Social Work Spotlight - Episode 118: Yaleela

Episode Date: September 13, 2024

In this episode I speak with Yaleela, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker, Registered Play Therapist and private practice owner in Queensland. She is deeply passionate about Social Work practice because she understands the significant impact of social, economic, and political factors on the health and well-being of our children, families, and communities. Yaleela is dedicated to the profession and actively participates in the Australian Association of Social Workers and the Play Therapy Practitioners Association, as well as building capacity for other First Nations allied health practitioners.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Yaleela’s business - http://yaleelatorrenssocialwork.com.au/Bindi Bennett’s publications - https://www.bindibennett.com/copy-of-resourcesDr Bruce Perry - https://www.bdperry.com/Dr Dan Siegel - https://drdansiegel.com/Mental Health Academy - https://www.mentalhealthacademy.com.au/Mindsight Institute - https://mindsightinstitute.com/Lisa Sion - https://lisa-dion.com/Stan Grant’s IQ2 Debate speech - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEOssW1rw0I&ab_channel=TheEthicsCentreThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1pRIC3EYIRcMq5TBhPjhAsLwXnqPTWmZmqMCUeriboGE/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

I begin today by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eura Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I record this podcast, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have an intrinsic connection to this land and have cared for country for over 60,000 years, with their way of life having been devastated by colonisation. Hi and welcome to social work spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession

each episode. I'm your host, Jasmine Lupus, and today's guest is Yalila, an accredited mental health social worker, registered play therapist and private practice owner. Yalila is also a mum to an eight-year-old daughter, which she feels is her greatest and proudest role so far. She is deeply passionate about social work practice because she understands the significant impact of social, economic and political factors on the health and well-being of our children, families and communities. Yalila's current practice framework is centred on strengths-based

and solution-focused approaches, guided by anti-oppressive and trauma-informed theoretical perspectives. She is dedicated to the profession and actively participates in the Australian Association of Social Workers and the Play Therapy Practitioners Association. Thanks, Yalila, so much for joining me on the podcast today. Excited to have a chat with you about your work in social work so far. Thanks, Yasmin. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I always ask firstly when you started as a social worker and what brought you to the profession. Yeah.

So I did my master's in social work when my daughter was six months old. This was back in 2016. So I did that full time and I got my qualification through Southern Cross University on the Gold Coast. They had a really great program. And yeah, I graduated, 2021. I end up finishing with the placements I had to extend. And being a mom, I had some other responsibilities, but I got through. And yeah, I graduated from my master's in 2021. Yeah. And what was the process like for you trying to navigate through COVID as well?

Yeah. So we had to still attend our residential schools on the Gold Coast. So it was still a lot of travel unpaid. So obviously we had to have the resources to be able to afford to go to our compulsory residential schools. And then being able to navigate, you know, doing placement in appropriate social work settings when we got home. So I was based in Gladstone and being able to be kind of aligned with a organisation that would even take on social work students at that point in time. It was a bit tricky. And what were your placements? So my first placement was with the Salvation Army, doing a lot of crisis relief, emergency relief in terms of food and hampers and first aid mental health, linking and supporting and referring on to other tertiary service providers in our community, but also just to be a space for local community members that would attend and kind of with no, I guess, agenda, but they just knew that they were feeling disconnected or isolated.

and a bit lonely and they'd just come and have a couple and sit down and it was just, yeah, beautiful way, like entry point into social work practice, very humbling. After my first placement, I did my second placement with the Gladstone Women's Health Centre, which is a domestic violence and sexual abuse counselling service. And that was really, really different for me. It was a space that I hadn't worked with in the past. So it was complete new learnings and understandings around. how domestic and family violence operated, and especially legislatively, because there was a lot of

legislative change and advocacy that was happening in the wider scheme of things for especially gender-based violence, then also for sexual assault or for children and women as well. So a lot of your gender-based interventions that were being delivered from like a local perspective, it was really interesting to see. And then also being able to support highly vulnerable women, which was very at-time daunting because women would show up just with nowhere to go, no one and no resources. Very, very eye-opening that placement was for me. And especially as a young developing social worker, I imagine that might have put many people off, but did that kind of fuel your passion for continuing in that area?

