Social Work Spotlight - Episode 11: David

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

In this episode, David and I discuss his commitment to working to create better lives for people on the move and the communities that host them. He is the co-founder of HOST International, established in 2016 and now operating in 5 countries in the Asia Pacific, and he is also running for the role of National President of the AASW this year. David has held Senior Executive roles in the refugee and settlement sector since 2011, prior to which he was a tertiary educator and vocational trainer and spent nearly a decade working as a qualified social worker where he specialised in helping young people and families to break generational cycles of disadvantage.Learn more about David and his AASW National Presidency campaign:* David’s campaign website with links to social media and info about work history and campaign issues - https://www.davidkeegan.online* David’s LinkedIn Profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-keegan/Some links to information about working in the international migration space:* A 30 min video presentation on David’s social entrepreneurial mindset model (Curiosity, Courage and Capability) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJy59gp4Rfs&feature=youtu.be* A recent presentation at the IFSW conference on the practice approach David mentions in the interview regarding addressing the intersection between external stressors and internal capabilities - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJy59gp4Rfs&feature=youtu.be* HOST International - www.hostinternational.org.au* Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network - https://aprrn.info* The latest news and information regarding international migration, human rights and refugees - https://www.refworld.org* Australian Council for International Development - https://acfid.asn.au* Refugee Council of Australia - https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au* AASW Scope of Social Work Practice with Refugees and Asylum Seekers - https://www.aasw.asn.au/document/item/8529This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/15DZzVUyjcgpRj0F6vn86R8YrfVn7Vxqa/view?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode. I'm your host Yasmin McKee Wright and today's guest is David Keegan. David has a passion for doing things differently and supporting others to bring their ideas to life. He is committed to working to create better lives for people on the move and the communities that host them. He is also running for the role of National President of the ASW this year. David is a social worker and co-founder of Host International, established in 2016 and now operating in five countries in the Asia Pacific. He has held senior executive roles in the refugee and settlement sector since 2011 and has been responsible for group budgets in excess of $50 million Australian. Prior to that, he was a tertiary educator and vocational trainer, where he specialised in helping young people and families to break generational cycles.

of disadvantage. David has a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Sydney and a master's in community management from the University of Technology. He recently completed a professional certificate in strategic migration management in London and he is an accredited executive coach. Thank you so much, David, for coming on to the podcast. It's a pleasure having you here. No problem. Thank you for having me. Can I start by asking when you began your social work career and what interested you in this profession? Look, I finished my social work degree in 1999, so just over 20 years ago now. Look, there was no one particular thing that got me interested in social work other than that I guess when I was at school, in I guess high school, when you have to make decisions about career,

I guess what, at that age, I kind of realized that there was disadvantage around and I really didn't like the idea of people being stuck in the situations I're born into or being disadvantaged by things that were happening in society. I didn't really understand it at the time, but I knew that I got a lot out of getting alongside people and helping them to work through issues and helping them to participate fully in society. And so social work was something that appealed to me

and was where I ended up. And what steps have led you to this point in your career? I know that there are quite a few. Yeah. There seems to be quite a rich history there and a real diversity of experience, which I think people would benefit from hearing about. Yeah, look, I think there's a couple of principles that have guided my career, and they are, one in particular is that I give everything a go.

So I remember starting out as a social worker being really gung-ho about getting into the thick of it, and I started out in child protection and really took on the challenge of that as a statutory child protection worker. But I very quickly learnt that there was a lot to be learnt about statutory social work. And I would say that in the three years I did that, I'd probably learnt nearly 10 years worth of. of skills. But first principle was give everything a go. And I think throughout my career, I've ended up having different experiences because I haven't been afraid to step in and have a go. The other principle is that I refuse to believe that anything is impossible. And so throw me a problem and I'm determined to try and deal with it. And so I think as a social worker, I constantly find examples of disadvantage or injustice and I want to try and do something

about it. And so I haven't particularly, I didn't start out as a social worker thinking I would end up working in the refugee or international protection space, but I have found myself in situations where I've had opportunities to make an impact and I've chosen to respond to them. So, I mean, I guess roughly as a trajectory, I started out in child protection, as I said, as part of that went over to live in Scotland for about a year doing work in child protection there, came back to Australia, got involved in homelessness and as part of doing various roles in homelessness, particularly young, I got a bit involved in youth advocacy and setting up campaigns around raising awareness for youth homelessness in New South Wales in particular and worked for the national peak body of

youth homelessness in New South Wales called Wife Foundations. Then I kind of found myself working at a Catholic NGO supporting a variety of programs including juvenile justice post-release, drug and alcohol programs, homelessness programs, family reunification programs in Western Sydney, where I really sort of started to get involved in management leadership roles and becoming interested in how leadership roles can influence outcomes for people in the community. Yeah, and then I fell into some private practice where I did sort of consulting, became a mental first aid instructor, ended up doing a bit of teaching at TAFE and university, and then actually through that I ended up having an opportunity.

