Social Work Spotlight - Episode 129: Evanthea

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

In this episode I speak with Evanthea, a Social Worker and Counsellor with experience in child protection, out of home care, disability, and therapeutic roles. She currently works as the Director of her business, Budding Resilience Therapies, specialising in supporting individuals with complex psychosocial needs and offering experienced practitioners who have a multifaceted approach to supporting their clients as they navigate multiple systems. Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Kids Helpline -https://kidshelpline.com.au/Budding Resilience Therapies -https://www.buddingresilience.com/The Yoga Impact Charity -https://www.yogaimpactcharity.com/Evanthea’s research assessment; How job stress impacts child protection -https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/research-assessment-how-job-stress-impacts-child-magnisallis-jp/Eddie’s practice -https://www.leadwithlove.com.au/Evanthea’s podcast System Error -https://open.spotify.com/show/7e88NbL8jEODaUntOx9i58Evanthea on Ashton’s podcast Becoming an AMHSW -https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/episode-18-evanthea/id1642275191?i=1000651753280Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics -https://www.attachmenttraumanetwork.org/neurosequential-model-of-therapeutics-nmt/Bessel van der Kolk, how yoga helps heal trauma -https://kripalu.org/resources/how-yoga-helps-heal-trauma-qa-bessel-van-der-kolkThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CUzcOvkRi0V72VZvb49dtDY4thycBl6783r_2NmRsog/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, Yasmy Lumpus, and today's guest is Avanthia, a social worker and counsellor who lives and works on direct country and acknowledges the traditional owners past, present and emerging. Evanthia began practicing social work in 2014 and has experience in child protection, out-of-home care, disability and therapeutic roles. She currently works as the director of her business, Budding Resilience Therapies, which provides therapeutic support and behaviour support. BRT specialises in supporting individuals with complex psychosocial needs, offering experienced practitioners who have a multifaceted approach to supporting their clients as they navigate multiple systems. Avantia is passionate about ongoing learning and promoting positive change in a collaborative way. Hi, Avantia, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and meeting with me today. I'm looking forward to chatting with you more about all things social work. You're very welcome and I'm glad to be here, so thank you.

Of course. When did you get started in social work? I'd love to know what drew you to the profession in the first place. So I decided I wanted to be a social worker when I was 14 years old. So we had a death in the family and I felt like we could have had more support and a way of me dealing with my grief was to raise money and my school was really supportive of that. So that's kind of how it started. It was this whole like idea of I want to help people.

I finished my degree in 2014. So I was in my early 20s at that point. And it's a little, it's a hard question to answer. I say to people when they ask me like, why did you do it? Because the reasons change as your career changes and what you expect out of it changes. And I think you really celebrate the small wins a lot more as time passes as well. But yeah, I was really intent on working in child protection at that point and really intent on like making big changes.

And I had this passion for bringing up issues and addressing issues within systems, which is why I have a podcast called System Era. But generally, I wanted to feel like I was helping people where they were feeling really alone. And that was where it all started. Amazing. I think as you progress and develop skills and experience, you realize that those big wins aren't as common or perhaps they are, but they seem a bit smaller.

It's really hard to kind of put a word on what you're doing because you get so entrenched in it. So I totally understand what you're saying. And I guess it helps to understand also that sometimes those things that you might consider a small win might be a substantial win for the person that you're supporting. So it can be hard to see that in context. but I think continually coming back to that is what hopefully keeps it fresh for you. I feel like I get so much more joy in the little things now as a result of my career, though.

I think you go in and you want these big changes and what I always say to like my employees or staff or people that are kind of asking me for advice is sometimes when there's nothing you can do to change a situation and you can make that person aware that you care, that can make the biggest difference for them and they'll look back on that and it will be so significant for them. So don't underestimate things like that. And I wouldn't even say that's a little thing.

I think that's a huge thing. But someone to feel like you're listening and you care and you want to be there for them is a really big kind of life-changing thing for some people, especially if they are very isolated. Absolutely. And what were your placements as you're going through the course? So my first placement was in child protection.

So it was FACS then and now it's DCJ. in the restoration and preservation team. It was a pilot at the time, which was really interesting. My second placement was in supported independent living in a mental health home. So predominantly all the people that were living there had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. And then there was one person with really, really severe depression. And I really enjoyed both placements, to be honest. I really got a lot out of it and really helped me grow as a person and learn a lot about the field. And how did that shape what you then wanted to do once you graduated? I was determined to do child protection.