You know what? It actually, it really gave me a better understanding and insight into how a domestic and family violence operated because, you know, we come from communities. I'm from an Aboriginal community where domestic and family violence affects our communities way differently and I think in sometimes more instances, especially towards Aboriginal women. And from a community perspective, seeing that operate and understanding different ways in which domestic and family violence operate from an Aboriginal community and then being in a white service provider and going, this is our community and they're showing up. And you kind of just seem like I've seen the whole kind of continuum of care, you know,

going from someone showing up with their seven kids at the door, you know, a single Aboriginal mum that she's got nowhere to go. She's been sexually abused and all of her seven children are born out of, you know, sexual abuse or rape. It was very, very eye-opening. How did that affect what you wanted to do afterwards? What was your first role out of uni? It was from that placement that I knew I wasn't ready for domestic and family violence work.

That was something that was so fragile for me because of experiencing it in my own communities. And I thought I am so far removed from being able to provide clinical care or social work practice or social work care in that capacity. Because I think that early stage of my career, my understandings around the legal system and how they've treated Aboriginal and Tosha Islander women, in terms of coercive control, in terms of victimizing our communities. So there was so many intersections, you know, and comforting, I guess, understandings for me as going, wow, is this the social worker that I want to be in? And is it going to be safe for me and safe for my clients? And is this ethically, you know, where I'm going to be the best social worker for this organization?

And it was not. So it was from that place when I thought domestic family violence isn't a space for me for working and I know that domestic and family violence is actually driven out of what we know a lot of our social determinants of health in terms of not having education, not having knowledge, not having the resources of skills to engage in healthy relationships. Yeah. And so where did you look to? Then I got trained in play therapy. So my clinical training in play therapy, I went into private practice.

I didn't know specifically how my clients were going to be. pay for their therapy, but I knew I was really good with children and I could do play therapy really, really well. I really love the non-directive play therapy using the child-cented framework and letting the child lead us and show us to where they need to be in their healing journey, which is so uncomfortable for adults because we like to talk and we like to know where we're going, what we're doing and makes us feel competent in our practice when we've got six-session planned under Medicare and kids are going to be. on their sixth session they're going to be at a mastery stage of their process. So I worked for free

in my community. I was fortunate enough to be with a partner at that time that was supportive of that because he's seen the passion and there was no play therapists in Gladstone at that point in time, but I did have the qualifications. So, you know, you do these things because you were so passionate and I know other social workers and other clinicians and practitioners that we just have to take the cut at different points in our careers because we are so we innately believe in what we do and we know that there is healing power in what we do. So I was doing a lot of luck pro bono work I'd say and I got really good feedback and I started to build my practice and share the power of play therapy for young people in our communities. That is when the women's health centre then contacted me again and said

can we contract you one day a week. So I was able to then generate a one day. of income, which was really, really nice that I was being then recognized for my work. And the evidence space in my work was actually coming to fruition, which was, you know, it's always nice to be supported in and acknowledged, I think, as a practitioner, that we don't just sit there and play with kids for no reason. Yeah, of course. When you were going through the course, when you were learning to become a play therapist, were there teachings and wisdoms from a, First Nations perspective or was it very white-centric in terms of how it was taught and what to expect? Yeah, so definitely very white-centric. There were parts of the course where there were considerations

around culture, right? And this is very common. We always have, you know, attached to any kind of course even such as social work, bachelors of social work or masters of your social work course, where we've got one or two units about working with First Nations peoples or working with culturally and linguistically diverse communities. So yeah, there were parts of that and I think the Centre for Plate Therapy who did my training, the delivery of it was really, really done really well because we had trainers that had quite extensive experience of working with First Nations children and families

and then being able to them be in that training as well and provide, you know, recommendations or support that was always open and received well by the training provider itself. Are there differences? Like how might you incorporate, I guess, some of the more traditional approaches or how can you build that in and your background and your experience with your community, I guess, into a more westernised model? In terms of play therapy, right?

If you're working with young people play therapy, it always comes back to self and who you are as the practitioner and knowing that you've got, you're genuine and you are, you are there to support First Nations families or culturally and linguistically. diverse families because that then sets the tone for your theory, your theoretical perspective in what you're going to work from the frame, the lens, the focus from that, when you start with self and you've got a really good understanding around self, that's going to allow a really nice foundation to the way in which you're going to interact, the way in which you're going to talk to First Nations moms or dads, or you're going to interact with, you know, non-First Nations

carers who have, you know, Aboriginal kids in there as foster carers, which, you're going to talk to, which I have a lot of. So starting always with self, you know, understanding who you are as a practitioner, your spirituality, where you're connected, how you're connected to your community, who you are, your cultural heritage, your ethnic background.