to work with a settlement agency in Sydney doing some training as they were starting to ramp up settlement work and I ended up being invited to stay and found myself running a very large resettlement program in Sydney where I also came to be involved in supporting people being released from detention who had arrived in Australia by boat and then naturally that got me interested in what was happening with offshore processing and I had opportunities to go work in that space and then here I am having started an international NGO really trying to make a difference for for refugees and asylum seekers both on their journey towards protection but also after they've arrived in a place like Australia. So that's a very quick overview of what's been a very mixed career. Yeah it sounds as

though there's been quite an organic development though of the career. So you've gotten interested in something through something else that you've been exposed to, and that's then enabled you to explore that interest that you've got and use the skills that came before that. Yeah, and I think I've naturally got an inquisitive mind, and I'm very curious about things, and so I can't help but go looking for problems to solve, I think, is the issue. And do you still give training on mental health first aid? No, I've run out of time to be able to do that with my current work, so I'm no longer accredited to run that but I think it's a great program and would encourage people to look into it.

For anyone who doesn't know, obviously it can be children and adults and also delivered electronically these days, but can you give a brief rundown on what that program involves? Yeah, look, mental health first aid really came about from a need to help people to understand how to be first responders in relation to mental health. and the person who created it was really aware that there's first aid for physical problems, but there's no real help in the community for people who are developing a mental health problem or experiencing a mental health crisis. So mental health first aid was really, like normal first aid,

a program aimed to help people in a first response capacity to help people who are experiencing a variety of mental health problems to access support and connect to emergency services where there's a crisis. And it covers the four main types of, mental health, which are depression and anxiety, psychosis and drug and alcohol dependency. And it's a two-day program and you get a certificate at the end if you do a short assessment. And yeah, I think it really well prepares people to respond to mental health crises such as psychosis and suicide and panic attacks and severe depression and all those sorts of things that

sometimes can be a bit scary. And I remember as a social worker finding the program really helpful myself, which is partly why I went on to be a trainer because I thought even though I'd get taught about mental health at university, we didn't really learn some of those crisis skills of what to do when you're faced with some of these things. It sounds like it ties in really nicely with your desire to help young people and families breaking those generational cycles because a lot of that is about education and just informing people and raising awareness of things to look out for. So that kind of makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I'm a big believer in giving people's skills and tools and in helping them to apply them in helping themselves.

Yeah. What is your current role? You've alluded to the international organization, the NGO, but what's your current role and what might a typical day look like for you? So I'm the CEO and the founder of a organization called Host International. We started just over three and a half years ago with a desire to try and make a difference to the many refugees. in this world that are waiting for a settlement outcome. And so really my work in the settlement space in Australia I've really become aware that I think the percentage is now

less than half a percent of the world's refugees are able to access resettlement placements every year. So the vast majority of the nearly 80 million displaced people in the world actually will never see resettlement. And yet most of the world's resources associated with refugees are actually centered around conflict zones or immediate assistance in conflict, escape or in the resettlement. But there's very little support actually in that middle zone where

people often wait for many years waiting for an outcome. And so I really wanted to create an organization, particularly in the Asia Pacific region, that could help people who are stuck waiting in those zones and to help them to have a more positive and hopeful outlook. And so we've now built an organization that works in five countries, so in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand. A typical day for me involves lots of meetings and networking with people in various countries that we operate. I'm still quite involved in settlement and migration networks in Australia. But a lot of our work is centered around trying to come up with innovative solutions to the temporary protection needs or the protection needs of people who are waiting for protection.

So that includes, you know, some of our work at the moment is trying to train government officials in Thailand about the benefits of community-based protection as an alternative to detention. We're trying to do some research on enabling factors for well-being for refugees that are in these long-term displacement zones. So how do we help people to cope better in those times where they don't know what the future will look like? And we're also doing some really interesting work in Malaysia with the Rohingya community around developing child protection capacity and trying to manage issues like underage marriage

and child exploitation. and doing some of that work with UNICEF, which is really interesting. And I guess in Australia and New Zealand, we're trying to champion community inclusion. And I guess part of the reason we called ourselves host international is because we really wanted to bring an emphasis on host communities and refugees or migrants working together on solutions. It's interesting because some of those countries probably don't have a scope of practice or even support set up.

