Social Work Spotlight - Episode 105: Monique

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

In this episode I speak with Monique, a dynamic and innovative Social Worker specialising in disability social work under the NDIS funding system. Monique provides therapeutic and capacity building services to the neurodivergent community and professional supervision and training through her private practice "Our Future Focus" in Brisbane. Monique is a passionate clinical supervisor, trainer and avid encourager of social workers who want to learn more about effective and evidence based disability social work.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Monique’s business ‘Our Future Focus’ - https://ourfuturefocus.com.au/NDIS Social Workers Facebook group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1570529893102681Reframing Autism - https://reframingautism.org.au/Training with Monique Mitchelson - https://moniquemitchelson.com.au/373-2/Divergent Futures - https://www.divergentfutures.com/The Neurodivergent Woman podcast - https://moniquemitchelson.com.au/podcast/This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kCgVaRE_D7PUOp97VcNjfI_dSimtXIDtbHNsG7SIZT0/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 colonization. Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession

each episode. I'm your host, Jasmine Lupus, and today's guest is Monique, a dynamic and innovative social worker specialising in disability social work under the NDIS funding system. Monique provides therapeutic and capacity building services to the neurodivergent community and professional supervision and training through her private practice, Our Future Focus, in Brisbane. Manique is a passionate clinical supervisor, trainer and avid encourager of social workers who want to learn more about effective and evidence-based disability social work. Monique, thank you so much for meeting with me today for coming on to the podcast and sharing a little bit about your experience in social work so far.

Thank you. I'm so happy to be here and actually I was very honored to be asked, so I appreciate being thought of. Of course. I want to know firstly, when you. you got started in social work and what brought you to the profession? So I got started as a social worker right out of school. So I think I was 17 when I started studying my undergraduate, 17 or 18 when I started. So I did my four-year undergrad at QT. And then that was almost 20 years ago, which I feel so strange saying. When I say that to people, I feel like I still am 20.

but I'm 40 now, so we have to go with that. Yeah. So I started when I was young, and I think the reason why I got into social work really was just because of my experiences growing up and as a teenager. So, you know, I come from a family of neurodivergent people, or at the time we had a couple of neurodivergent people in the family. and I guess since then and on reflection, I can see that we have like a lot, lots and lots and lots of us in the family. And so I guess there was always this feeling that I had that I was like different to others and that I didn't quite belong.

And so I really had this sort of desire to help people and to support people. And so that's sort of where it came from. So I remember everyone was trying to pick what they were going to do, you know, in your 11 and 12, you know, what will you do when you grow up sort of conversations? And I remember just saying to my mum and dad, oh, look, I just really want to help people, but I don't want to be a doctor and deal with all the blood. So I wasn't going to go with medical,

and then that left, you know, a few choices. So then I sort of went down a little pathway from there. And I think initially I went with human services and then in the second year I switched over to social work. Yeah. And do you think that your experience as a young kid having that neurodivergent background, did you have access to or exposure to social workers? How do you think that influenced you?

No, well, I think that at the level, you know, in the way that most of the people in my family are, there are only a couple of us that had diagnoses at that time. And I think it was responded to really differently to now. and there was much more, like there's much less awareness around it. So, no, we didn't have any supports coming in. My brother was diagnosed when I was around. I think I would have been around eight or so. And at that time, I think he had some supports.

I remember there was like some people coming in from like relationships, Australia, but they were mainly doing work around family dynamics and maybe education with my parents around that time. But other than that, like, we really didn't have a lot of supports because it wasn't really available and part of it. It's not like now we have the NDIS, which is just an incredible support system for people who are autistic and other types of neurodivergences as well. So I think maybe potentially I had an exposure, but it wasn't something that was part of my life as such. I think growing up, my mum always said, if I could do something else with my life,

I'd be a counsellor. And I always remember her, you know, sort of saying that. but, you know, she still is not a counsellor and I don't think she will ever become. But, you know, potentially maybe that had an impact on it. Yeah. I spoke with two other lovely social workers who run a practice here in Sydney called Neurodivergent Edge. And so it's people with that background, those diagnoses running, developing, creating this program for people with neurodivergence. And it's so lovely seeing that it can be experience-led, peer-led, normalized, that there are more and more of these types of programs and projects coming up.