Like that was never even a question. So that was always what I was going to do when I left. I think I briefly did a little bit of mental health work because of my second placement led to a role. And then I got accepted as a caseworker. And then that was it. I was off doing casework. But in not child protection, restoration, preservation,

sort of more the mental health side of things in counselling and not exactly what you expected to be doing no so when i first so i was doing mentoring in mental health and that came from my second placement which was the mental health placement and then i accepted a role as a caseworker so i did initially do out-of-home care casework and then i did child protection casework as well and i was there for about three and a half years okay that's a good stint for your first role yeah how did you know it was time to move on from that? It was honestly, I just got to the point where I felt that the processes in place were getting in the way of the outcomes for families. And I also really felt that our voices as workers weren't heard at the time. And I basically had to leave for my own well-being at that point.

And what did you move into? What were you looking for? So I moved. I was still passionate about working with kids, so I moved into out of home care. So my total stint with child protection out of home care was about eight years. I also did some court assessments, like so carer assessments, kinship assessments, parenting capacity, guardianship. So I did that kind of on the side contracting. I've always really enjoyed working and had pretty robust work schedule. But I, moving out of the kind of government where it's like so, there's so much

a tape into non-government was positive. I'd say there were benefits and there were definitely down points as well. Like I really can't fault the training we got in government. It was great. And with non-government at times, I kind of felt like, I don't know, there were people kind of coming in and out and there wasn't a lot of training. And I felt sometimes the practice could have been better or that they could have been more mindful of who they recruited and what their education was. Yeah. What would you say has then led to this point? point in your career where you are now. It sounds like you've done some additional training as well

on top of what you got through the government sector. Yeah, so I was, so I did my eight years. I worked at a few different agencies. I worked in government doing kind of case work or case management, which was very passionate about. And then I started to see, I always, at the start of my career, I was like, I'd never do therapy. Like it's, you know, you can't make big changes

and actually seeing therapists work with, young people in my roles and the difference they made and how much they empowered someone and they could shift their perspective because kids blame themselves for everything. I always say this. You know, there could be all this horrible stuff happening and so many, so much of the time, the kids like, it's because I'm bad because kids are very egocentric, which is normal developmentally. So me being able to see the value in that as time passed and also wanting to shift away from crisis work was why I ended up shifting over. And I ended up working at the kids' helpline, which I loved. I was there during COVID, which was full on. I won't lie.

But no one could have planned for COVID, obviously. But yeah, shifting from case management and referrals and overseeing in crisis to the therapeutic space was really, it was positive for me in that there was a massive change of pace where it was all about the now and not being reactive. and it was also I could see so many benefits for young people and them feeling empowered and understanding that they were supported and that these negative views about the world aren't necessarily truths. And they had amazing. I loved kids help on.

They had the amazing induction. Like it was a great way to step into therapeutic work. And eventually that led to me doing my master's of counseling. Did you find it difficult, given that you did have the background in case management, I imagine in the kids' helpline there would have been things that you just couldn't follow through. You had to hand over to someone else. You had to hope that someone else was doing the stuff that ordinarily you might just pick up the phone and do yourself. Was that challenging?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, it was eight years in, you know, like I was really set in my way. I was good at case management. I was really set in my ways. And it was a massive shift for me to be like, I can't actually do that. I don't want to disempower the person or their family. I want to encourage or maybe suggest things, but it's not my responsibility to take over.

But that shift's been so good and I can see so much value in taking that approach now. I had an amazing clinical supervisor, Eddie, it's name him. And he really noticed straight off the bat, and I'm so big on supervision, I love it. He really noticed straight off the bat. He was like, you're struggling with the shifting role. and he was really supportive to me around, okay, you're putting on your case management hat now, or are we doing therapeutic work? Because this is about you asking the right questions and doing with someone.

It's not about you fixing things. And often people value the person that stays with them in it a lot more than the person that comes in and tries to fix things. So that was a big, it was a valuable lesson for me as well, and I'm really glad that I learned it. Yeah, it's interesting from a solution-focused perspective because we are taught so much that, you know, we have the skills, we have the networks, we have the resources, but as you said, sometimes really just someone needs you in the space. It's about the here and now. Yeah. And you need to be wanting to fix things and being told what to do is nowhere near as valuable as you figuring out what you should do when actioning it yourself.

So yeah, it was definitely such a massive shift, but I'm so grateful for it. And it made me really see at times how kids in the system can be quite disempowered. There's a real aversion to risk and you know people kind of jumping in and trying to remove all risk whereas like at the kids helpline we sat with a little bit more risk and it was empowering for young people and they managed it quite well like I really enjoyed especially with teenagers actually being able to safety plan with them and manage it with them and how that was had a positive impact on their mental health. What was the point then that you decided to go for the accredited mental health social

work accreditation? And what was that process like for you just because I've had so many varied experiences with people who have come onto the podcast? Well, I went for it three times. So one time I was a case manager, so that was never going to be approved, which is fair. The second time I was like, I'm going to do this solo. And I think I did okay. But the third time I went for it, I ended up contacting Ashton Hayes, who's amazing.

