'm not good enough. I don't deserve this. You know, so they're what we call core beliefs.

And they're what shape people because it's how they see themselves. It's how they see their place in this world and their sense of belonging. And that's to me is what I love about the work that I do and being able to flip that, you know. Yeah. So it's that effect of repeated. exposure to trauma at a time when you're developing most rapidly, you've got physical development, emotional, social, it's at that time when you're most vulnerable and it will have the biggest impact on you. Yeah, that's right. It has that impact of how you see yourself, you know,

how you actually see yourself in this world. And that, that is huge. When you think that you don't deserve to be loved, you're not going to pick a partner that's going to love you. You know, You're going to pick someone that's going to be true to that, that's not going to love you, you know. Yeah. And then, you know, if you haven't had those formative experiences of being parented in a healthy way, how do you then know how to parent? You're not born with this knowledge. You know, we learn it.

So then you don't, so then that's passed on, do I mean? And that's when we, and then we have, and then we can bring in epigenetics into that, which is, you know, how trauma is passed on, coded on the myelin of the cells, you know, And then we have collective trauma. You know, we look at our First Nations people here. That's collective trauma, the story that's carried on. Yeah. That we just continue to perpetuate.

Yeah. Yep, that's exactly right. Yeah. So attachment, that's what I love about attachment is when we look at things through an attachment lens because attachment is so important, you know, because of being mammals, being, you know, and this is this is primitive stuff. This is not because we're human or because we're highly intelligent or it's because we're memos and we need attachment, you know, and if our birth, if our birth parents reject us,

if our biological parents reject us, well then, wow, how bad must we be? They don't even want me out, you know, so yeah. I was looking at some of the work that you've done while I was gently stalking you. And I saw that you've done some work and maybe you're continuing to do work with young people who harm others and that you were approaching that from a non-judgmental perspective and I wrote down a little question mark of how how how do you manage to keep a non-judgmental perspective but what you just said perfectly eloquently is that you're seeing it from that perspective of trauma from that complex trauma lens and you've seen how they've gotten to this point because of all the experience that they've brought to where they are now so it's not about what you've

done it's about what's led you to this point that's right Am I getting that? That's right. What's happened to you? Yeah. And the sad thing is, you know, for our programs here, and I can't talk about New South. So when I'm talking, it's only about New South Wales. I can't talk about other states.

But here are our programs that work with young people who've caused harm to others. And these programs want to work with them if there's been no charges laid. They work on the offending behaviour, so about taking responsibility. So they don't start with the trauma first. They work with the offending behaviour first. take responsibility. My belief is how can they take responsibility for something when all that trauma is still underneath? You have to work on the trauma first. You have to get underneath, work on that trauma so they understand why they did what they did. And then you work on the

behaviour and then you'll get the responsibility. So I think they've got it wrong. I think they need to work on the trauma first and that's what I do. And I even work with some adults, which if you had told me back in 2011 or something that I would be working with perpetrators of child abuse, and I'll talk about adult offenders now that have served time in jail, because back then I just wanted to put them on an island, surround it with sharks, and give them no food. So that was how I wanted to deal with them. But first of all, doing compassion and focus therapy sort of started to change my mind, and then becoming a parts therapist also helped me see that it's just a part of them.

There's a reason, and I have to say the people that I work with have had highly significant childhood trauma, like not just one or two really bad abuse, you know, that went on. And so I look at that and go, it's just a part of them that offended. There's so much more to them than that part. So it's helped me become a much more compassionate therapist as well, I think. Do you find that the people that you liaise with then in justice, police, courts, are empathic to that perspective. How do you find that process of trying to encourage them to look beyond the behaviour? No, if you can give me the secret to that, yes, me, I would love that.

No, look, I find it family law court, don't even get me started on family law court. It's a horrible, horrible. You are at the mercy of the judge that you have. You are lucky, you know, that it's the draw of the card on what happens in family law court, number one. Our child protection, I was only having this conversation with Amy yesterday. you know that even today child protection workers you know will say to a father oh you're at risk of offending because you were sexually assaulted as a child they still have that belief do i mean that because you were you were sexually assaulted as a child that you're going to offend that's the

myth there's no if that was a case we would have a lot more female offenders out there than we do you know because the majority of the child victims are female so there's no substantiation to that claim but there's just this misunderstanding out there. And so I find it really difficult. Yeah. I did read recently, actually, there is movement in the raising the age campaign, right? From 10 to what are they hoping to change it to? 14, yeah.