Because I think it helps create a bit less of a stigma and also access, greater access, greater awareness and just greater understanding of things in general. Yeah, I think that's a really important point that there's been a absolutely massive leap. forward in terms of people using their lived experience and being able to talk about their lived experience of being neurodivergent which has been led primarily by the adult autistic community and particularly by a lot of women who have been late diagnosed I guess always sitting in you know the similar position to me when I was young thinking I'm like I feel really different and like I don't belong here but you know not really understanding like why that is all

was and in my case I just always thought it was because you know we had this you know sort of quirky sort of family you know but I think it's that it's sort of like coming around to the idea that this is like a part a part of me and a part of my life and now only in the last like few years I think it's sort of a benefit to be able to talk about this and you know it's not shameful and it's not embarrassing and it's not any of those things that the reasons why I started social work because feeling different now it's sort of something to embrace and to say yeah you know different is good and different lots of people are saying things like ADHD as a superpower and all this sort of stuff so I think that those voices

particularly on social media and in the community are actually really important voices because those voices then give permission and make it okay for others to I guess to speak up and to sort of bring it into their work as a part of their identity and then be able to sort of support and help others through that sense of identity, that very strong sense of identity. Yeah. And what were your placements as you're finishing uni? Okay, so I did one at child safety and I did one at this small community disability organisation, a small to medium sized disability organisation. So both of my placements were case management placements. In the second placement, there was, you know, probably about 30% counseling, but it was like micro-counseling skills in the case management

role rather than sort of formal clinical work. Yeah, so those were my placements such a long time ago now. Yeah. And did those inform, do you think what you did when you started leaving and getting into the workforce? Or was it kind of like, I want to do something very different? They didn't. Well, I mean, I learned a lot. from them, but they didn't necessarily direct me. So the last placement that I did, I was actually working at that organisation as a disability support worker. And then I did my placement in sort of like the key worker role that they had at the time. So I already knew the organisation well. And once I'd finished the placement, they just promoted me into that role that I'd been doing for free on the

placement. Anyway, so in that way, I guess, yes, it did direct me. into work but I think I really wasn't in a really clear and good place when I was doing my undergraduate degree so I didn't really I was really young and I didn't know myself and I didn't know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to go so even when I was choosing like placements that wasn't really something that you know I wasn't saying I want to do my placement at Queensland health or I want to do my placement at this specific I just said oh just I'll do my place where I'll do my place wherever. So yeah, I think that sort of I was able to define that in terms of my purpose and where I was going as time went. Yeah. And what was your first roll out? So my first role out of my

bachelor's degree was the key worker role at this small to medium sized organization called Mamre Association. And it was honestly, it was the best placement, the best opportunity of and the best job and the best place to be for a young social worker because it was so progressive and it had so many forward thinkers in terms of people with disabilities and what people with disabilities should and shouldn't be included in and all this sort of stuff. So at that time, there was like a block funding model because it was pre-NDIS. And, you know, people really didn't have any choice about the supports that they needed to live. And so what this organization would do was that they would section off like really tiny packages of money.

And they were actually one of like this organization. And maybe there was a couple of other small ones doing similar where they'd allow families to self-direct funding for their person with a disability, meaning that it was sort of like a pre. It was like a prequel to the NDIS, what the NDIS ended up doing. And so I basically had my training ground in something that was actually going to be happening, you know, more than 10 years later. So I was really, really lucky to be in an organisation full of forward thinkers, full of people, you know, leaders in the sector, teaching me

and mentoring me really in the way of the future rather than in the ways of the past. Yeah, well. And where too from there? How did you know it was right to move on if it was such an exciting and interesting role? Well, I just had a one-year contract and at the end, end of the one-year contract, I wanted to go travelling. So I did that. And then when I came back, I already started my private practice. I'm almost certain. So I think, so I've had my private practice for like 12 years, I think now, maybe longer, but it's been very on and off, on and off, depending what I've been doing. And so what happened was when I got home, I was sort of like asking around like for jobs essentially.

Like I went back there and I went to a few other places and I was like, hey, I need a job, what are you doing? And at that time, I was connected with a lady called Catherine, who had sort of sectioned herself off from this, from this Mamre organisation. And she'd started this other small organisation, which was allowing families to self-direct and self-manage funding packages as well. And then she said to me, you know what families really need is someone like you, which was really supportive,

teaching support workers how to actually facilitate friendships and relationships for someone with, you know, a really big disability. So maybe with some behavioral challenges or with an intellectual disability or communication challenges. So people that would generally be sort of a challenge for the general community to be able to connect and become friends with this person. So they need a third party involved to support them in making those connections. So I said, okay, I'll do it. And so I just started a business. And that's how it started off. And then that, so I was working, it was really micro work in the beginning. So I was working one on one with people with disability and their family and then their support, paid support workers. And I was teaching them about, you know, how