It's going to lay a really nice foundation and you can speak to that too as well because when we go into Aboriginal communities or you're working with Aboriginal people, we want to know who you are and where you come from, why you are here. And ultimately, if you're going to be safe for our people, if you're going to be safe for these children, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Had there ever been scenarios? Because for kids, play is so innate. It's such a natural thing. I'm curious as to whether you've come across instances where you've tried to interact and provide play therapy to a child who doesn't understand play and doesn't understand how to interact.

and I just feel like that would be a bit soul-crushing. Has that been a thing for you in your practice? Absolutely. I had a client last year, and, you know, she had layers and layers of trauma, and she was in kinship care with her grandfather, and this particular family were of New Zealand heritage, so Māori family,

and I clearly, clearly remember her very first plate therapy session with me, and we sat in the room, I invited her into the room, She transitioned really well, transitioned away from her kin quite well. So the anxiety wasn't necessarily there. Now, remember, this girl has quite a fractured understanding of her attachment figures. So I think separation wasn't a thing for her, right? She didn't have a secure attachment with a primary carer. So she comes into the room.

And the way that we engage in play therapy, we say, you know, welcome to the play therapy room or welcome to the playroom. In this room, you can do almost anything you like. But if there's something that you can't do, I'm going to let you. you know little Johnny, all right, or little Sarah. Yeah. And so we walked in and I gave her that preamble and there's, you know, welcome to the room, blah, blah, blah. And I sat down on the floor and we've got sand trades. We've got toy buckets. We've got a doll house. We've got pens and papers and we've got dress-ups, you know, I've got everything that is therapeutically set up for this child to start engaging in her work. And she stood there for 45 minutes, staring at me. And she stood there for 45 minutes,

staring at me because she did not know what to do. She was no, she just stood on her two feet and she just stared at me. There was no idea. There was, and in my mind from what I know about the clinical intake process and the conversations and the data gathering and the history taking, if you do it comprehensively and to a good standard, you can already develop a narrative of this young person, right? And that is not to impact or bias my judgment of her, which is never the case. But when I reflect on our first session, because she's going to tell me everything that she needs to know

without speaking a word, right? Because kids do that. We don't require them to talk. They're going to tell us. And she just sat there and she stood up on her two feet. And I don't know how she stood there because I wasn't going to stand there on my two feet. And I sat down and I let her know through my body language.

You can sit. You can actually sit in this space and you can play. And she stood on her two feet and stayed at me for 45 minutes. And I don't know if there's, was an experience of such fear that she was immobilized, that she just did not know what to do, or if it was just there was kind of limited understanding around how to play, or there was, in terms of her trauma history and what her relationship was with playing, playing with toys, and if that was a good thing in her life, or it wasn't a bad thing, or touching other people's

things, you know, and what that meant for her. So that is why, you know, the play therapy model is a really. building that really, really lovely containment of safety for our children. And that might take six months for some kids. If you've got layers of trauma and you've got really disorganized or disrupted attachment, it's going to take a little bit longer. But from a play therapy perspective, I was becoming a really nice attachment figure for her.

And I still work with this young person until this day. So she's great. She comes in, she does role play. And, you know, she says to me, she's made comments. She goes, oh, before leaving the playroom, I think this is after about six or seven months when we've, you know, developed that new reception of safety for her. It was just so confirming as to what, hypothetically, in my mind, going, this girl has been so ruptured in her life that she hasn't had a consistent, safe,

primary terror to give her the nurture and the love that she needs. That's why it was kind of, I think she was stunned that she was allowed to play at that first session, that she just, I wasn't going to tell her what to do. I was going to scream at her. I wasn't going to be rough. You know, your unconditional positive regard to this young person. So in that situation, how did you, I mean, you're not going to give a child homework, I guess. I think the work needed to be done with the kinship carers or the, you know, whatever family

structure she had found herself in, how do you work with the family members to make sure that there is some follow through with what you're doing? Yeah. So this is really a really beautiful question because in any instance, you know, we're working with young people, adolescents, we always were working from a system's perspective, whether that's engaging dad and mum, stepdad, stepdad, foster carers, carers, aunties, uncles, nanners, grandfathers, sisters, brothers, whoever has kind of that really close proximity to that young person, if they're in treatment, they become part of their genogram that we would map out at

the start of the intake. So we know who are the key people in this young person's life right now and what part do they play either in, you know, going to support her treatment plan and support the therapeutic goals and, let's say, her healing journey. And then who are the people, you know, within her meso or macro spheres as well, if that's, you know, sporting teams, that's scouts, that's swimming lessons, that's music lessons, if that's teachers, principals, guidance officers. So yeah, we do a lot of mapping, right, because we want to know who are the resources. What are the resources and who's got the tools, right? And then we can also identify then where we're lacking as well, going, okay, so what work needs to be done at the school and building