Like they might see child protection as a very, very different thing. So you would then be bringing in things like definitions from human rights declarations, that sort of thing. And using that to guide your practice, I assume. Yeah, one of the challenges actually as an Australian or westerner type person coming into these areas or these countries is there's often a perception that NGOs or these more wealthy countries are sort of banging people on the head with human rights, principles and a lot of the response from some of the particularly the Southeast Asian countries is, well, we're very different in culture. You know, you can't tell us how to do things. And it actually reminds me of an interview you did with Sarah where she talked about privilege. And, you know, I'm often very aware of the privilege we have and being mindful of not imposing our judgment onto

other people. So one of the ways we try to work is to come into a place and ask the local officials and community groups, what are the things you need and how can we support you to achieve those outcomes? And often it's a conversation about how do we treat people more decently and more humanly than it is about what particularly human rights are. So we work very much within a human rights framework, but we're very cautious about how we use that language sometimes because of those perceptions of, you know, Western privilege or colonialisation or whatever you want to call it. But those things are quite important to us because what we want to do is see ourselves as facilitating an outcome for all people, not just making an advocacy statement.

Yeah. In a pre-COVID world, how do you network with these people internationally? Because you'd be trying to outreach to places that probably wouldn't have access to some of the technology that would enable that to happen a bit more easily. Do you get the opportunity to travel normally? Yeah, so normally my workload does involve a lot of travel. So it's been quite strange during COVID to be stuck at home, although I've enjoyed it. Yeah, look, typically I would spend about a week out of every month traveling, whether that be locally or overseas.

So it has been quite burdensome. Part of that's because there's always more to be gained from face-to-face contact with, particularly with people with profile or government officials. But I think as COVID has come on, it's been a lot of people have converted to online. So it would be interesting to see what the future looks like with that. But yeah, typically my normal routine would involve going to regional roundtables, to forums, to high-level stakeholder meetings or to advocacy groups. You know, we're quite involved in a lot of regional networking activities.

But we also have operations in Australia that are in Sydney, Canberra and Adelaide. So there's a bit of travel interstate as well. And obviously trying to work with the migration space in Australia. There are people located all over the place here as well. So, yeah, it has been quite a lot of travel. But during COVID, we've been able to maintain a lot of that networking. I guess we've also put a lot of effort in the last few years to build a local team in each country. So we do have local staff on the ground.

And it's quite important to us that our projects are locally run where possible. So that's really helped a lot as well. What would you say is most challenging about the work that you do? There are lots of challenges in the work that I do. Working in migration and refugee space is extremely frustrating. And again, I think Sarah talked about this. It's very frustrating because the dominant narrative globally is very similar to what we've seen in Australia.

And unfortunately, Australia has probably led the way in showing a level of arrogance around, treating people from a punishment perspective as a way of managing borders. And Australia has obtained credibility for that internationally. I think what's frustrating, though, is that there's not a lot of logic behind that, and there's not a lot of evidence to support it, but it's perceived to be successful. And so in our work, we're trying to get in between that and say,

this is not a binary discussion. You don't have to be mean to people to get tough on borders. And there's actually a lot of evidence to support that non-punishment-based approaches actually produce high levels of compliance. And one of our roles is to try and educate officials of that evidence and to try and get demonstration projects up that actually prove that compliance can be achieved in a way that's treating people with decency. And so we've done exactly that in Thailand,

where we've piloted a program with the government there that's essentially about releasing mothers and their children from detention and demonstrating that they will still turn up to monthly bail check-ins. They will participate in the immigration requirements. But in exchange, they get a level of autonomy and safety within the community. Now they still struggle with how to live day today because they've got no access to income, no legal rights. But what we're trying to demonstrate there is that people don't need to be in prison when they're there for legitimate refugee causes.

And these are the kind of things we're trying to promote across all of our work. What do you think is your favourite part? What do you love most about your job? I love being able to create stuff. So I think one of the things I love about being a manager is being able to think creatively about how to problem solve and I love being able to engage communities at a grassroots level in those solutions. So I'm a big believer that it's not my job to come up with the solutions.