do you facilitate friendships with people? What makes a good friendship? What makes a good relationship? And also, you know, what makes a good life for someone, for anyone? You know, what makes a good life and how are we actually progressing and moving this person towards a good life for them? Not just how are we taking care and looking after this person, but how are we actually giving them the good things in life, i.e., you know, relationships, family, friends, roles, employment, civic duties, etc, etc, etc. And then from there, I guess that gave me like a really good grounding and sort of foundation. And so from there, then I was getting contracted to provide these services and these lessons and teachings to organisations. So it sort of went into

this sort of like training model. I was still working directly with people as well. But then it was sort of at that organizational level and that consulting level. And so that happened pretty quickly within the first like couple of years. And then I think I did that full time for about five years. And after that five years, I was feeling really lonely and isolated in private practice because I'd been on my own for five years. And, you know, I was just missing having people around me. So I went back to part-time with the private practice or just back to some sort of light consulting now and then. And I took on a couple of other jobs.

I think I did a year as a senior housing worker for multicultural Australia, as they're called now. Back then, they were called something different. And that was a really interesting role where I learned a lot about working with migrants and working with interpreters and all that sort of stuff. And then I did a year as a project manager. for a mental health consumer-led organization. And then I went overseas for a couple of years

after I got married to my husband. And this whole time, I sort of kept the practice open, doing a little bit of consulting, some work on boards and things like that. And then, yeah, I came back in 2018 and I've been doing various things since then. But I've still got the practice open, and I'm full-time.

I went back to full-time private practice this year. after sort of thinking finally after all this time I'm probably now ready and old enough and experienced enough to go back into private practice full time without making the same mistakes as I did in those first five years and getting to a point where I felt like I was on an island alone so yeah now I do about 50% professional supervision and about 50% work with the neurodivergent community under an DIS yeah okay and do you find it hard to to keep that balance. Do you sometimes feel pressured to go in one direction more than the other?

Just in terms of balancing your time and your energy, if you say roughly 50-50, is that a conscious choice? Or is that something that has just happened by accident? And that's a nice balance. No, yeah, no, that just sort of happened by accident, because the supervision part of it, that was more just a need that arose. So I was providing, you know, services

and then I would come in contact with, with other social workers and they'd ask me for supervision or support or mentoring or whatever. And so then I just had one, then I had another, then I had another, and then all of a sudden it grew to about 50% of the caseload. Then I, you know, sort of thought, oh, well, this is now such a big part of what I'm doing. So I've sort of moved into doing some webinars, teaching people about NDIS and private practice and, you know, all the sort of intricate of those two areas. So it was just actually, yeah, I'm quite responsive in the practice. As you sort of heard when I was telling the story about what I used to do and then this

and then this and then this. Like every couple of years, the sort of focus of the practice really changes depending on what's happening for me personally, but also what the needs are for the people I'm working with. And at the moment, I'm just really feeling that I'm drawn to doing a lot of the supervision and training because I'm having like a really big impact on a lot more people by doing that. And I still sort of keep my feet in the ground by still seeing people one on one or one on families. But there, yeah, there just seems to be a big need for people to sort of being having these really deep conversations about how can we essentially provide values-based social work services to NDIS participants and people with disabilities and their

families rather than sort of these highly clinical and medicalized, you know, versions of services that we can provide if we want to, but that aren't 100% necessary for everyone and particularly for neurodivergent communities. And that responsiveness, I think, is so important just being able to adapt as new ideas come out, as new treatment options, new funding comes out. I feel like especially in private practice, if you're not on the ball in terms of what's available, you kind of get left behind. 100%. I think every year you've got to have like a professional development sort of plan and

goal and that's really important because it actually keeps you on track for making sure that you are providing your clients with the best practice, you know, techniques and things like that. But I also think that that's really important, particularly for me because I've got this ADHD brain. So I need things to be new and different and I need to, I'm really goal focused, right? So I've got to have things that keep me going. So every couple of years particularly, I'll have like a big goal that I want to sort of tick off and focus on. So an example is a few years ago, I decided it was going to be EMDR because I was doing loads of trauma work. And I needed some like extra tools in my toolbox to sort of work with that.

And so that took me like the better part, at least one year only focusing on learning that technique, like getting EMDR specific supervision, taking EMDR specific courses, only reading textbooks about EMDR, etc, etc, etc, etc. And just sort of really immersing myself in that sort of topic. And then for the second year, it was like almost a maintenance and consolidation learning of that technique. And so then during that two year period, I was sort of onboarding and taking on the on a lot of clients who, you know, that particular technique is useful for.