She's been on the podcast as well. Has she? Yeah. Yeah. Just a lot of intricate or things that they have expect in the application that they don't actually outline. Like, you know, when you have a university essay, they'll say, this is how you get, you know, a distinction and they'll outline, you know, the criteria for it.

Whereas I felt there wasn't any of that and there was all these expectations. that I wasn't aware of. So the second time when I actually consulted with her and she outlined all of this stuff to me, I was like, oh, okay, it's not that I don't have the experience or I'm bad at my job. It's literally just they have specific things that they want and I need to really alter my responses to make sure I'm hitting those things. So yeah, it was, I wish I'd just gotten help at the beginning, to be honest. I think it's going through the process multiple times. The first time it was fine because it was an application and they declined, but going through even just the case studies twice was pretty full on. Like you get pretty stressed about it. And I'm, yeah, I'm just

glad it's done and I've gotten their help for it. I do think that they could probably communicate what they want a bit better, but I also respect that, you know, the other people that provide therapy that are Medicare, our psychologists. And I respect that they do a lot of study and they also face a lot of hurdles in order to be able to be accredited and beyond Medicare. themselves so I understand that they have to be quite specific about who they approve. Yeah. And the process changes quite a bit from the sounds of things now there's an exam. So if you're not good at exams or, you know, if that creates more stress, getting help is really important, I think. It is. And just having her be like, it's not you. Like Ashton was really

lovely about it. It's not you. You're good at what you do. You need to just follow a specific criteria. She even gave me advice if the first time I was declined, I sent her my application. And she was like, look, you can try and ask them to review it. I don't really think that they're going to approve it. So maybe we need to just work together on starting something new. And I appreciated that because why go through that process if it's not likely to be a positive outcome? Whereas I've been on her podcast as well, there was someone she advised that they should get it reviewed and then they got approved. But yeah, just her honesty and her transparency and her respect for others in the profession, it really made the process a lot easier.

And listening to her podcast and hearing everyone else's stories of their application and how that was, it was really heartening for me because quite a few people did feel the same way, kind of invalidated or they hadn't been successful because of an issue with their practice when really it was more about the way that they were responding to questions and the way things were formatted. What's your current role then? What is a typical day like for you? even though in social work that doesn't exist. What does it entail?

So I'm very happy to not really do crisis work anymore. I just, after doing it for so long, I just was really done with it. And I would include kids help one as crisis work too, because we had quite a lot of suicidal callers, particularly during COVID. That was really full on as far as people calling and being really suicidal kids and young people. I work for myself now, so I have a business called budding resilience therapies.

After working in Kids Helpline and doing therapeutic work, I continue to do counselling because a lot of my experience is in trauma and that's a passion of mine. And I also decided to shift and learn a bit more about disability and learn about behaviour support. So at the moment I'm managing my business. I have subcontractors and employees. I also do behaviour support and some therapeutic work. I found, yeah, working for myself has been good because I can find the right balance. find the right balance. So I do like one day a week of therapeutic work because I find trauma counselling is really heavy. Like I'm very empathetic and really carry people's emotions.

So once one day a week for me is plenty and then mixing it up with behaviour support is great. And I think finding that balance for yourself is really important and what matches for you as a person if you're a social worker. And how did you go about setting up the business? Because, you know, where do you start? What templates do you use? How do you build all that? stuff is really confronting and difficult unless perhaps you had someone to help you through that as well. No, but I'm realizing I've kind of did things the hard way of it. It started off as more of my intention at the beginning was I'll work part-time and I'll eventually just do this a few days away

and do some therapeutic work and just see where things go. So it was all fun at the beginning with like designing the logo and all that. As time progressed it kind of grew on its own. Having a business is kind of like having a child, like you think about it a lot and like where it's going to be one day and all that sort of thing. So it kind of over time formed its own. So it was just me for quite a while and it kind of began because a previous client of mine was like, I don't want to talk to anyone knew and her carer had found out I was working at the kids help line from my LinkedIn, I think. So that's how it started that I was doing counselling. And then as time progressed, I started to do like NDIS work. And then over time, I was like, oh, maybe I can get a subcontractor or two.

And now we've kind of landed to today where it's me, yeah, running a business with multiple subcontractors, which is awesome. I think I'm glad that I took it slow and let it grow by itself because it naturally kind of my values kind of started to come into it. And it didn't feel like I was trying to force a brand. It was really genuine. Like, for example, I'm very passionate about like I having 80, I'm really passionate about not putting shame or like seeing neurodiversity as a negative thing.

And I love that because it's my own business. I am able to, you know, there'll be a kid that's like I've got ADHD. I feel like, you know, there's something wrong with me. And I'll be like, I have ADHD too. And I'm still successful. And, you know, you can still achieve great things even if your brain's a bit different. But yeah, I definitely feel like taking it over time and letting it happen naturally worked really well for me. and then that way I was able to form something that I really believed in and that reflected my values.