Okay. Which is still a developing brain, but still better than 10. Oh, it is. And when you say to, you know, I mean, it's sad, isn't it, when you say to parents, and I've had this conversation many times, well, okay, you're lucky he or she is nine. Okay, we're lucky. There'll be no charges laid. There'll be no investigation. You know, we still need to report it. But I mean, but that's sad, isn't it when we say that?

Well, we're lucky that they're eight or they're nine. They're not 10 yet. Let's get this reported before they turn 10. You know, it's just 10 is so little. Then when you know that they've had a history of abuse by a parent, it does. It breaks my heart. You know, and then you've got other, you know, other services that won't see kids if they're self-harming or if they've got suicide ideation or it's just sad. I think how there's so much fear. Everything's fear-averse. Everything is, you know, it's risk-averse. They try to protect the system instead of trying to protect the person. Yeah.

Given that you enjoyed the leadership and the mentoring side of things, but not so much the management side of things, how have you found being director of a company now? Yeah, well, it's good because it's small. It's only small, so that's good. And what I love about, so the mentoring and that I get still, by providing supervision and consultation. So I love that.

And with SEVA, the therapists that come and work under SEVA, they come in under their own power. We're there for them. And we give them referrals, but it's up to them how much they want to work, how many clients they want to see, what sort of the work they want to do. It's more or less their practice. They're just practising under our banner, so to speak.

And so I find that really liberating as well. Yeah. And what support do you receive now? We support each other. I have two consultants, like supervisors. I have an EMDR supervisor and I have an ACT supervisor, which is really good because I'm still an ACT therapist and Compassion Focus Therapist as well as being an EMDR therapist.

So yeah, we support each other. We have, so every month, so the partners of SEVA House, we have a meeting, ours is at the pub, which is really nice. And then also one day and month we have a team meeting. So we put on lunch for everyone so they all take two hours off. on a Friday and we have lunch it's very informal but they can chat about anything if they've got any concerns about anything if they've got any training that they want to do or or that they want to actually run you know if they've got any ideas for anything you know we're open to that as well

if they want to run training from see the house they're able to do that if they want to take their practice you know we're very lucky we've got beautiful grounds we've got a pool clients get in the pool if they want to have a session in the pool they're able to do that you know they're able to do yoga We've got beautiful cabana outside. They want to do movement practice. We have handball and things like that, trampolines and all those crazy things. Public liability insurance, hopefully. I wasn't even thinking about that, but yeah, every room has a boxing bag in it as well.

So, you know? Yeah. Yeah, it's pretty good. Amazing. It sounds like a really welcoming safe space, which is what you would have intended. It's a really lovely space and we have really lovely clinicians. I have one of the therapists that's there, Kathy, We went to uni together, so we would travel down to res school together.

So she's seen my boy now as nearly 30 years of age. It'll be 30 in, I think, 12 days or something. She's seen him grow since she was seven. So she's been around for a long time. Yeah, so it's lovely. She still works in sexual assault. So she only works two days a week at Siva. And the other three days she's still in sexual assault.

She hasn't made the jump yet. I keep trying to encourage her to make the full leap out of health, but we'll get there. Other than that education piece and trying to really hit home to other professions, other settings around the effects of trauma and trying to support people within your role, what do you find most challenging? What are you really working hard on to get through to people? Courage. Have the courage to understand that, once again, it's this fear of causing harm.

I have a little motto that I say to myself and something that I've told all the others quite often. You know, our clients show us so much courage when they come and see us. We have to have the same courage to take them where they need to go. So that to me is a thing. Courage, get out there and do the training. Always keep learning, you know, because things change very, very quickly. And do what you love. Don't do something because you think it's the right thing to do

or because it's the flavour of the month or, you know, do something that you're passionate about. You know, if you're passionate about dementia, go into dementia. Like, do what you're passionate. I mean, it doesn't sound very flavoursome, but, you know, if you're passionate about it, do it, you know? Yeah. Follow your heart.

And have good support, have regular supervision. They're the things I'm always encouraging with the guys at Siva, but also all my own supervisees that I see as well is to be passionate, ask questions, get the support if you need it. Don't be scared to ask for help either. So my supervisors all know that they can just flick me an email. If they want to know something, they don't have to wait until their next consult. They can just flick me an email. And when I get time, I'll get back to them with the answer or any resources that they need.