And then now I'm doing a lot less of that at the moment. Just because my focus is on something different. So, yeah, I do think that that's important too. I think the amount of focus you've been able to hold is incredible, given that that's what a lot of people struggle with, right? How do you manage it? I think I sort of have, well, what I've been learning about myself in the last few years, years is that this is like a strength of mine is that I can have this like absolute hyper focus

on particular things for sustained periods of time and that this is usually a good thing for me because the things that I get focused on are productive and useful things. I had a I had a client in here with me the other day and she's a young girl and she was talking with me about how, know she goes she doesn't like going to school because she gets frustrated at how much like useless stuff and sort of filler conversation topics that the teacher talks about and that the other kids talk about and all this stuff and I just said to her I was like you know what like this is going to be an absolute superpower for you when you're an adult and it's going to be so hard to get through the next few years but what's really important is just that you know this about yourself and that you can

sort of get yourself through the next few years and push through, then when you're an adult, you're going to be able to just focus on the things that you care about, that you're motivated towards and, you know, all this sort of stuff and then things become like a lot easier. And in my case, I am just like absolutely obsessed with social work. It's like my life, passion, everything that I do in work, I'm 100% passionate about it all the time. And if the passion is sort of waning and falling, then I'll just like, shift gears and I'll still be focused on that, but it's like in a slightly different way. And that's how I keep myself going and making sure that, you know, I'm making something

sustainable is that I'll always do it slightly differently. Like there's always another goal to get to and there's always like another thing to do and to learn and all of this stuff. And then I just really mold the practice and the people that I'm working with around those particular goals so that I can just keep doing that. Otherwise, you know, if I can't and if I have to do the same thing for the next five years, that'll be it for me. I'll just quit it and do something else.

Yeah, you're going to lose momentum. That's right, yeah. Yeah, you can't have like an unlimited amount of momentum. Like, okay, I'm just going to set this practice up 12 years ago and like do the same thing for 12 years. A lot of the time when I have social workers coming in for superiors, supervision who are feeling that way and they're like, I'm just really burnt out in my practice. I see a lot of private practitioners and I just don't know why and I don't want to do it anymore. And I talk to them about it and I say, well, you've been basically sitting in a room on your

own doing counseling sessions for six hours a day or eight hours a day for four years. And I said, I think anyone like would get tired from doing the same thing for four years by themselves and plus having to, you know, build the business structure and all these sorts of things. So we've got to find, you know, a goal for you for this year. And then, you know, as you're working towards that, you'll be getting more variety and difference and, you know, there's a challenge there for you. So yeah, for me, I understand that that's very important. But I honestly think that it's very important for a lot of people. It's not just go and go off and be a social worker. It's, you know, be a social worker with purpose and motivation.

Yeah. What do you find the most frustrating or challenging thing then about the work you're doing, whether it's just being a social worker or being a social worker with ADHD or being a private practitioner? What's really tough? What's really tough is the awareness of our profession and people not identifying and recognizing how useful a referral to a social worker can be. I think particularly for a client with a lot of like complexities and sort of overlapping challenges with lots of different sort of domains and areas that need someone's attention and focus and support. They need someone's support with that. I think social work is really the only profession that is trained to deal with that very effectively. And so I'm always busy in my practice and I keep myself sort of focused and busy. but I know that this affects a lot of social workers who are trying to work under the NDIS sort of

funding system. And it affects even in the health system and other areas, I think it's so hard to explain what we do because there's so many different areas of practice and there's so many different ways even within one area of practice of doing what we do, depending on how the person is and how they want to set that up. So it's the recognition and awareness of our profession and I think that's sometimes very difficult and frustrating and just finding ways of working around that. Yeah, because even when you were talking about the work you did when you first came back from overseas and I'm thinking to myself, you're describing social work training and capacity

so clearly in that work. So your ability to understand the systems and the influences and everything that's affecting this person and how we can work with that and help follow. to strengths and all of that. But how do you describe that to someone? It's really hard to be able to say, this is a great social work role because X, Y, Z. Do you find that's an issue?

Yeah, I think that, well, I can't speak for other professions, and I absolutely hate it when other professions try to speak for me. So I'll try to speak to social workers, sorry, I shouldn't say for me personally. So I'll try to stick from like just from the social work perspective and trying to explain ourselves. I think that social work is all about generally across all sectors. It's all about literally building up the person's capacity that you're working with in whatever way suits them and that they need that work to happen. So we've got our frameworks and our theories, our methods, our training, and all of that stuff.