It's my job to engage the people affected by the problem to be part of that solution. And so I'm a big advocate for grassroots enabling. And it sounds like that's a social work 101 thing, but I think it's very difficult to do in practice. And even, you know, as someone who's committed to that, I find that I have to keep reminding my team that it's not our job to go in and come up with the answer. It's our job to go and engage people about what the problem is

and what they think they can do about it and then to help them to do it. So I love being able to do that work and to motivate people to do. that work and to, I think to have a impact on the lives of many of these people that have already come from unfortunate situations and have an uncertain future, we see ourselves as having a role in helping those people to have a more hopeful outlook and to, I guess, believe that their future can be better. I would imagine as someone who gains a lot of energy from problem solving, your type of work would really encompass every kind of social work. So you would come across little bits of everything and everything you do.

So there is family work, there's mental health work, there's trauma, there's health, community development, research, advocacy, policy. I can't think of anything else, but that's pretty much social work. Like what you're doing is getting your teeth sunk into quite deeply. and enabling people to really be part of this problem solving and take them along with you. But there are very few positions, very few sectors where I think you get to say,

yes, I do all of these aspects of social work in one day. I think it's really unique. Yeah, it's interesting that you put it like that. Sometimes I don't think of myself as a social worker, but actually in recent times, I'm becoming much more convinced that I still am very much a social worker in that what I'm still about is trying to influence structural causes of disadvantage. And what I love about social work and I think what has kept me going in the career is that intersection between individual well-being and community inclusion or the broader structures that create disadvantage. And what I love about my current role is that I'm able to have an impact on both those levels.

Now, I don't, admittedly, don't do a lot of the, I don't do any work with individuals around helping their individual situation. But I know that the work that we do and the people that we employ have a significant impact on people's well-being and their outlook on life. And so, yeah, I definitely think social work very much informs how we operate and how I see my role day to day. And it's the same that more social workers don't see management or leadership as a pathway for doing social work. What changes do you think you've seen over time in social work in this area, whether for better or for worse? That's an interesting question. Look, I don't think there's enough social work in this space. Actually, one of the reasons I got involved with the association of social workers was because I was struggling to see why there's not more social workers involved in refugee and migration work.

because really social workers bring what you need in a refugee space. The refugee work is very intersectional. You've got these legal and social political factors that influence people's individual outcomes, but you've also got the individual impact of trauma. You've got, so people need that one-to-one support, but they also need the structural view. And I think social workers, you know, I've employed lots and lots of people, hundreds of people in this sector and hand on heart

I believe social workers bring a much more mature and critically reflective approach to this work that's not to say that other professions don't make a valuable contribution but I think, you know, in answer to your question obviously in the last 10 years I've been involved in the refugee migration space there's been a massive turn towards conservative politics

and broadly draconian practice around punishing refugees and border control and all those sorts of language. But I also think that the sector has struggled to maintain a strong voice in that space. And I think what I'm really interested in is how social workers in particular can create a credible voice around this narrative of finding another way to work with people. And unfortunately, the Australian government's not willing to listen to a human rights argument. but they are willing to, I believe, listen to alternatives that enable tough border protection but treatment of people with decency.

Now, unfortunately, that's very difficult in a compulsory detention regime and when you've still got people in offshore detention. But what I'd like to see going forward is that we can have a much more influential voice in that space. So I don't know if that answers your question quite, but I think, you know, in summary, over time, there's been a downturn in the way people are treated. I'm interested then you've said all these other hundreds of people that have been employed in this sector. What are their qualifications?

What's their experience that makes them suitable for this in addition to or differently to a social worker? Yeah, look, I mean, I was running programs here in Australia when there were roughly 100 people a day arriving by boat into our country. And the detention centres were full and they're releasing people into the community. So we were employing 10 to 15 people a week at one point. And it was just insane. And so we were having to recruit anybody who had remotely a welfare qualification. But I remember the number of social workers that applied was just much lower than I thought. You know, as I said, I was surprised by that.

But look, we had applications from people with international development qualifications. We had lawyers. We had just general TAFE or other sort of three-year degrees from university. we had people from unrelated sectors who maybe had some volunteering or community sector experience but predominantly the requirements in that organisation at the time where people had some case management experience. But what I found fascinating was the variety of people

who thought they could do case management or thought they understood case management. And one example was, no disrespect to lawyers, but there are a number of people with legal backgrounds who believe that they were capable of doing case management. but, you know, I tended to disagree with that. And I think what the consequence of that, in my view, was that what you got was people who did what's called functional case management

or task-based case management. So they did work that was about, okay, I'm going to tick a bunch of boxes that I have to do, and I'll move on to the next person. Whereas what I wanted and what I believe social workers can bring as a more holistic view to that person. So contractually, we may only have to deliver four outcomes, but actually this person has a whole range of needs

that they need support with. And what I was looking for was people that could support refugees to be connected to a broader social system of support rather than just dependent on our support. And I think that very much plays into the work I currently do in that, you know, I'm looking to try and build an organisation that's not just about working with individuals on their immediate needs. It's actually about trying to support communities to have sustainable outcomes.