You know, because I don't want them to hold off for a month waiting to hear from me, you know? And the other thing is as well that I'm always encouraging people is to be really creative in your work. Be really creative in your work. Don't be fearful to show a bit of humanity. So it's okay to say to someone, you know, I've had this conversation with people who are struggling as being a single mom and I'll say, I was a single mom. I know what it's like. I know what it's like to have no money. I know what it's like to hide my car behind my house that didn't repossess it back in the day.

I say to them, don't be frightened to share a little bit about yourself, you know, because I think that makes you more human. Absolutely. But also it makes you more human. I'm just thinking the positionality of that where, yes, you've disclosed to a certain degree. I was a single mom. I was struggling. I made it work. Is there ever a time when that either becomes a real issue for you, given that you deal with traumatic content every day, but also you've been through some real challenges very early in life?

It sounds as though that's just a strength for you and that's how you've imagined it. how you've been able to conceptualise and bring it forward into your work. But it's still tough. Do you ever feel the need to disclose? Is it ever appropriate with your clients? So I've disclosed that I was raised by nuns in an orphanage. I have a client I see that was raised in orphanage as well. And she uses the same language. So she used the word billeted. So I don't know if you know what the word billeted means. She says, always billeted out. And that's a language. That's a term that's used in holidays. Kids were farmed out. people from orphanages and children's homes. We were billeted out, you know. So I shared with

her that, yeah, I was raised. I know what it's like. I know what that feels like. So we have a shared connection. It doesn't impact on the therapy. It doesn't impact on me being her therapist because I don't let it. It's just a moment. It's not, you have to make sure that the session doesn't become about you. It's just a moment about connecting and saying, I understand. I'm here with you. I know where you're coming from. have never ever struggled with the work I do. The only time I didn't sleep, Yasmine, was when I stepped into that manager's role. And then I was not sleeping. But working as a therapist, and to be honest, I think I've heard, I don't think there's nothing. I don't think

I've not heard, do I mean? Like, you can't help but look at humanity differently. You look at humanity differently. It's darker. It's definitely a lot darker. You know, I do feel a bit sorry for my son because, and we live in a very small place and very safe, but, you know, I'd say to him, close to the fence, don't walk close to the road, you know, no, he's never had a sleepover. The sleepover was always at my house, do I mean? So his mates would come to my house. He never went to anyone's house for a sleepover. So I do feel a little bit sorry for him, I suppose, in that aspect, because you do see the world differently. You see it, it's darker. But I never lost sleep over it. It's never impacted me on me in a negative way.

Given that upbringing and exposure and experience, does your son do anything similar now with his work? No, my son became an electrician. My son would have been diagnosed with ADHD, I'm sure of it. I mean, they wanted to diagnose him. He was that kid that very bright, got a very good report card, but on the bottom of every report card disruptive in class because he would finish his work and be bored. He's still the same. We'd go out to dinner.

He's finished his dinner. The knife and fork were going. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. You know, I'll do my dinner, say here, it was left of mine. He left halfway through Year 11, did his apprenticeship as an electrician. He did the first two years in a domestic and then went two years to the power stations. He now runs a multi-million dollar company at the age of 29 and has 30 men. It's at all trades.

So he has all the contracts for defence. He also has all the contracts for schools. Yes, he's very successful. But no, he could not do my work. I'm trying to get him to go and have a breath work. He just says, no way. He's not going to do any holotropic breathing. He says, he just says,

Mum, don't pull that social work shit on me. That's what he says to me. I remember he came home from school. He must have been, I think, 12 years of age, and I was curled up in the lounge, reading a book, and I think it was pedophiles, sex offenders, or something like that. Something like that goes, Mom, can't you get your head out of that stuff?

You do that all day. So, yeah, yeah, he's used to me, though. Yeah. Yeah, no, it sounds like he's done so well for himself, so he must be really proud. I'm very proud of him. He's a, he's a very good kid. He's very, yeah, he's got very good friends around him, you know, which is always lovely. And, you know, his father, his father's, you know, I have always remained friends. So we separated when he was seven, but we remained best friends. And so he's always had a good relationship with both of us, which is really good. And I think that's important as well, you know. Yeah.

Given that private practice as a concept for social work is relatively new, at least for you and I, in terms of it just wasn't a concept when we were studying. Other than that, I guess what changes have you seen over time in this area of work? I'm thinking just a huge example is just an awareness and understanding of the MDR and how it can be used in this setting. Yeah, for sure. I mean, what I've seen definitely is that social work is getting a lot more understanding around neuroscience, which I think is really good.