understanding through psycho ed or practical? I'll go into schools and go, this is practically, you know, this is a mechanism now to support little Sarah to transition from the car to the classroom. So, yeah, that's when you use your genograms and your family mapping systems. And you can make it really fun too, you know. And the way that I explain it to parents, I go, you know, you become partner. You're going to do a lot more work than I'm going to do here. Because this person's only going to see me once a week for maybe all of 45 minutes. And then they're going to go home and we need to know that the circumstances at home

are going to be conducive to her progressing forward. And given that you then need to get that buy-in with whomever is paying for the service, whether that be the government, NDIS, whatever it is. How do you help other people who are not engaged in the actual therapy process understand the benefit and how do you, I guess, pitch it to them? And where does your funding come from? Maybe is a bit of question to start with. Yeah, Yasmin, that is a challenge.

And I think we all, as clinicians, that is the one thing. Where's the money coming to go on and who's paying for it? That's maybe the first one or second question that I have. Whenever I get a referral, great. Who's paying for it? this and what does that funding look like? Is it six sessions under a Medicare plan like the better access initiative or is it funded by the NDIS? Are they fortunate enough to have a resource such as an NDIS plan or are they supported by the Department of Child Safety? So I've got an

array of clients across all boards. So I've got child safety clients. I've got NDIS clients. I've got private paying clients. And then I do offer, depending on circumstances, a small amount of bulk build clients where I will take on their referral from the GP and I'll say, look, I'm more than happy to bulk build these sessions. Obviously, that's going to be capped at six to 10 sessions. So they're aware of that. Look, what we tend to do from my perspective is I will exhaust all avenues. I will contact schools. I'll say, what capacity do we have to support this young person for, you know, accessing therapy. It'll be through the GP. It's, you know, supporting them to do the mental health care plan and then extending on the sessions.

Then it's also, you know, supporting your clients, empowering parents to be resourceful as well. Going, are there capacities where we can, you know, work together if I bulk build this or if I cannot bulk build this if I charge, you know, maybe $50 a session, how can we resource this together? And so you do have to work creatively because a lot of clients that do need therapy, as we know, cannot afford it. And private practitioners, we still have massive overheads. We've still got a business and companies to run supervisions to pay for so to make sure that we're providing good care. Yeah, it is funding. It's always a tricky thing.

And I think recently, not long ago, there was the government didn't approve the extension to the 20 sessions again, which is very sad to see. Yeah. And the reason you can provide those services through Medicare through a GP referral is because you do have the accredited mental health social worker qualification, right? So how is that process for you? Because I've heard it can be quite, you know, soul destroying, but other people have felt as though the process kind of made sense to them. It's just a matter of being as prepared as you can and getting your head around it. Yes. Responding to the practice standards, you've got to also, you know, meet the eligibility. to apply. So you've got to have your two years post-grad full-time mental health role. So I was luckily enough to be offered a full-time role when I finished my degree at our local Aboriginal medical service. And I was in a senior social worker position where I was working predominantly with social emotional well-being. That's the model that we call it in Aboriginal health. But predominantly gaining real-life clinical experience, getting really, really good supervision. I remember after my first year at the AMS, my current supervisor,

so the supervisor that the organisation had contracted, there were some gaps in his knowledge that I thought, you know what, I'm going to have to need an additional supervisor. So I went out and got myself a second supervisor because I could envision where I wanted to take my practice, and it was definitely with parents and young people, right? But I knew he wasn't going to give me all of what I needed to perform my role in the way that I wanted to perform.

my role. So I end up having two social work supervisors then, and I still got them as supervisors, to guide me while I was doing my mental health accreditation. So I got my two years post-grad, and then I applied, I responded to all the practice standards at the exam, and I was able to then be successful in attaining that accreditation, which was really good. Do you find that the GPs have a good understanding of play therapy and social work and how that all fits, or do you get some very bizarre referrals. How do you manage all that? I do get referrals from a few GPs in Gladstone that are of knowledge and that are of awareness around social work practice for focus psychological supports and being able to deliver those supports. But then I've got, I've had clients ring me at the GP

going, the doctor's not referring to you. He said that you cannot do it. And I was like, no, I can. He goes, no, he can't, he's saying you can't do it, that I need to go to a psychologist. And so this actually probably happened all of maybe 10 weeks ago. And I said, no, no, no. And I said, okay, so here, I had to give her my provider number. And it wasn't until I literally gave her my provider number. And she's like, tell the doctor, this is her provider number. And he's like, oh, here she is. So, but you still, though, there's a little bit of work there. And I think, you know, that's got a lot to do with, I think, our association and our registration processes around our social work title, but also the value in social work practice. I don't know if we're given that

acknowledgement as yet and what we can do. And it was only two weeks ago, me and a few other social workers here in Gladson did a networking event. And I think, you know, it came from an empowerment and a self-advocacy approach that, you know, the market doesn't have to be flooded with psychs, right? There is a market here and it doesn't have to be dominated by psychology because social workers are so talented, so skillful, so resource, so educated, knowledgeable to do just as good work, if not better. I've come across some really good sites. I've come across some amazing social workers that do incredible work.