And, you know, in practice that means giving people tools and resources and the capacity to act in their own right. So I often talk about international protection is not just about providing people with resettlement. It's actually about giving people skills to self-protect. It sounds then from what you're saying, you feel social work is well suited to this field because of our understanding of the systems, the context that people find themselves in,

our understanding of existing and emerging trends or themes and respect for individuals and communities and their value and the value of diversity as well. I also wanted to mention you said you were part of quite a few committees, but also you do a lot of collaboration and education. So what is your goal in terms of education and facilitating some of that ongoing? I know you have a small grants program as well, but where do you see social workers really making a difference in this field going forward?

In the international protection space, We've got a system that's been built around post-World war refugee situations where it was really about trying to protect people who had been displaced as a result of war. And over time, UNHCR and other mechanisms for protection have tried to support what has been a growing number of international conflicts and have ended up providing programs that essentially have centered around camp-based systems. But unfortunately, camps end up being quite restrictive on people's independence because essentially people get stuck in those camps for long periods of time. And so people in the Thai-Burma border from Myanmar have been there for over 30 years, some of them. And so it's very difficult to create an end to that without resettlement. But what's happening more and more is that refugees are finding themselves living in urban

communities in cities like Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, and various countries around the world. and they're not necessarily part of a UNHCR protection system. And so often these people are without legal status, which means no work rights, no income, no welfare protection. What those people need is to be able to survive for long periods while they wait for resettlement. And in those situations, there's no one organisation or any amount of money that can actually provide a proper protection system in the way that we'd like it to

because there's just too many refugees. So 80 million people is about 1% of the world's population. And so I think what social work is about, in my view, is about helping individuals to access the resources and tools that they need within the context that they're in to be able to be more self-active or empowered. And so social work, I think, has the ability to help an individual to work through their cognitive and psychological needs so that they can manage their experience with trauma, manage their future outlook.

but also help them to respond to what's happening in their environment. So in our organisation, we talk about needing to work on two axes, one being external stresses, so stresses that are happening in their environment. So this can be their legal status, their insecurity, their uncertainty, or triggers for previous trauma, whatever it might be. And then the other axis is internal capabilities or, you know, what are my cognitive and psychological capabilities that help me to get up every day and keep going with what I'm doing.

And so social work from my perspective, I mean, for me, I can't separate the social way and the individual. And so I guess I'm fairly biased because of that. But I think in this context and in many contexts, we need to be able to, and particularly in a refugee space, I think because they find themselves in these strange communities having fled crisis, but with big individual needs, we need social workers who can help people navigate those spaces.

And I think, you know, in reference to the, partnerships and the grants and so on. I think one of the things we notice though is that the most effective people at being able to work that out sometimes are local people who understand where to find local things, local resources, understand how to navigate the systems. And so we have a little small grants program which really tries to support grassroots community organizations that are trying to work on these issues by giving very small amount of money in our terms but often means a lot in those countries where the Australian dollar goes a lot further. And it's just part of an overall approach of trying to create programs

that are not dependent on us as an international provider, but are supporting local actors. And you're the New South Wales President of the ASW branch. You're running for national president. Can you tell me about your goals and focus of that candidature and how people might get involved? Sure. Yeah, look, I've been the New South Wales branch,

president since 2017, so about three years now. And I think I mentioned before, I got involved in the ASW because I was really passionate about, I really felt social workers could be more vocal in this space. And then as I got to know the organisation, I realized that there's a lot more to be done in bringing the profession together in a unified way and in trying to resolve issues of recognition, of standards and of membership. And so I got involved. And so I got involved. as the branch president because I wanted to understand the system better and I wanted to be able to work at a branch level to try and improve engagement with members and to, you know, and ultimately I was interested in trying to preserve the reputation of the profession because I think the more

mature I've gotten in my career, the more I realized how important my identity is as a social worker. And so a lot of that's motivated my involvement in the ASW so far. So yeah, I've decided to run for a national president this year because I guess I've come to a point where I've realized that I can have a greater impact at a national board level. And I think what the association needs at this time is leadership that can bring together or the different elements of social work under one common vision. And to leverage the future of our profession by developing tools and resources that make it easier for people to be part of the work that we're going to be part of the work that we're. we do and to be wanting to be part of what we do and to, I guess, be unified in creating a brand of social work, if you like, that is respected and protected within our country. I've also been reflecting a lot on the foundations of the ASW nearly 75 years ago now, where the motivation was

about creating a unified voice, not just nationally, but also internationally. And I think, you know, with my perspective here and overseas, I really think there's an opportunity to to build the profile of social work. And so I'm running on a campaign around three principles. One is that we do things smarter. The other is that we get stronger in how we do things, which is about working together in partnership, building the brand, thinking about recognition.