And if you are an experienced social worker, you probably have a load of different training experiences, methods and blah, blah, from a lot of different areas. And then you take all of that with you into a room. So if you're going into for a counseling session, you're taking all of that in with you. And you may tell the client like different stories about,

you know, oh, one time this happened or that happened. And you know, those stories are not part of CBT or, EMDR, but some of those stories that you're sharing with the client or some of those experiences that you're talking through with them are actually going to be much more therapeutic than the official technique that you're going to be using with them throughout the counselling and the therapeutic process. What is it about social work that makes you perfect for that role, perhaps? What is it about your, not just you individually, but also professionally and how those two

kind of come together perfectly to make this person who has been. so wonderful in this role and being able to respond to people's needs so wonderfully? Well, I think for me, because I see every person, every individual person as a unique challenge in a way. And I absolutely had to learn to mask and change myself in different environments and I still need to do that today. And that's sort of being like a Carmelian was something that I had to learn from a very young age. So I understand that when a client comes into a room, that I don't really know which version of myself I'm going to have to be in order to get the result for the client. So in that way, this job is absolutely, this social work role is

absolutely perfect for me because I am a different, almost a different person with every single client that I see depending on what their interests are, what they like, what they dislike, their presentation and how they are. I know who I am now, which is good, but I'm able to use that to sort of morph and change as is required to get them the result that they need. Like I'll often joke to my clients and I'll say to them, you know, I'm famously a person with no hobbies because I absolutely love my work so much. But then every client, client that I have would probably have a different understanding of what my hobbies are because I've learned about so many different things like Pokemon or fishing or this or that or whatever

to sort of, you know, build that rapport with the client. So I know that's a bit of a complicated answer, but I think I'm in the perfect role because I have to use all the skills that I've ever known in order to, you know, support people to have their version of their own good life. And you said that you'd like to see a change over time in terms of awareness of the profession. How would we see that and what other changes do you think would be beneficial for us at this point? This is like such a good question. I admin a Facebook page that I started up just to combat loneliness in the profession called NDIS Social Workers. If anyone's listening to this and wants to join up, come on by and join us.

I've also got one on LinkedIn the same, but we're just growing that one up at the moment. I think we've got about 1,500 social workers in that group. And in that group, some of the key sources of discussion are about social work not being recognized by NDIS professionals, LACs, other allied health professionals, etc, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And there's two parts to that. One is that there's a lot of complaining about the AASW, which I don't necessarily, always agree with. I think that they've been doing a lot of good work over the last five years,

but we'd love to see some more focused work around NDIS in the coming year, which I believe they will be doing. And then the other part of it is that, so we need AASW to really get on board and in advocating for my area of practice at the moment, which is disability, social work. And then the other part of that is actually individual responsibility. So each social worker that works doing disability social work needs to be very, very clear on what their practice framework is and what services they're providing. Why this is a necessary service for the clients that they serve and support and be able to articulate that very, very clearly to everyone.

And that's every social worker's own individual responsibility. and it's very, very important. We also need to take individual responsibility for advocating directly to NDIS about what we do and how we do it in educating NDIA employees 100% and in educating other allied health professionals and we also need to take personal responsibility for feeding that back to the AASW.

What we've done, what we haven't done, what the challenges are. I don't think is acceptable just to sit there and complain about AASW and not participate in supporting them to build up and to have the necessary information and reflections and feedback in order to then do their section of the work. So yeah, it sits in two camps for me. One is bigger advocacy and the other is individual responsibility and advocacy sort of on that smaller level. Yeah. And in the same way, sitting here complaining about the NDIS is not going to fix anything either. And

I mean, I'm a very similar age to you where I remember Attic, which was our old disability support structure and how long it took for anything to happen. And I just think, stop complaining. You know, if you've got some feedback, something constructive, exactly talk to ASW, but also liaise directly with the NDIA, talk to people who are in positions to lobby to really get home the purpose and what we're trying to say in that we're not. looking for a complete restructure, we're just focusing on, based on what we've seen, these could be some really helpful changes. So just being really specific with that feedback and hopefully really constructive so that we see the changes that we're trying to with this population. Yeah, I 100% agree. In fact, I don't think that it's like worth complaining about anything. We just shouldn't be complaining. We should be advocating. There's a big difference between,

And, you know, everyone needs to have event sometimes, sure. Particularly if you come into a supervision session with me, you're allowed. You can have a vent. But, you know, it's like, okay, so you've had a vent, that's good. But, you know, what are we going to actually do about this? Because this is an issue that, you know, you're having in your practice. And we need to sort this out to make sure that we can minimize this. Like, at a minimum, we can minimize it from happening again.