So we've always had big hearts. We've always been able to look at things holistically, you know, taking the wide lens, which I think is really important, whereas psychology's always been more narrowed on the person. What's wrong with you? Do I mean? Look, you know, whereas we've looked at the environment and the stuff around, you know, that much more expanded level. But not so much we didn't look at neuroscience. We didn't look at polyvagal.

We didn't look at the biology stuff, you know. I think now we are, which I think is really good. So that's really important. And I think psychology now is getting more heart. That's the way that I see it. So I see that actually two disciplines are actually coming closer together, which I think is good because there's good at both. EMDR.

I trained in EMDR back in end of 2015, the beginning of 2016. I think I was, if not the only, one of the only EMDR therapist in Hunter Health that was trained in EMDR. Right. So, and when I did it, there was once again no. I mean, as I said, in ACT, social workers just didn't do it. ASW did not give any trainings in ACT or EMDR or anything. They do now, but they didn't back then, you know.

And parts work is another one, you know, being trained in either ego states or resource therapy or IFS, you know, parts work is really important in the work. And then understanding the semantic work, understanding the polyvagal, understanding the vagus nerve and how that responds once again as an animal, you know. And looking at things from an attachment lens, understanding how important attachment is. You know, Gabor, Marte does some beautiful work. He's an amazing clinician. He's got some great books out on addiction in the realms of Hungry Ghost, which, you know, is one of the first books I read around addiction.

It changed my way of how I looked at people with addiction. I'm looking at authenticity versus attachment. You know, you look at that how if you're too much for your parents, so say you're a child that is highly sensitive and emotional. and your parents keep shutting you down. You have to keep your attachment with your parents to keep alive. So you're going to give up that authenticity of who you are to keep that attachment. I mean, how sad is that that you give up who you are just to keep that attachment?

So I think it's a really exciting time to be a therapist, and I think it's a really exciting time to be a social worker. Social workers are getting a lot better name out there, which I think is really good. We have a couple of paediatricians that have been referring to me since I was down in Newcastle. And they will only refer to accredited mental health social workers because we look at things through an attachment lens. I wonder if a better question then might be what changes would you like to see in this area

if you had your magic wand? Changes would I like to see. If I had my magic wand, what would I like to see? I would like to see, and people won't probably like one goes, I would like to see registration and probably social workers won't like that. I would like us to be more accountable. And I know APRA, I'm not saying that we have come under APRA, because APRA, I provide consultation to a lot of psychologists

and there's a lot of fear that runs through them from APRA, which I didn't realise until I did that. So it's not about that. It's just about, I think there should be more accountability for social workers. When I look at government institutions like health, there is no, so you can have a level three social worker there. They don't have to keep training. They don't have to be a member of the ASW.

year. They don't have to keep training. You can have social workers there that haven't trained for 20 years. That's dangerous to me. So I would like to see that tightened up, you know, whether or not you have to be a member of ASW and same with us as accredited mental health social workers. We have to do so many points, you know, professional development every year. I think that should be done. I think we need to take back our name. So instead of just people saying they're social workers because they haven't even done them a social work degree, but they call themselves social workers, you know. That irks me a little bit when you've done six years of uni, four years, bachelor or two years masters. So I think we need to take that back. I think also to be proud of our core values, because that's what I think about being

a social worker to me is number one, the social justice part of it, but also I think one of the best ones we have is the self-determination. So our client's right to self-determination, even if we don't agree with them. So even if, you know, that mother wants to stay in that domestic violence relationship, that's her choice. We give her all the information, impact on the children, that she even may lose the children, all that stuff. We give her all that, but she still chooses to stay in that relationship. We have to, we respect that because that is one of our core values, you know. I think that's what sets us apart. of risk. It is. It says us apart. It's not this, we know what's best for you, you know,

which is some helping professions have this. We know what's best for you. You do is what I say. Yeah. And I think that's what sets us apart. And that's what makes me proud to be a social worker is our core values and our social justice. But I think we do need to have some registration. Yeah. That's a good segue then to training. What are you working on what's coming up for you? Okay, so we've just delivered our first training. So both Amy and myself have created a model called Relational Integrative EMDR. So it's a mixture of incorporates attachment-informed DMDR. So it's a different way of working, of working EMDR.