I think I saw that your business also provides trauma-informed yoga, which sounds incredible. How did that come about? Oh, I've always loved yoga, and I found out there was like a trauma-informed yoga teaching course through the yoga impact charity. Like as a young person, I at times struggled with anger, and I remember I being in things. therapy and then being like, just breathe. And I was like, no, no, I don't want to. But as an adult and through yoga, I actually learned how to be slower and breathe.

And it really helped me through some difficult times. So I ended up doing the teaching course and integrating some of those strategies into my therapeutic work. I haven't used it as much as I would like to, but I'm still really glad that I did it. Bessel van der Kolk, who's a trauma psychiatrist, has recommended. yoga as an alternative approach to managing trauma. Of course, considering any triggers someone might have particularly, like if there's like a sexual assault history or anything like that,

around the poses you do. But yeah, it was kind of, I was excited that there was something that wasn't just like classic talk therapy or medication that can actually really help your sense of well-being and improve your mental health. So that's how I got into the yoga teaching. And I still enjoy practicing these days as well. Yeah. Because I know that we hold so much somatic stuff and working through emotions is something that probably comes up quite a bit in the yoga.

When I'm practicing yoga, sometimes the instructors, if we're doing hip opening, they'll just say, you know, sit with it and there might be stuff that comes up. How do you hold people within that space? And like if you've only got, say, an hour with someone, how do you make sure that you're kind of keeping to time and bringing attention to things and making sure that that is. a safe space for someone. I mean, I think a lot of it is your demeanour and what you bring to a space. I think there's like a part of you that like you need to be in touch with yourself and you need to be regulated first of all to support anyone. And then a lot of it is also allowing that person autonomy and really making it safe for them to express if they are uncomfortable or anything's coming up and offering them options. That was a huge part of the yoga teaching course was always offering

options and letting people know that if they need a break, that they can step away and making it very much that they felt that they could promote their own sense of well-being and safety, because obviously, you know, what's one trigger for one person would be different for someone else. It sounds like you're not running groups necessarily at the moment, though. It's one-on-one, so you can really dedicate that time and pay lots of attention to what's coming up. Yeah.

I don't really teach yoga, like during therapy or anything like that. It's more the strategies like explaining that the quickest way to calm the nervous system is through breath. So even if sometimes it feels a bit silly or you feel like it's cheesy, these things really do work and kind of encouraging people to give it a chance or recommending to clients I have that it's something that's worth trying. I mean, I get a lot of naps not happening and that's their choice. A lot of men often will be like, I'm not doing yoga, which is fine. but it's something to put out there.

Like I've even read somewhere else, like if you get one massage a week, it reduces depression. That was what something Dr. Bruce Perry said in his course. So there's definitely options out there that aren't traditional talk therapy, and I'm really big on people being aware of that. I love talking, obviously, but it doesn't work for everyone to talk about stuff. And I think that's fine. If it doesn't work for you, then look at something else you can do. That's totally cool.

Yeah. Is that perhaps then something. in terms of business development or how will your child develop? Would you like to bring in some sort of group experience or opportunity to the business? Yeah, I think so. Generally, the biggest pull I get is for therapeutic stuff, therapeutic work. So that's, I get those referrals really easily. I've been really focused on the yoga stuff as much as I could

because I kind of had to decide what I was going to prioritize and put my attention on. but I definitely feel it could be something I expand on in the future. Through the yoga impact charity, I have run some kind of yoga classes or like a 10-week course, for example, with I think Kari, a Kari team. So there's definitely options for it. It's just I had to really, as a business owner, you really have to figure out what you're going to prioritize and how you're going to direct your energy. So unfortunately, it's kind of gone to the wayside a little bit.

Sure. Tell me about system error. your podcast come about and yeah what does that mean to you and how does that incorporate with your practice or if it does it all yeah it's it's kind of like the business stuff like it's i had an idea which was and i think i mentioned at the start of my career was so big on wanting to have an impact on systems and at times feeling really frustrated that i couldn't so it was kind of me wanting to give people a voice about what their experience was and them not having to feel, you know, like they were being censored. So yeah, I just didn't want people to feel like they were being censored or I wanted

people to talk about their experience of systems and how that impacted them. I kind of had like a more intense idea of how it would be at the start, but as times progressed and we've done a few episodes, it's kind of become more about people's narratives and their experience and their own interpretation of their interactions with systems, which I'm happy with. Like, I've really enjoyed hearing people's stories and it's interesting hearing how one person can have an experience and react in one way and then another person will react in a completely different way as well. I wonder if the medium of podcast helps people to feel a little bit more comfortable as

opposed to a, you know, video where people can remain anonymous. I know some of your guests have been anonymous. and it means that they can take breaks if they need to mid-conversation. It's an interesting medium and I don't know, obviously we're on a podcast at the moment, but everyone seems to have some sort of something coming up in this forum and if it's not a podcast, it's a YouTube thing. Where would you like to take it? What are you hoping it can develop into?