And then together is about unifying and opening up and improving our membership participation. I think that unity is so important, particularly now. We seem to be at not a crisis point, but we're definitely at a crossroads as a profession when you take into account what's going on in the world with COVID, but also with university funding. I feel like there's so much work to be done. And where do you think branding of social work will make a difference there?

Look, I think one of the real challenges for social work is to get a voice in what appears to be a growing conservative political platform. You know, social work's been pioneering trying to advance welfare system, and human rights of people in our country and overseas, and I really feel like that needs to be quarantined. But in order to achieve that, we need to have a unified voice. We need to have a strong membership. And we need to be, I think, simplifying some of the ways that we do things.

And I think COVID-19 has really thrown that into acceleration. We don't know what the future is going to look like, but we know that social work is needed. We know that it's critical right now. And my concern is that we develop, an association that is truly representative of our members and of the profession and is able to make some advances in the evidence based to support the work that we do. I think, as I said before, I'm totally convinced that social work is unique in the value it offers, but I don't think

we're always so good at communicating that to the rest of the world. And again, one of the reasons for founding the ASW was to actually help the general public understand what social work was all about and to position social work as a politically active group. But these days we also have additional challenges around recognition in terms of registration, but also, you know, we have a lot of people who are not members, and we need to be unified rather than divided around that. What would you say are some current benefits of membership? What are some incentives for people to join up?

Look, I think at one level there is, you know, one of the reasons to be a member is that unity in the profession. So, you know, I wasn't a member for several years in my early career. But I think having joined, I feel part of the profession, and I feel that I have a capacity to be able to find my kin, I guess, with other social workers. So I think one level is to find other social workers and be able to have dialogue with other people who get you and understand the world the way you do. But also part of that's about that age-old principle of if more of us come together,

have a greater influence. Look, the ASW also has, it depends on what you're interested in. We have, you can get access to academic material through the journal. The ASW supports the standards of education in the country and I think, I believe we all have a responsibility to make sure that social work continues to be unique in how it is understood. And I guess the association also offers a voice in terms of social policy. You've got opportunities around credentialing and accreditation, which, you know, are not registration, but they're the next best thing that we have. And I think for new social workers, there's a great opportunity to build a network and to find other people who are operating in similar practice areas. So there are practice groups, for example,

that meet around common themes or regional locations. And, you know, as we know, it's important that we have an adequate support network and that we have other people who can support our cause. I know that one of the key focuses of your campaigns is innovation. I think probably you're well suited from the perspective of taking learnings from that international context. So you've got quite that diversity of experience and you can bring to the Australian context, perhaps the best bits of what you've seen overseas and the best bits of the partnerships that you've developed as well. Yeah, I think there's lots of opportunities for us to learn from others. I also think there's lots of opportunities for us to innovate through collaboration with key stakeholders and partners.

I don't think we have to do everything ourselves. I think we've got to find a way that we can advance the profession and meet the needs of members, but also retain a strong brand. I'll use that in inverted commas that people can easily get behind. And the elections are coming up in September, so from the 10th to the 24th. Elections are interesting in the ASW. We have a voluntary election system. I think about 25% of people vote.

I really would encourage people to see voting as a way that they can influence the future of the association. And my preference is that everybody comes out and votes and takes some time to get to know the candidates, not just the national president candidates, but also the other candidates that are happening because essentially our organisation relies upon this representative structure to get us, into the future. So yeah, I'm looking forward to encouraging people to vote and an interesting campaign as we get passionate about what we want our profession to be in the future. Well, good luck with all of that. It sounds like quite an undertaking. Yeah, it would be interesting.

I'm curious to hear your perspective on working in an NGO versus working in a statutory body or a government body because you've done both. Do you feel like there's more capacity for innovation or creativity within NGOs? Yeah, definitely. I think, but not always. I think NGOs tend to have more flexibility and how they can make things happen. But I think a lot of it depends on who's in leadership

and who's in power. And I've worked in NGOs where there's very low appetite for change, and I've worked in NGOs where there's a huge appetite for change. And naturally I'm drawn to those. that are more willing to innovate. And I guess part of my trajectory into senior leadership roles has been about wanting to influence that. Look, I think I have seen people innovate within government.