Yeah, there's a lot of work that we have to do with self-advocacy, I notice. Lots of work. Yeah, and that will look different, I guess, depending on who you're trying to pitch it to, but you've been on quite a lot of boards, like regional boards, Aboriginal corporations. do you find that that's a good way of then informing the communities and helping to build awareness around what you can do? Yeah, completely. Because I would speak from a social determinants of health model, right?

Because when we speak from that, and you sit on a board such as I sit on Rosebury Queensland's board, and we work significantly in housing and homelessness, and that's got a lot to do with our mental health and the impacts of that on being able to function at a relatively good level every day, you know, not just for ourselves, but then if we've got kids, too. And so being able to be at a board level and go, you know what, if we are so socially disadvantaged, right, we are not going to perform or we're not going to live a good standard of life.

That is it, you know, if we don't have access to a good education or if, you know, our parents don't have, you know, don't have transport or a car or we can't get into the best schools in Gladstone or we can't go to the beach on the weekends. that has a significant impact on one's emotional and psychological health, yeah? And talking in terms of, I guess, combating this blame and shame culture that we have around, you know, the deserving and undeserving poor and, you know, choices and everyone's got a choice and all this stuff that we come across. Yes, and absolutely, we all do have a choice. But if we're not growing up in circumstances that allows us to have choice,

choice doesn't exist for a lot of people too, right? So if I'm in an Aboriginal community and there's no employment prospects in my community, I don't have choice over that, you know, and no one should be blamed or shamed or denigrated in those ways. I think what we have to advocate for and speak to as social work practitioners around really what are the circumstances of our communities, yeah, and what is, you know,

who's so high on that social gradient and who's not high on our social gradients. And you've been working also for universities. Yes. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Yeah, so I worked a few years for Central Queensland University. I rewrote their reconciliation in the workplace and community unit for their Bachelor of Social Work Program. And what we needed to do in that program was really bring to light.

This was before the referendum, by the way, bring to light. What reconciliation actually is, right? The five pillars of reconciliation. and really bring to awareness and I started that truth-telling process through that unit. We really have to speak about the truth of what happens in our communities,

why the social determinants of health are so poor in our communities, you know, why closing the gap really exists, you know? And it all comes back. It's a beautiful social work approach and really equipping social work students that come through CQU around realistically the experiences of First Nations

people in this community. Yes, racism does exist. It completely exists. You know, it's hard not to, we cannot deny that. And I think, is Australia ready for truth-telling? No. I think this country is so immature and so young that we're not even ready for acknowledging truth about what happened here, because we kind of just want to get kind of a bit of amnesia and we all want to move on because no one wants to talk about that stuff, right? It makes us all uncomfortable. So, yeah, and I think setting students up for real-life experiences in our communities, does the social work profession such a justice, right? It's going out and going, yes, we do have significant over-representation of Aboriginal children

in out-of-home care. It is sky high. Yes, there's so many Aboriginal and Torres Island people in the youth justice system. It is sky high. In the criminal justice system, it is sky high. So, yeah. Yeah. And you did some work for James Cook as well.

Yeah, so I did a bit of tutoring for them as well. A lot of your Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island are, I think, enclaves in their communities, in their universities. They offer, the government funds them to support university retention, right, and completion that Aboriginal Torreshry Islander students do get additional tutoring services, which is incredible because it absolutely supports tertiary education and employment and successful. pathways to then going on and really being empowered to be self-determining in their career and going on to go back to their communities and give back. And what a powerful role for you as well, because you would have, it's like preaching to the choir, right? Those students really wanted to be there. Otherwise, they wouldn't be there. They're not just coming out of school doing something because they thought they had to. These kids genuinely want to be there and they want to learn and they want

to take that back to their community. So that must have just been so lovely to teach. It is. It is. And I think when you're a tutor and you can speak to going, oh, well, I work, you know, I grew up in Gladstone now. I have my own practice here in Gladstone when I could easily move to Brisbane and go, you know what, I could just go to Brisbane and I can kind of just well-in with the rest of the city and do my own thing. I said, but I chose to come back, have my baby on country. And then I built my practice and my life now here. There's no such great a joy that we go to these big institutions and and then we come back and then we uplift our community and we empower them.