Honestly, I haven't thought hugely into where it would go. I'm hoping that eventually people will just, listen to it and maybe people working in the systems will consider the experience of the people that come onto the podcast because there's not there's no intention of any of us wanting to attack people or say people aren't doing their best or anything like that but it is so different and I have been a first responder it's so different being a first responder compared to being on the other side of that is what is becoming so apparent when I talk to people and what I've understood throughout my career and I really want there to be like an increased understanding

of how scary and how overwhelming it can be being in a situation and how much of an impact first responders or people within systems can have. And I've noticed that the guests will talk a lot about their own internal resources. So how did they use their networks, their experience, the other people in their lives to help them through what was a very challenging situation? So it's good that that's highlighted as well. Yeah, I think it's just so interesting because I kind of expected some people to be really gung-ho and really like, I'm so angry.

But every person I've spoken to so far was able to highlight positive things that happened as well and really acknowledge things that they felt was beneficial. So it's not all negative stuff. And I hope that it's not taken in that way and that it's just literally people saying what it was like for them. Because it is so true, like it's like the whole narrative theory approach, which is you and I can sit here and have this podcast and someone may ask us later.

What did you guys talk about? And we have completely different answers. And that's totally fine. But just having an idea of how your actions can impact others has a big impact. And I think like I also want to acknowledge that the people that work in systems having been someone that's worked in systems and a first responder, sometimes the conditions you have to work under or the demand because you can't control how many crises happen at once really affect the way you respond to people and that's understandable as well and I really hope those people get the support from management and whoever else

is there to support them through that. Yeah. For people who don't know haven't worked in field of disability or I guess NDIS and situations where you might have involuntary people or people with behavioural concerns. Can you just explain very briefly what a behaviour support plan is, what a practitioner is, and how that all works within, I guess, supporting people who are, at times, you would consider them involuntary, right? Because they may not see that they need support with their behaviours. Yeah, it's an interesting space because if people sign off their own plans, they can decline behaviour support, although there are some people that it's quite apparent to me that they benefit from it and there's you know internal shame or reasons why they're declining and we just

have to accept that because that's the way that you know they're their own guardian and obviously it's their choice in that situation behavior supports basically working with people that have behaviors of concern so it's considered a behavior of concern if there's a safety issue and there's often a lot of focus on externalizing behaviors which would be like physical aggression running away all of the stuff that's like really apparent and obvious but I also really enjoy working with people who internalize things. So people that shut down or are overly compliant or vulnerable in the community, I think it's really valuable doing behaviour support with them as well and working on their assertiveness and their ability to say no because that's a massive

issue with disability. I mean, women with a disability is so much more likely to be abused or sexually assaulted as with men, than more likely to have issues with the police, not understanding their needs. It's massive. So I really see it as an advocacy role first and foremost. And the ending EIS refers to the importance of considering a participant's quality of life, because obviously if your quality of life is good, you're less likely to have behaviours. It makes so much sense and it's so simple, but we can get really stuck on how we're responding to negative behaviours rather than preventing them. I mean, I think a lot of it has come from, I guess, issues that have come up with participants. And it is somewhat of a human right role where you're kind of

standing up for participants in their rights at times and obviously trying to reduce restrictive practices. And so a big part of it is working with people where there may be restrictive practices, which is basically any kind of practice that reduces someone's autonomy or their human rights is considered a restrictive practice. And a big part of the role is trying to reduce that. So it could be using medication to manage behaviours. It could be, you know, some people, they get physically restrained. So anything like that, it's about trying to reduce that and have people work to prevent it and also respond appropriately to it.

Yeah, and even things like putting food in a fridge that's locked, for instance, if someone can't regulate their appetite, those sorts of things that you think, oh, actually, yeah, that is really restrictive. I hadn't thought of that before. And it is becoming a lot more well-known, which is good. But from my perspective, it's like that dignity of risk that you were talking about. and often it's about supporting other people to respond appropriately and guide someone through what others may see as just someone being difficult. Yeah, I was just speaking to a staff

member this morning about some people will say like drug and alcohol use is a behavior of concern. And I was saying, well, I mean, I know a lot of people that will go and have a drink and it wouldn't be considered a behavior of concern. And we do need to have an understanding of autonomy. So if, say, someone drinks excessively and it leads to violence, then the behaviour of concern would be, say, physical aggression and we could talk about how the alcoholic drug use plays into it, but it's also being mindful that we're not writing plans where we're trying to restrict what someone's doing and their choices as well, because we think that that's a problem. It's not about whether we think of the problem.