It's where we go back and repair the ruptures in attachment. And so it has attachment EMDR. It has resource therapy in it, which is parts work. We have because we're both clinical resource therapist trainers. And it also has semantic polyvagal work. So noticing what's happening in the body, working very somatically instead of left brain, we work very right-brained, so very somatically. That's where we try to keep our clients in the right brain, if we can,

because the left brain will tell you what it wants you to hear, whereas the body doesn't hide it, the body can't hide it. So that's where we try to work. And so we've just delivered our first, I think, three weeks ago. It was beginning of November we did it, a three-week training retreat, and we incorporated a holotropic breathwork session on the first day. for the therapist and that was amazing. Absolutely really amazing because it just opened up their own stuff

which then allowed them to be more open to learning as well. And everyone was barefoot just about for the whole three days. There was lots of outside mindfulness practice, lots of experiential training as well, lots of demonstrations and pranks. So it was a really great, went better than what we thought it would. The food was also amazing. So it was here in the Hunter Valley in a beautiful place called

Kirkden Park. And it was so lovely that we've already got, there was 21 participants and that was part one and 10 have already signed up for part two, which is not for June. And yeah, it was amazing. So we're really excited about that. So we've already got part one and part two booked in two lots next year. We've also going to be doing some clinical resource therapy training, which is the parts work training. We've got that booked in. And then I'm developing a basic MDR training. So that means once that gets passed by MDRA, that means I can be an accredited MDR and teach basic MDR as well. So that's quite a lengthy process, but I'm taking four to five weeks off over Christmas to get both part one and part two done and submitted and hopefully

be approved, hopefully by June I'm hoping, and then roll that out as well. That's amazing. Yeah, loving it. And I can imagine that sort of thing gives you energy, right? Yes, it's hard work to develop and then to facilitate, but the feedback that you must get from the participants must be incredible. Yeah, it was. And it was actually really enjoyable developing. I didn't think it'd be that much fun, but it was actually a lot of fun. And Amy and I work very well together. We bounce off each other. And we've also got Ben as well, who's a Clint Psych at Seaver House. He's also a clinical resource therapist trainer. So we're bringing him into our training as well now. and he's really good as well.

So, yeah, lots of good stuff's happening. We're really excited about 2024. It's going to be quite busy, but it's exciting stuff. Yeah. Incredible. Well, send through any links that you've got, and I can pop them in the show notes, and people can go off and have a look.

Yeah, lovely. Love to do that. In addition, if people are interested in knowing more about the work that you do or the approaches that you use, where would you direct them? You've already mentioned Gabel Marte. Yes, we also do a, live demonstration called Fishbowls, EMDR and a fishbowl.

We've been doing them for two years now. Before they were only for EMDR therapists and you had to pay. But what we've, both Amy and I decided that next year we were just going to open them up for free and that anyone's welcome, anyone that's got an interest in EMDR and how it may work is welcome to come and have a look. So there's going to be six workshops next year. The January one's already booked out. We're opening them up to 60 people. We thought 60 people would be enough for us. That's a lot. January 1's already booked out. So, but there's one in March and I'll definitely give you the link to that one as well.

So I would say go and have a look at that one. Go and read some stuff on Polyvagal. Gabor Marte, yep, the authenticity versus attachment. He's got lots of YouTube videos. Linda Ty is a beautiful thematic therapist. She's just absolutely amazing. She's got a training platform called Collectively Rooted, which is with Bessel van der Kolk and Lachia Sky, he's wife.

And she's just done three levels of training. And it was actually, it was very cheap. I think from memory it was $110 US, which is really cheap. And it was beautiful. She sings to you before she starts the training. It's just gorgeous. Oh, I love that so much. She came to Australia as a Vietnamese refugee when she was a baby.

So she's actually, she's, you know, and then she lives over now, I think, in Alaska or Canada. But she's beautiful. Yeah, and there's lots of books out there on EMDR and memory and attachment. and yeah just go out and read and they're also welcome to drop me a line and I'm happy to forward on any information that they want as well yeah that's wonderful I will also put a link to the episode with Amy because that was incredible yeah yeah yeah awesome that was episode 89 yeah yeah so you've worked most of your career in this area and you're a specialist you're passionate about it you love it if for some reason you had a change of heart one day and you decided this isn't what you want to do,

is there anything else that has been of interest to you, even as you're obviously not Centrelink, but as you were doing your placements or anything else that you've come across in health or elsewhere that you thought, I'd like to give that one a try. No, no. No. As soon as I got in sexual assault, I knew this is what I wanted to do. I was passionate about it, but it just felt right. It was like, it was it.