And then you also set the tone that, you know, kids can't be what they can't see. Yeah. So you're setting that empowerment and that self-determination, social justice. Like that is, that's a tangible thing that you can represent in your community. So being a business owner, being responsible for quite a lot, you've got your family, you've got your work, you find time to travel, which is wonderful. What does a typical day look like for you? How do you kind of describe the work that you do to someone who knows nothing about social work?

A typical day in a social worker role, owning my own practice, right, starts off with a really good, healthy morning, which is I'm up, I'm either meditating or I'm doing a bit of mindset work. I'm getting to the gym. I'm fueling my body, right? I'm getting around good people. And then I all come home, do my mothering role, you know, preparing lunches, brushing teeth, brushing hair, etc., etc. Getting a handle on, you know,

what my day looks like and what my week looks like. So I've done a lot of business coaching as well, invested a lot in terms of, you know, how to be a high performer in my role and also being a single mum. So getting an idea around, you know, what is required of me for the work that I, you know, I need to perform today and then also for the rest of the week.

I eat it like a brain-based diet. So I'm eating a lot to make sure my brain can perform at it. peak, right, that my clients or my stakeholders or people that I do business with that are getting the best out of me. And then in the afternoon, I'm in a collapse. You're in that collapse. You're in that collapse you should be on because you need to nurture then and contain for the rest of the week. And I'll probably do that about six days a week. Wow. That's a lot. Do you have good family support? Do you have people around you that kind of make that sustainable? I do. I do. So what's a family, not that I like to lean on a lot of people, but I do have, like, I'll get a babysitter

that I know really well. She has a babysitting service and then I'll call her and she'll show up. If, say, you know, I just need to go to the gym for an hour at night. She'll come over. My daughter knows her really well. She's known her really well for a long time. And if I, you know, if I'm at that end where I'm like, who, today was quite heavy, you know, and I just need to go do stretch out my body because I can feel that energy still, you know, in the, you know, in my muscles that that session was so deep today, you know, and it's just really, I just feel as though I'm still holding onto that. So understanding my own body and what I need to took so long to do that. And it took a lot of investment. I had to get lots of coaches, business coaches, high performance.

I listened to a lot of podcasts, right, around self-development, how to honour my body, what it needs, food, sleep. I don't drink often, probably once or twice a year now, but it's, you know, You have to make sure that in order to perform at that peak, you really need to set up your life and set up your environment that can allow you to do so. I feel like for you, yoga needs to be tax deductible because you're sitting on the floor. You're hunched over a play set and you just need to be able to extend your body as well after one of those sessions. Completely. And you feel it like you absolutely feel it because you're holding on, right?

It's that transfer. Dr. Bruce Perry talks about this a lot. and a lot of the work that I'll do with my parents, I'll go, you know, you're coming home. And if you're in a domestic and family violence relationship or if you are in a really toxic workplace, you know, we're constantly in a transfer of energy and information. We're giving out all our energy and we're giving out all this information, whether we like it or not, you know. And in terms of, you know, raising our children and being in contact or proximity with our kids or the people that we love, what are we sharing with them, you know?

So, yeah, being able to have a lifestyle where I prioritize my body, right? And I also prioritize my health and what I eat, you know, I don't drink water out of the tap anymore. I drink alkaline water. So it's really zoned in, you know. It took me a long time, though, to do it because I had no idea. Who does a brain-based diet? What's that for until you see the impacts of it? You go, oh, okay, so all your corporates and all your eye-performing individuals,

they live a completely different lifestyle. It's like, yeah, it works. So it very works, yeah. Do you find it hard to take time off then? Yes, I do. I do because I love what I do. I'm a minority in my community. There's no other Aboriginal private practitioners in my community

wherein it Gladson's, you know, got 80,000 people and you don't have any other Aboriginal people in my community that is a private practitioner. There's no Aboriginal occupational therapist, no psychologists, you know what I mean? So I'm out on a limb and it. It reminds me of the work that needs to be done in terms of, you know, we're still not on par, like from not just outcomes based, but equity based too.