It's about if it's a genuine safety issue for them or for others. Yeah. So often in my experience, it's psychologists who are the behaviour support. practitioners or the people that are writing up these plans. I can so see how this is a social work role as well. How do you see what we do, what we've learned contributing towards this field? There's a lot of value in psychology and there's a lot of knowledge that they hold in relation to the brain and how an individual works. But I love the social work perspective in that we look at all the systems around a person and I constantly will say because we do a lot of work with teams and

behaviour support and I say to them, I could come in and I could meet with this participant once a week for an hour or I could work with you guys and you could be consistent and you're there every day and that can make much bigger changes for you. So I think having that systemic understanding and approach and also looking at how did this person get here? Because a lot of these people have been a part of institutions their whole life and we have the perspective of we need to get the history and understand the past trauma and that can play into their behaviour currently and their mistrust for services so much. So I think social work is really valuable in the therapeutic and behaviour support space,

just as I think psychology is very valuable, but I'm all for having different lenses and perspectives as much as possible so that we can really look at a situation from different angles. So much of the work that you've described, even with the crisis support work and counselling work you're doing, it's incredibly challenging, it's difficult work. What is the most difficult thing for you? And it might not even be about the work.

It might just be about being a director of a business. What do you find is the most difficult or challenging thing for you? Look, I'm not. If someone ever says to me, I want to be a social worker or work in your industry, I don't mince my words. I'll say it's really hard. Like you have to really, really want to do it and have that drive to be able to stick it out. And I mean, everyone that I've known that's been a first responder has had a breakdown at some point.

The reality of the work is it can be traumatic and exhausting. And sometimes you're running on fumes or I guess you're so hypervigilant and reacting for so long that eventually your body's got to slow down. I think the biggest lesson for me, especially after so many years of kind of crisis work and responding to crisis. And I'm quite good at it in the moment. So I was often the go-to person to respond to a crisis as well. The big thing for me has being able to say actually no, like I need a few days or I'm not coping at the moment and taking that step back and letting someone else step in as well. And having increased boundaries as well has made a big difference.

And it's been a really big learning lesson for me, especially with therapy that you fixing something for someone else and them always coming to you to regulate their emotions is actually not helping them to improve their lives and we're not here to enable people to continue behavior. We actually want to work with them to improve their situation so they can cope themselves. So that's been a really big learning lesson for me as well. You mentioned supervision is really important to you. What support do you need then to work through both the immediate response stuff and the reflection afterwards of how do I keep doing this longer term?

I have a really good supervisor who keeps me a and often I'll kind of go to him. It's still Eddie actually. It's a shout out to Eddie. I'll still go to him and he often will be like, Ev, your boundaries, you're doing too much again. You know, we all have patterns is the reality and like you see it as a therapist. And as a human, we all have patterns that we fall into and I tend to take on too much, which is also an ADHD thing, which is like you feel understimulated until it's too much basically and then it's all too much. So having someone that holds me accountable and challenges me and also kind of notices, well, you're having a bit of a response to this.

Is this something to do with your history or something coming from within you is really helpful? And I think having that safety with someone and then being external to your job is really beneficial as well. But having that safety with someone and them just understanding that you are a human and you always bring your own stuff forward and you can work through it is really, I found it really beneficial, just having that safe space where it's like, yeah, you know what, this is bringing stuff up for me. And if it's going to be an ongoing thing, maybe we need to talk

about a transfer and it's actually not healthy for either me or the client, you know. But that speaks to his skill as a supervisor as well to understand your triggers before you're even aware of what you're saying. Oh, absolutely. I can see that he's really understanding, like, you know, you might come across as completely normal. But, he's seen the nuance, he's seen whatever is affecting you before you realise it yourself. Yeah, I've had him for years. I've had like a few people and sometimes I want like a different kind of approach. But having someone that really knows you make such a big difference and someone that you know genuinely cares about your career. So yeah, no, I definitely think anytime I've

slacked off supervision, I've always regretted it. I think it's so important to have it at least once a month and really make sure you're getting that time to be reflective because a big thing I value is being proactive instead of reactive is really important. And sometimes if you're just jumping from thing to thing, you don't even realize, but you're not actually thinking things through properly. So I find supervision is a good space to do that and unpack things and actually think, oh, is this response actually helpful? Or is this response what I think I should be doing or, you know, have I actually thought this through? It's really beneficial. I don't see, I don't know how people could cope without supervision or do reflective practice without it personally.