I don't want to be anything else. And I laugh with the guys because I say, you know, I'll be doing this so I die unless I get dementia. Hopefully I don't get dementia. Yeah. You know, even when I'm old, I'm hoping, you know, still be doing something like this. Even if it's just doing some consults or something, you know, I would want to be doing something, have my foot in this store.

Because I think it's a very exciting time to be a therapist. And private practice, if you can find a good team, do I mean, like a good group of people, that would be my suggestion. Go in with a group of people. if you've got friends and that that do similar work, go into it together. Yeah. And support each other. Yeah.

It's been such a wild ride for you. It's incredible. Even from the very early days when you had so much flexibility and freedom as a newer social worker, but really thrown in the deep end in terms of here you go, here's a role, you're by yourself. Yes, you've got some other people around that you can rely on if you need to. but you just kind of had to figure it out and really understand the importance of that networking, right, in order to build that community of people that had common goals. And even now, you're building that group of like-minded people around you,

both within Theaver House, but also just the networks and the training and the people that are important and the people that have that real same outlook online. And you're really passionate about the rights of people who have experienced. experienced trauma and assault and the people that are harming others because you can see that perspective of this is how we've gotten to this point and yes we can't change that but we can hopefully adjust our understanding or expectations in that area yeah and I am passionate about doing victim services work so one thing I'm passionate about is providing a service to people who cannot afford to see a clinician do I mean because just about everyone I

see is low social economic under victim services. They could not afford to see me privately. Yeah. So that's what I love about victim services work. It doesn't pay that well. Pays enough, you know, you can still survive on it. It does pay enough, but it doesn't pay as much as what I would get doing private work. So I balance that out with my consultancy work and my training. That's how I leave that out. So there is ways that you can do it where you can still have that aspect of being a social worker. We're not that good at asking for money. I found that out. You know what I mean? So, you know, so there's ways that you can still do that. And I find victim services work is a way that, because you can advocate very strongly there as well. Yeah. You're actually, I think the third person I've spoken

with who's worked in victim services, who's had exactly the same experience in terms of the funding. Just there's a set amount, a gazetted rate, if you will, and this is what they can offer. And so they've had to very similarly just keep a couple of spots. open or a couple of people that they have looked after for a long period of time and it just makes sense for them to be supported by the same people. So yeah, it's nice to have the balance though, right? The variety of the work that you do and kind of keeping everything fresh. Yeah, it is. And I also see therapists as well. So I see them under a mental health because they can afford to pay. So it is a nice balance, you know, therapists are a lot quicker because

they're usually well-resourced. When we say well-resourced, they've got good adaptive networks. They pick it up a lot quicker. You don't have to hold them as well. long, you know. It is a nice balance, yeah. Yeah, it sounds so fulfilling and just being really genuine in the work that you're doing and allowing space for vulnerability for yourself, your clients, the people that you consult with and being able to build on the transferability of EMDR for social workplaces, which is really important. It's lovely. I'm very lucky, very lucky that I do what I do. I really look forward to following your media and hearing about all the training and the workshops that you're doing and yeah definitely send me anything you've got and I'd

love to be able to promote that wherever I can because it's wonderful work and it's accessible and I mean you're making it free that's unheard of it's something that you're really just wanting to be able to share your experience your knowledge and just be able to get it out to a wider audience yeah thank you yes I mean the reason we do it is because for me the more therapists out there that are doing this work the better is the people out there. Like it's a win-win. It's a win-win. It will make the world a better place. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I agree. Well, again, thank you so much for your time. I absolutely loved this chat, loved meeting with you, and yeah, look forward to keeping in touch. Thank you. It was lovely. It was lovely to meet you too. And yeah, please, look, come along to one of our

fishbowls even and just have a look at the work we do. You're quite welcome. I'd love to. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you, Yasme. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Michelle, 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 Sharon, who has worked as a caseworker, group work coordinator, child and family counsellor and primary school counsellor and is now an accredited mental health social worker in private practice. She provides supervision to other social workers and students, is trained as a systemic couple and family therapist, and facilitates both standard and youth mental health first day training. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you're notified when this next episode is available. See you next time.