I'll go to a health and well-being event and I'm the only Aboriginal doleholder and then you've got all, all your other practitioners are all very white. So I think there's still a lot to do in terms of allied health practitioners. I'd love to get more Aboriginal social workers working for me, doing beautiful, trauma-based work and empowering parents and, you know, doing a lot of creative work, but I need to work on my business for that. I feel like that's a lot of pressure. That's a lot of taking on responsibility for your entire community and that probably adds up over time. It does, you know, and that's just the result of our communities being so dispossessed and fractured, right? A lot of our native

title and being portions and rations here, they're like, you get this, you get that. And You know, we were locked out of the housing market. Aboriginal people couldn't buy houses 70 years ago. We weren't allowed to. So that in terms of equitable access to the market and education and, you know, the Flora and Fauna Act, it still has impacts today. We're still trying to catch up to the rest of Australia because we were excluded from everything, exclude from everything.

So, yeah. And this is what happens, though. I guess then in the short term and longer term, where would you like, to see this going, what changes do you think are possible in your field? So I would like to see my practice. I have a really deep desire for providing good supervision, right? So in a lot of our community-based organisations, we have social and emotional well-being services

where we've got a lot of great Aboriginal and Torresh Islander workers and practitioners that might not have a social work degree or that might not be an occupational therapist or a psychologist, right? what my passion is is going, yep, that's fine, and that is, you know, that is the model and that that's the basis in which we're working in. I would like to make sure that our ways of knowing, being and doing, right, that is taught at the academic level, at First Nations ways of knowing being and doing, that we're providing clinical supervision through that lens, right? So we're not coming from Western lenses of, oh, we're, you know, locking in on how to provide focus, psychological

support using CBT or DVT or the way that we do assessments, but we're actually, we're going to privilege our First Nations ways of knowing being and doing when we're working with First Nations people. I think that will change the way in which we start to understand outcomes, especially for gaps that are current, especially for understanding how Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people rare our children and our child-rearing practices. What's working well do you think or what do you really enjoy? about the work. What works well is building capacity using strength-based approaches and empowering our people. And it's not just Aboriginal people either. It's all my clients, right? I get clients

that come in that feel so helpless and hopeless because either they don't have the qualifications or skill to work in industry. Like Gladson's got a lot of industry. They've got gas. They've got, you know, this is a boom and bus community. If you're not in industry, I mean, you're not making 150k a year, you're on minimum wage somewhere or you've been transferred here because you've got, you know, there was an overlay of housing in the Gladson community after the boom. So empowering families, what works well is resourcing them, right? Understanding and supporting clients to see what are the resources in your community? It doesn't have to be, oh, resources is financially, no, but who can I connect you with? Who can you build relationships with? So that in the time that you need

someone to support you or your children or your family that you actually have knowledge of who's who in the zoo in your community. I think that is such an underutilization of resources going, you know what? Build your community of people, build your knowledge of what's out there, right? There's a free library. Go up to the library, read a book and start reading to your children, right? And you start to build that within yourself. Like that is all free from resources. understand the bus routes in our community, use public transport, use your time for play. With your children, go down to a free park. It doesn't have to be this consumption of technology or purchasing and based on money.

It's not that at all. It's, you know, resourcing yourself with knowledge and connections relationships. Yeah. Yeah. Is there scope, perhaps, in the private practice to deliver training, given that you do have a teaching background. I'm wondering if that's something that might be in the cards for you, in addition to obviously the play therapy

and the supervision for professionals. Oh, I haven't thought that far ahead yet. I think what is effective is group work, a lot of group work, mobilising communities and populations that are experiencing similar things at that point in time. I know right now, you know, the isolation of parents, a lot of parents feel isolated,

especially with the NDIS system around, you know, what do I do to support my child if they're, you know, not waking up on time and it's a struggle to get them from the bedroom to the toilet because they're so fixated on playing with their toys, example. Yeah, look, there was probably potential for group work in the future, but yeah, I'm not sure how far away that would be. Yeah, but it's kind of exciting thinking there is scope here. There's a clear gap. There's stuff that needs to be happening.

not necessarily happening at the rate I'd like it to, but we're in this for the long game and we're trying to develop a plan. You've mentioned some resources such as Bruce Perry and some of the approaches that you take in terms of attachment and even just play therapy by itself. Are there any resources that you would recommend people check out if they wanted to know more about this type of work? Yeah, so anything relating to working, you know, from a strengths of race perspective with vulnerable families and children, absolutely. changing the language in which we're using with our parents, especially your non-blaming, non-shaming approaches,

which I think is so powerful. Engaging in work that is non-shaming as well is so powerful that I've noticed. Parents coming in highly anxious, highly worried, embarrassed and shame, like fearful, being able to use yourself too in terms of how are you showing up as a practitioner and how your sense of self being our clients are always looking for their cues of safety, right? We all are. We want to make sure that we're safe, right? So reflecting on self, being able to use really good tools. Bindy Bennett has a really nice critical reflection tool. It is called the intercultural critical reflection tool where she picks at different parts of self and how we show up