I think it's harder and it may take longer, but it is definitely possible. And I think innovation's not necessarily about finding the newest shiny thing. It's not about that. It's not about just technology. It's actually about asking yourself, is there another way or can we do this smarter? And I think one of the things I'm trying to champion is the need to have an open mind.

Some people may have seen me talk about a model for social innovation or entrepreneurship that I've come up with, which is centred around three Cs, which is I believe in order to be innovative, you need to have a curious mindset. So you need to be looking for opportunities and always constantly being critical and challenging your assumptions. You need to have courage, which is about having a go. So most innovation involves failure and it involves taking risk. But it's about doing that sensibly in a measured way.

And capability, I think, is what we often miss out, which is that you've got to have some foundation for taking a step forward. So capabilities about having the skills, the knowledge, the networks, in the startup sector, in social enterprise sector, a lot of emphasis is put on building your network and because it's about building resources and alliances to help you to get to where you need to go. And I think as social workers, we can follow a similar approach by keeping an open mind, by being

willing to challenge assumptions and step out and have a go, and by taking time to learn and reflect and all those things that are about building capacity to innovate. And I think as a leader, what I love doing is trying to facilitate that process for people. And I love not having to have the answer. You know, it's about kind of bringing people together and I think the answer happens when you do that. And people can easily see a little bit more ownership over it if they've helped come up with the ideas and helped make them happen. Yeah, and I think to some degree in ASW we need a similar approach. We need to be, you know, we don't know what the future looks like.

We know we need to adapt and change, but we need to keep looking for how we can do that better and asking ourselves if there's another way. And a key part of that is listening to our members and looking at what others have done and bringing together partners and, and other stakeholders, and maybe working with people who we haven't worked with before to see where that can go. And I think, you know, change is always uncomfortable, but it's about bringing together the ideas with the vision. I think that's really important. I do get a lot of questions around why a social work degree, what does it give you, as opposed to, say, other courses. And I know that you've taught it tape, so you've taught in areas of mental health and community services. What are some types of roles that would be ideally suited to someone with a TAFE qualification and how does it differ to social work?

Yeah, look, in my experience, the difference is about the depth of work. So I want to be clear to say that I've employed some great welfare workers that are TAFE qualified who do really good work. But I think the real difference with social workers is that there's a greater depth of understanding of the psychological and the sociological factors that create disadvantage and that impede on people's ability to achieve their goals. Whereas at TAFE, you learn a lot of that stuff, but you learn it at a fairly basic level. And so your capacity to really intervene around complexity is limited.

And I think those that do really well out of TAFE are those that also bring some life experience or who have been able to leverage different experiences to build on that. And I've met a lot of people who I've trained at TAFE who have gone on to do university study because of that desire to gain a deeper level understanding. But I also think we need to not underestimate the value of critical reflection in social works. So we're often in positions where we carry significant power and that a power can be abused. And I really believe that anyone who works in welfare needs a mature understanding of power dynamics. And social workers, I think, have a.

a much deeper understanding of that. But social workers are also just as at risk of not thinking about why they do what they do and falling victim to doing what they think is right without critically reflecting on that. So I think that's why things like supervision and, you know, continuing to learn in terms of continuing professional development are actually quite important. And I've come to realize this much more, I guess, the older I get that keeping these skills and allowing people to challenge your assumptions has been really important for me. to maintain my professional development because I've come to a realization that there's always

the potential that I'm wrong and needing to accept that can be difficult sometimes but it's been really immensely useful for me in I think opening up opportunities and in helping me to balance the risk of abusing the power that I have particularly now as I work in countries and with people who are significantly disadvantaged. But as you were saying, that social work identity is particularly grown over time through the experience that you've had. And I wonder whether part of that reflection is thinking, well, I might not have had anywhere near the amount of experience I've had now,

and I definitely wouldn't be where I am now, if I didn't have the social work qualifications in that reflective capacity. So you might have done something similar, but not to the same extent, and you might not have gotten the same thing out of it. I think that's fair. It's obviously hard to know what it would have been like, but I think part of that reflective practice for me is actually what's promoted curiosity in my mind and encouraged me to step out and get involved in other things. So, for example, I made the difficult decision of going to work in Nauru and live in Nauru with my family to work on offshore