Mm-hmm. And given that you've had experience over a period of time now, over different parts of social work, have you seen a lot of changes, whether it's legislation practices, guidelines, or just the way social work is done in different areas? I'm so glad I stuck out the thousand hours placement, which we weren't paid for at that point. There was no central link payment or anything for that. if you remember, it was, yeah. My joke when I was a student was like,

they want us to know what it's like to be poor so that we can have to be a social worker, right? Yeah, so we know what it's like, so it's fine. I'm so glad I stuck it out and became a social worker because there are avenues opening for us now that were not possible. So even being a mental health social worker, being on Medicare, I'm really glad I stuck with that and became accredited. And I feel like it's a real privilege to hold that title. I think our skills are definitely being acknowledged more and our ability to assess a situation

based on obviously the mental health, the immediate presentation, the disabilities, to a point and then actually looking at the whole system around the person, I think it's really great. I know like definitely some systems like with family law court, they're starting to value our assessments more in our interpretation of like what support network someone has and having that input can really be beneficial to the lives of, for example, children, where they might be focused more on, you know, mum's mental health as an individual, we can come in and look and say, well, mum has no supports and all her family are overseas and look at all the contributing factors rather than just what the problem is. Yeah. Are there any programs or projects that are coming

up for you that you wanted to shout out or just things, other things that you're working on? you know, in your spare time because there's so much of it clearly. Yeah. I mean, I'm really proud of system error, but it's it's kind of a love-hate relationship. Like, I really need to make sure I keep up with my podcasts and things like that. I'm really enjoying doing more work in the forensic space. I'm definitely someone I need to change what settings I work in regularly and have like a mix of clients that really benefits me. I've recently have a colleague, Chris, who specialises in forensic work and we've had a few clients who are sex offenders or they have sexualised behaviours and learning more about that space.

Because in child protection, it was all about the risk to children. Learning about it from the perspective of like a therapeutic perspective and how to reduce risk and the contributing factors has been really interesting. And also seeing, it's hard to explain. I mean, I wrote an article about it, it's on my LinkedIn, about people working in child protection and some of the impacts they're going to have on people. And one of the impacts they could have, which was noted in the studies that I was reading, was that some people can be so burnt out or overwhelmed by risk that it can be right in front of their face and they don't see it. And I see that a lot when someone's sexually harmful is that people don't know how to do with it. And you see services are kind of unwillingly blind to it or they minimize it and it's hard. to reduce the risk in that space as a result.

So that's been really interesting. And Chris is a lot more patient than me, having been in the space, a lot longer about providing education and trying to work with people to see it more. But it's been an interesting challenge because you would think the hardest part would be working with a sex offender, but it's actually not. There are people that are sex offenders that really want support and to reduce their behaviours. But it's, I think the services and their inability to see the risk or unwillingness at times

it feels like that's been the biggest challenge for me. I spoke with Jerome probably a few years ago now, another social worker who works at the forensic hospital, and now he's actually head of Allied Health there. But that whole sector sounds so incredibly fascinating to me, so challenging but so rewarding. And I've noticed a lot more social workers are studying combined degrees with criminology or forensics,

including my social work student from last year. So it is a really interesting, I think, combination of things to study. And I'm glad that there are hopefully going to be more social workers in that field because I think that we've got a big part to play and coming back to what you're saying about those systems and being able to support people and the networks and seeing it as, you know, kind of what happened to you as opposed to what's wrong with you. Yeah. I think it's obviously so important to acknowledge that trauma often plays a big part in

any kind of offending behavior, but I noticed that a lot of us focus on that, the trauma as opposed to the offending behavior, and it's important to acknowledge both. So that's been really interesting to notice, like, there tends to be a bias towards one or the other, like you either look at someone as like an offender or look at them as a victim and people really struggle with that duality where you can actually be an offender and a victim at the same time, and that makes complete sense. So I definitely think it's a space where we could all make it more of a difference and we all would benefit from learning more about all the antisocial stuff and the DSM as opposed to just focusing on like depression, anxiety and all that sort of thing.

For sure. Are there any resources that perhaps we haven't mentioned that I can put in the show notes, things that you want to mention because we've talked about Ashton's podcast, which is called Becoming an AMHSW, there's Bessel Fandercult's work, there's Bruce Perry, there's the Kari courses you were mentioning. Is there anything else that you think people should check out if they wanted to know more about the social work in this area? Well, I'm working on developing a resource actually,

which I'll share with you when it's finished, with who I mentioned who works in the forensic space. It's basically meant to be a tool that's accessible to people with a disability or that perhaps aren't super educated around how to reduce risk of sexual harm to your children, and it focuses on environmental factors. So basically like what the research says or a lot of the research is that environment has a massive impact on whether a child's at risk and we tend to focus on the parent or this or that. So I'll definitely share that with you when it's done because a parent understanding how to reduce risk and how their behaviour and who looks after their child and what information is out in the world could definitely save a child from experiencing that kind of trauma, which I think is really important.