in our practice and how we are interacting and engaging with clients. Bruce Perry, Dan Siegel love his work. The MindSight Institute have a lot of good reasons. The Mental Health Academy have a lot of great resources. But you know what? The best resources are usually free. You've got a lot of beautiful podcasts on Spotify. If you have a subscription, there are so many podcasts around parenting, social work intervention, critical social work practice,

which makes you, again, think more deeper around our work. And yeah, I think, yeah, that's it. I would just encourage you, you know, use your resources and they don't have to be all these big expensive courses. Lisa Dion is amazing play therapy. She does her synergetic play therapy. She's great. Yeah, thank you.

If you have any specific podcasts or resources that you wanted people to be aware of, I'll get you to send them to me and I can pop them in the show notes for people to go off and have a look. I'm also part of a First Nations film club at work and we just every month get together and look at, you know, whatever we feel like, really. but then we sit down and we chat about it in context of the work we do. I'm wondering in terms of accessibility if there are any great movies or TV series or anything else that you've seen that you think really accurately represents the issues

or perhaps is, yeah, just something that maybe is compulsory viewing for social workers. You know what? The most powerful recording that I've watched in the last five to ten years is Stan Grant's speech. honestly, I think I would, there's random days I would go back when I'm feeling helpless in my role, especially as a minority, Aboriginal woman, I always go back to him for some reason. He's so powerful. I don't necessarily watch too many movies. I don't have the time.

But I'm going to say that one today, Stan Grant's speech. Yeah, I'll find it and I'll link to it. Yeah, thank you. Before we finish up here, Lula, is there anything else that you wanted to say that we haven't had a chance to mention about either your work or social work in general? Probably the last thing I'll leave with is that, you know, always come back to, and I say this to my supervisor, it's always come back to our three pillars, our values,

which is respect for persons, professional integrity, and social justice. That is why we're in this game. That's why we're social work. And that social justice part is, you know, every day we can affect social justice in our role. Yeah, for sure. Again, just very grateful that you could do this, that you could meet with me and take the time,

even when you're on holidays. But yeah, I love just the very beginnings of your experience. You had those sort of different understandings of the same structural and cultural and opportunity limitations from where you grew up and the culture and community that you were part of. And you saw really that there was that recognition of best practice already, the best fit as a young social worker. And then you'll move into, which I feel is incredibly brave, moving into private practice

as a fairly new social worker, but having people, I guess, recognise the skills and the benefit of social work, which you've been able to promote that within social work, but also within a wider audience to health workers and to other people in the community, which is a feat in itself. I love that you mentioned that kids communicate without words, without speaking, and that some of that work just needs to happen with the families. You made me think when you were saying that my friends have just been overseas and I picked them up from the airport, which a lot of people don't think about because if you've got a toddler, you need a car seat. So you can't just get an Uber, right? So I went and I picked them up from the airport, brought them home. And the second they walked in the door, their almost three-year-old walked straight to her play set and wanted to bake something. And I was thinking, you don't want to chill? No, she's been away from her play set for so long. She's like, where's my baking trait? So, yeah, just.

you know, kids have different priorities. And sometimes we just need to stop what we're doing and go, oh, this is what we're doing now. Let's get down on the floor and chill for a second. That's their language. Yep. Yeah. You've had experience to rewrite university courses, which is incredible and promote some of that truth-telling and that creative awareness of what needs are and how First Nations people at

university can help deliver that in future. like there's that university retention and completion you were talking about. And hopefully that then translates to more Aboriginal allied health graduates and providers, not just in your community, but in many other communities around the country. So I think it's incredible work that you're doing and I'm so glad that you could share it. Thank you so much, Jasmine. It's been really lovely to reflect and speak to, I think, an array of things that I've done in such a short time frame of my career.

And when you beat it back to me, I go, oh, yeah, I did do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was really brave going into private practice with no knowledge. Yeah. Thank you. 100%. But that's what drives us, right? We see a gap.

We see a need. And we have the skills and the capacity and the motivation to try to address it. And to build your tribe, you've got all these great people that you've developed, your two supervisors, the people that you work with, the community that you're in to be able to make it happen instead of just a 90. Very important. Yeah. Thank you again.

So lovely to chat with you. Thank you, Yasmin. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Yulila, 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 Harveen, an accredited mental health social worker who has worked as a mental health clinician in hospital settings with a passion for supporting individuals and groups

across a range of mental health journeys and trajectories. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you're notified when this next episode is available. See you next time.