And when we're going up against these big systems, it's like we're not just doing social work in between our client and the systems that they're accessing, we're actually like having to do social work for ourselves. And if you're not prepared to do it for yourself, then, you know, you're not practicing well and you're not modelling well for the work with the clients. Yeah. And even what you've created with this collective activism in a sense of that's the power, I think, is having enough people behind it with collective thinking and being able to say, I've got an idea. I don't know how to, and just link them up, network. talk to someone who has the understanding of how they can actually put that in practice or

connect it to the right person in the right place. Yeah, yeah. So even something informal, like a Facebook group with, you know, 1,500 people, that's huge, probably started quite small and then developed quite rapidly as people learned that there was this support around. But, yeah, I think the more that we can find similarities in our work, even if we're doing very different work, the more cohesive we can. be as a profession. Yeah, I agree. It's really important that we don't just work in, you know, silos.

And again, you know, that comes from my experience of feeling isolated in private practice and feeling isolated in my ideas. Well, I still feel I'm hoping my ideas are still progressive. But certainly 12 years ago, my ideas that I was trying to get out there and to teach people and to connect with people on were very, very progressive for people with disabilities at that time, which sounds ludicrous because it's just so stock standard now, which is a great thing. Like, we've come a really long way. But it's, yeah, it's that idea that if you're doing some really good work, why aren't you sharing that with others? Like other people need to hear about this, they need to know. In fact, I'll just mention this. I've just invited five social workers that I know to make a little

video, just a little short interview with me and I'm going to video it over Zoom or I don't know, I haven't worked out how I'm going to do that yet. And then, you know, just for sharing. It's just a little video like a minute long, just sort of saying what they do under the NDIS funding scheme and just to get those ideas and those sort of, you know, service types out there just to say, look at all these wonderful things that social workers are doing under this funding system. Isn't it fantastic? Isn't it great? Isn't it innovative? And isn't it aggressive, all the things that people are coming up with. It's not just, okay, let's like come across

from mental health land over to disability land and provide mental health services under a different funding system. It's actually, there are all these really cool like consent and body safety, looking at LGBTQI plus communities under the scheme. And you know, there's a lot of life planning and what makes a good life and all this sort of stuff.

Some of these things are like services that people have developed, just doing that and it's really cool. Yeah. And I think video is such a really accessible, wonderful way to showcase that. And I'm a very visual learner. So I'm even thinking on your website, you can have like little circles and each circle represents a different kind of NDIS social worker and what their strength is and why you would refer to that one and not this one. But yeah, we don't showcase ourselves enough. So I think the more we can do that, definitely the better in a variety of ways to make things more accessible.

Yeah. We definitely don't showcase ourselves enough. And it's a big problem. And that's what's led to some of this frustration around the awareness of our profession, not just under NDIS, but under like a bunch of different funding system. Someone was arguing in a written conversation the other day that social workers shouldn't be doing any therapeutic work, but it'd be great if they were helping people out with housing. And I thought to myself, well, that's a very old view of the profession, isn't it? Someone who gets someone housing or who helps out at child safety. So, you know, it's everyone's responsibility and you can say I don't want the responsibility and that's fine, but if you don't take it up, things won't change. Yeah, exactly. I know that you're a social worker 100% of the time. You care so much.

How do you sustain that? What support do you need in order for that to be something that you can continue doing longer term? All right. So, I am really, really big on knowing that I'm not good at everything. In fact, I'm not good at a lot of things. And I am very, very clear with myself about what I'm good at and what I'm not good at. So I have adequate and correct supports around me to take every single administration task off me. As many of them as possible, there are some things of course that I have to do for myself.

but any attention to detailed task, any task that requires it's going to take a really long time to do it and it's going to have to be done in like several sections. I just know I'm going to do the first two sections and then like come back to doing the last two sections in three years from now. So I know myself really, really well. So I think that's really important is just knowing what you're good at, knowing what you're not good at, knowing what you like, knowing what you're motivated towards and what you're not motivated towards. And then anything that fits in sort of the other category that you just know it's going to be a struggle for you, finding a way to make that easier. If you work for someone else, like, I'm lucky I work for myself so I can hire, you know,

a practice manager and a bookkeeper and, you know, these sorts of people to help me out with things. But if you work for someone else, I think it's just finding ways of getting the tasks done that you need to get done at work, but making sure that, you know, you've prioritised them in a particular way so that everything is easier for you, you know, getting everything organized and getting your ducks in a row. But otherwise, I've got a really wonderful husband and two kids who can't say the kids make life any easier. But yeah, you've got to be like with yourself about what's possible and what's manageable at different times in your life, I think. Mm-hmm. And you said you lived over.