It's so good that you've got that and the other article. you mentioned because it just keeps things fresh for you as well and it helps you translate the work you're doing into something that hopefully can be more widely read or absorbed. Yeah, it's just a different interesting offshoot. Would you consider that part of your business? Is that published on your website for instance or is that through a different network? Not yet, but that is the goal. Yeah, we want to create some more resources that are accessible because it is something that there's not a lot of accessible resources out there for and it tends to be there's informational resources when it's really at crisis point and you know someone's been harmed so that's something that we are developing and

will eventually be on the website but i'm happy to provide it to you when it is completed it's exciting i think it's so important as a practitioner of any kind to like constantly be learning and stimulating yourself and trying to learn new skills and when you stop doing that i think you're practice really does go downhill. So it's something I really value. Yeah. And I definitely want to share that resource as much as I can as well, working in the disability space, people with different needs and supports and people that require support workers as well. I think it's probably something that I should be disseminating with them in terms of what can they be mindful of, what can they look out for, and how can they support someone to build a supportive environment as much as possible as an early intervention thing?

Yeah, definitely. There's so much sometimes out there for when something bad has happened and what we learn, and it's a massive part of behaviour support. And I focus on it a lot in therapy too is let's identify the red flags. And it's kind of an overused term now, but let's identify what's happening or risks for so that you're able to have the skills to manage that and hopefully prevent something bad happening. And a lot of it can just be people learning

how to set basic boundaries they struggle with. I see it all the time with trauma clients is that saying no, I don't want to talk about that or just a basic boundary of like, oh, I don't like this or I'm too hot. They just can't do it. And it takes a lot of work to get them to feel safe to do that. And it's like a real shift in their mentality

and response to their environment. So I'm really big on prevention work these days, I think, after doing so much crisis stuff. Yeah, absolutely. If we've had an opportunity to talk about a lot of things from your beginnings and social work and wanting to help people and working with kids first and then the case management stuff and counseling and your focus on empowering people and upskilling through your work, as well as your ongoing learning, you've maintained that curiosity, you've diversified the therapy, that you provide and you've looked into different areas of social work like the disability that you

didn't originally think was going to be a focus for you but all throughout that you've been navigating those systems and knowing when to say no for yourself which is really important as a modeling thing so that people can see okay cool i can find what my boundaries are and maintain them is there anything else that maybe we haven't talked about anything else you want to highlight about your work before we finish up I kind of just want to say to any social workers that are listening that your needs are important too. And if you want to do good work, you will also look after your needs. Because I think we often get caught up in like, I should do this for this person and that person and get caught up in everyone

else's needs. And we all deserve to live our lives and enjoy ourselves as well. And I've also found, like, since having a lot more boundaries at the start of my career, I did not have as many as I should. I did a lot of free work hours and things like that. I think my practice is actually a lot better for having them. So I just wanted to say it's okay to say no and look after yourself, which has been a bit of a theme today, I think, but it's really important. And to be your best self at work, I think you need to make sure that you give yourself the space to just be yourself, you know, outside of work. Yeah, because we spend so long in that focused education and the unpaid hours that we do just to burn out in the first few years. It makes no sense. There's no investment

there. So yes, we have a responsibility to maintain ourselves and make sure that we're doing things that are healthy, but we need to be part of a system that's going to support us and to acknowledge and value our input. So it's about finding that balance and finding people that are going to hopefully help foster your development as a professional. Yeah, and I do say to people that if you're in a system that doesn't work for you and it has a negative impact on your well-being and you're not doing your best work and you're really passionate about that issue, there isn't other ways to support those people. Like me being outside of all the child protection out of home care stuff and being able to talk to young people about their experience and validate

that and say, you know what, that is really horrible and be really honest that I think it's unfair, that also makes a huge impact on their lives. So even though I went into social work, like I want to make all these changes and had all these big ideas, I've really realized that the impact you have on an individual and validating their experience and understanding what it's like for them is also a massive way to make a difference in someone's life. So I think it's important to value that stuff too. Yeah, great.

Thank you for highlighting that. Well, we'll finish up then. Thank you so much, Ev, for coming on today and for chatting with me. I've loved every minute of it and loved knowing more about what you do. and I look forward to more episodes of System Era. I've checked them all out so far. So I'll put resources in the show notes for people to go off and read, listen, just absorb as much as they can because it's incredibly interesting.

And yeah, thank you again. 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 Avantia, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you

or another person you know I'd like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Yulia, a social worker and psychosexual therapist specializing in youth mental health and sexual health. She has worked in digital mental health spaces, clinical education and peer support, bringing a diverse and holistic approach to her practice. Yulia completed her Master of Science in Medicine, sexual and reproductive health, specialising in psychosexual therapy,

and also holds a Bachelor of Social Work and a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notify when this next episode is available. See you next time.