detention stuff there, partly because of that critically reflective practice. And whilst you might I think, well, wouldn't that stop you? It actually made me think about what it was like for people who were stuck there, regardless of the perspective on the policy. And so I went there because I wanted to help people to try and make the most of that situation who didn't have a choice over the policy. And I knew at the time I couldn't change the government's policy, but I knew I could make a difference to the individuals,

well, the lives of some individuals that were living in that context, and that was the motivation. So I guess you're right, that practice or that process has made a difference. If people wanted to know a little bit more about social work in this area, where would you direct them? Is there any good reading or viewing, anything you'd recommend? Yeah, look, I think there's lots of material online, but I think taking some time to get to know some refugee people is probably the best way. Now, to do that, I think you can reach out to any of the organisations working in the migrant sector. So those are community migrant resource centres or settlement organisations or multicultural organisations.

Often they have volunteering that enables you to get involved. But you can also look at websites like the UNHCR website or locally the Refugee Council has useful information. But I think to really understand what it's like, it's useful to get to know people in the situation. And I think there are a number of volunteer groups that enable that access or even just meeting with social workers who do this kind of work can be useful to learn more about it. But it can be a little bit difficult because of privacy regulations, but there are lots of ways you can get involved, I think.

And depending on where you live in what state, but there's different groups that you can get access to for that. And I'm sure if people were wanting to potentially work in this area or at least have a professional curiosity about it in their studying social work, it would be a really good opportunity for them to volunteer for one of these agencies where they could say, I do have this experience,

I understand what goes on from an organizational perspective and the impacts that that can have and the degree to which people are listened to and involved in some of these processes. So that would, I imagine, put you well above other graduating social workers to have that experience. Absolutely. And making use of placements where you can is a great way too.

Actually, I get a lot of people ask me how you can get involved in the international side of it. And really, working in international development is actually extremely competitive because a lot of people want to do it. But unfortunately, it's very highly skewed towards people with international diplomacy or international law type qualifications. I would say, don't worry about that. The best people I've come across in international development are those that have taken the initiative to get involved in programs like the Australian volunteers for international development

or doing short-term projects with organisations like ours or many of the international humanitarian organisations have programmes that can facilitate access. What's most important to most employers and including us is experience, but getting that first experience sometimes means doing things in a voluntary capacity or being willing to think outside the box a little bit. But there are lots of needs for social workers in international development and international refugee protection. So I really encourage people to look into that. Where can people find out more about your work?

Probably the best way is through our website. So it's just hostinternational.org.com that has information about us. And also we have social media, which you can search for us by searching Host International. But we're on most of the platforms. Is there anything else before we wrap up that you'd like to say, working in this area and what you particularly get out of it? Yeah, look, I would say be proud of being a social worker and take some time to understand how it is different from others,

but don't be arrogant about it. And so, you know, I think it's okay to feel proud about it and it is different. And don't box yourself into one type of social worker. One of the reasons I got into social work was because there were so many different pathways I could take with that. and I've loved being able to just switch different client groups and do different things and the social work degree has really helped me to do that. So I encourage people to stick with it and to get involved in the ASW and support having a voice

for how you want the future of social work to look. I think students and new grades are extremely important to our profession and I'd love to see more of them involved in the ASW in particular. Thank you so much, David. I think people will really get a lot out of your experience and being able to understand a little bit more about what social workers are capable of, both in Australia and internationally and working in NGOs and especially in the migrant and refugee and asylum seekers space and in community development because, as you said, it's an area that we need to get a little bit more excited

about and to really understand our role. And I'll put some more links in the show notes as well of things that we've discussed so people can go off and do their own reading. And I encourage everyone to look at the candidates for the national presidency for ASW and vote. Get out there and vote because as you heard, only about a quarter of members actually vote. So the elections open very soon. So this interview is going out on August 29th and elections open on September 10. So get out there, do some reading so you're well equipped to make a good decision at the time. No worries. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for joining me this week.

If you would like to continue this discussion, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlightpodcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Laura.

Laura is a social worker with a master's degree in human rights, law and policy. Following almost a decade in direct practice supporting women, men, children and families impacted by human trafficking and modern slavery, individuals seeking asylum and women experiencing gender-based violence, Laura now works as the head of social policy at Good Shepherd Australia, New Zealand. Laura brings her service delivery experience to lead the development of social policy. and advocacy, shaping responses to key issues which impact the safety and well-being of women, children and families. In her spare time, Laura is undertaking a PhD in criminology, exploring the experiences of young women facing forced marriage. See you next time.