I think I saw that you were bilingual. Does that ever get to come into the work that you do? So my husband is Brazilian and after we got married, we went to live in Brazil for a couple of the years. So I can speak Portuguese and English. I'm also with an intermediate level in Oslan because I work with deaf people when the opportunity arises and provide supervision for deaf social workers. But I don't sign with them because I have. I feel, you know, you need an interpreter level for like a social work service level of communication requires an interpret. I'm not just with my sort of social Oslan that I have.

Yeah. And unfortunately, no, I'm yet to get a Brazilian client. So I haven't been able to use my Portuguese yet. But I do still work with deaf NDIS participants and deaf supervisors. And so I get to use those skills, you know, now and then. That's very cool. And I'm just going to picture in my head whether it happened or not, a beautiful love actually scene with Aurelia and Jamie.

And it all happened just like that in a restaurant and it was amazing and romantic. So yeah. Do you be meeting my husband? Yeah. Yeah. It actually was pretty romantic. We met one, not romantic as such, but it was like pretty funny, stereotypical way of meeting each other. Because we met at salsa dancing here in Brisbane.

And so he's Latin. So I mean, that's pretty, you know, that's pretty funny. Yeah, cool. And are your kids bilingual as well? No, they're not. My husband, I gave my husband that responsibility of teaching them Portuguese, but he hasn't taken me up on that. And so my daughter was born in Brazil,

and my son was conceived in Brazil, but came back in my tummy. So her first language is Portuguese, but she's lost all of that now. Now she's just speaking English. and same for my son. So recently we went back to Brazil on a holiday and I was hoping that they would you know pick some up again but I think you know it'll need a bit more intentional work than just a month's holiday. Yeah that's fair. Yeah my parents unfortunately spoke Greek at home when they didn't want us to understand what was going on. So yeah we unfortunately didn't pick it up and we didn't grow up with the Greek grandparents or the cousins they all sort of lived in one area of Sydney and

and we grew up in another. So we'd see them very infrequently and not really have the opportunity to practice. So maybe your kids will be interested in picking it up. And that'd be nice too. Yeah, yeah. I think my daughter's really interested in she. It's actually really interesting to see like identity development in action with kids because my mom is from the Netherlands and my dad is from Australia and I always grew up with this sort of idea that you know oh I'm Dutch you know because I'm so tall and blonde and you know that sort of thing and Dutch people you know we can put down my personality to like either being Dutch or being neurodivergent I'm not sure which one so before I learned that I was neurodivergent I would always just say oh I'm just like a

Dutch person I'm like very blunt I'm very direct blah blah but anyway now I say oh like I understand now because that's because I've ADHD. But yeah, anyway, the point of that was that now my daughter, she's with, you know, the Australian mum and the Brazilian dad. And it's really interesting to see because she was born there in Brazil. So she's really got this strong sense of identity that she's a Brazilian person. Whereas my son is just like, no, I'm not Brazilian. I'm Australian because he doesn't like the food and he wasn't born there and all this sort of stuff. So it's been really interesting to see like how early on that sort of sense of identity really forms in in a child and so that's even you know a huge part of like who i am now is and those learnings that come

when you know you have kids and they teach you so much about yourself and i'm sure you'll see that evolve over time there'll probably be times where your daughter doesn't want to associate and that's cool too yeah yeah yeah it'll be cool whatever she does yeah Would you ever work overseas, do you think? Is that of interest? No, I wouldn't go overseas. When I did live in Brazil, I worked in a university. I actually went there to teach, I got invited there to teach English, but then they employed me as the professor of English and social work. But then, you know, because I was only there for a year, I didn't get to the social work side of it. Right. But yeah, so I did actually work in social work while I was there, technically,

technically although it was more of a break from social work than it was working in it. Yeah. So yeah, after that experience, I don't think I would live overseas again. I think that we have a pretty amazing place to live here. And so, yeah, I think unless like an opportunity present itself that I couldn't say no to, I think I'll keep my feet firmly living here. Yeah. Are there any programs or projects that are coming up for you that you want to?

like to shout out? Okay, what am I working on? Let me think. What are you not working on? It's probably a better place to start. I'm working on a series of webinars for next year about NDIS. Some of them will be about NDIS social work and some of the things that we do. Some of the things that I'm working on will be for all allied health professionals. So one of the things that I was feeling really frustrated within the second half of this year was the amount that NDIS reports cost. They cost a lot to write. They cost the IAS participants a lot of money. And often the reports are not good and they don't get the person a result. Sometimes people are spending, you know, upwards of like six to ten thousand dollars on reports every year and the reports just aren't good.

So, you know, I've written this report writing webinar that I presented about three or four weeks ago, maybe. And I think I will continue to present that and continue adding to it and expanding on it over the next year. Probably, you know, at least three or four times I'll do that again next year for the reason that I just really want to see people with disabilities being well supported by adequate professionals and providing them with, you know, good information so that they can just get on with their lives. and we know what we're doing. I'll do some webinars and some teaching online workshops around NDIS social work and private practice and these sorts of topics. And I think next year, if people keep their eye on my website or in the Facebook group if they want to join, there'll be a range of different training opportunities that I'll

put out there. And on my social media, of course, the little video is an inspiration about all the different wonderful things that social workers are doing. So if people keep their eye on my social media and my website, you'll see some training opportunities, webinars and the like, coming out around NDIS social work, NDIS practice, report writing, etc, etc. And I've developed all of these resources, you know, because I want to see people with disabilities leaving good lives and having adequate supports and not having to sort of, I guess, educate the professional people that are working with them. and these opportunities are, you know, very affordable and easy and practical. And, you know, just if anyone wants to know more, just to follow me on my business name is Our Future Focus. And you can find me on Facebook and Instagram and all the places and my website, www.

OurFutureFocus.com.com. Amazing. I feel like some of the stuff you're doing would lend itself really well to conference presentation. as well, if you've got sort of a case study or an example of something that's worked really well or even just an initiative that you're working on, I feel like that's a good forum as well. Yeah, I think it would be. I've never been invited to speak at a conference, but if the opportunity was presented to me, I'm sure that that would be a really great way of getting my message out there. I'll put links to everything that you've mentioned in the show notes so people can go off and

connect, but are there any other resources that you wanted to shout out that I can perhaps link people to? You know what? A lot of people ask me about how they can learn about neurodivergence and being a neurodivergent affirming practitioner. So I'd like to just give a shout out to some autistic led PD and not that all neurodivergence is just about autism, but it seems to be that a lot of the neurodivergent-led PD is from adult autistic people. So we can look at reframing autism, which is an organization, autistic-led organization that's coming out with a lot of great training opportunities. And we also have a series of webinars by a psychologist called Monique Mitchelson.

She does some great training opportunities and runs a couple of fantastic businesses, Divergent Futures, and she also has a podcast, the Neurodivergent Woman podcast, which is fantastic. So I always recommend her stuff too. So I think that those are probably some really key areas of practice that people are wanting to upskill in at the moment. And so those are a couple of places you can go to find adequate resources on that. Excellent.

And before we finish up, Monique, I'm conscious of time, and I could chat with you forever about this, but is there anything that we haven't mentioned or anything you really wanted to say about the work you do social work in general. I just want to leave everyone with the message that disability social work can be so many different things and if you feel passionately enough and can identify an area of practice or a need in a particular community then you know go ahead use your creativity use your innovation use your passion to

you know develop a service that can be provided to that community and there's just so many wonderful and innovative things that people can do if they've got the motivations and the passion in the right place. So, you know, don't be afraid and, you know, good things will happen. Again, thank you so much for this opportunity to meet with you. And I think you've demonstrated your willingness to help people to highlight the differences. So instead of creating a contrast, you've celebrated someone's abilities and strengths. And backwards, when you were studying, you were working in the sector while you were studying, which I think is such a valuable way of building experience and networking

and eventually landing you a professional role. You had great leadership and mentorship at that time in your placements and then in that early role, which was so important. But you've been able to kind of, it seems, at least from this perspective, organically grow and create a direction and movement over time in a way that suits you and in a way that adapts to the changing culture or cohort that you look after or policy or even funding that's available for people. So you've really been able to build on your social work training and skills and experience to build capacity for other people,

help other people to build their own capacity in a way that suits them. So yeah, I love the way that you're just empowering other social workers to develop and advocate for themselves and others. I really look forward to seeing how that grows more. And I'm definitely going to join the Facebook page. So thank you for shouting that out. Even though I don't work in the NDIS space, I work in disability. And I think, yeah, the more, the merrier with this sort of stuff.

100%. Thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity and for having me on. It's been my absolute pleasure. Thanks, Monique. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Monique,

please visit my anchor page at anchor. 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 Dean, a dedicated and compassionate counselor who specializes in client-centered therapies for both individuals and couples. Dean is a social worker with additional training in nursing,

mental health and addiction, as well as being an accredited mental health social worker. Dean specializes in anxiety, depression and addiction, with a talent for helping clients quit smoking, drinking and other substances. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notify when this next episode is available. See you next time.