Social Work Spotlight - Episode 130: Yulia

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

In this episode I speak with Yulia, a social worker and psychosexual therapist specialising 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. Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Digital mental health services -https://www.health.gov.au/our-work/digital-mental-health-servicesThis Way Up -https://thiswayup.org.au/Mood Gym -https://www.moodgym.com.au/ABC of Sexual Health by Kevan R Wylie -https://www.wiley.com/en-au/ABC+of+Sexual+Health%2C+3rd+Edition-p-9781118665619Sex-Positive Social Work by SJ Dodd -https://cup.columbia.edu/book/sex-positive-social-work/9780231188111This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15CyVrrZpgbSaWPh5qmUCfiidcQz9UQjMUUVj0k4q-cg/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, Yasmin Lupus, and today's guest is Yulia, a social worker and psychosexual therapist specialising 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 at the University of Sydney. She also holds a Bachelor of Social Work and a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice from UNSW.

Yulia is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers and the Society of Australian Sexologists. Thanks so much, Julia, for joining me today on the podcast. I'm looking forward to having a chat with you about your social work experience. Thank you so much, Yasmin. I'm really excited to be here and really. looking forward to our chat. I always ask firstly what got you into social work. When did you start and what drew you to the profession? Good question. I, oh my goodness, me and social work,

we go back. I remember when I was in primary school actually, I had started to think, oh, you know, maybe I'm kind of curious about a helping profession here. And everyone, you know, knew what psychologists were, what psychiatrists were. So initially, I was sort of said on that where, oh, you know, maybe I'll be a psychologist. Maybe I'll be a psychiatrist, even who knows? And then so for a majority of my

adolescence and high school, that was my goal. I'm just going to be a psychiatrist, psychologist, and everything like that. But then during my senior years of high school, social work was actually introduced to me, and I sort of fell into it, really, prior to a conversation

with a career advisor, I actually had no idea social work existed. I had no idea that this was anything. So for me, it was a bit of a shock like, oh, what is social work? So I did a bit of research in year 12 and I was looking and looking and sussing it out really, figuring out, what is this and is this something I'd like to pursue? I found a university course at UNSW, which was a Bachelor of Social Work and it was also a double degree where you could also do a Bachelor of Criminology and Criminal Justice. And that piqued my interest, especially with the whole sort of ability to mesh those two worlds together.

About social work, what I really enjoyed is just how diverse it is. You know, you can explore mental health. You can explore supporting people with case management. You can work with young people, with children, with people that are aging. So for me, that was just the decision I needed to go with. Whereas with psychology, I felt, you know, yeah, that'd be interesting. But what I really appreciated about social work is how holistic the practice was. And that is essentially what drew me to social work.

So when I was studying social work, I mean, again, like I didn't really know what I was going into. It was just something I had discovered a year prior. Whereas with my initial plans of psychology, I had been focused on that for majority of my adolescence. It was a bit of a switch up. But I did not regret it at all. And I remember on my first day of my university, I attended a lecture. And one of the lecturers, she pulled us all aside and she said, well, you know, you've been through stuff.

And if you have a life story, if you've got life experiences, and you want to use those life experiences and your stories to support others, then you've chosen the right degree. And I knew I was like, yep, I've made the right choice. This is something that I'm really passionate about. This is something that I want to do. I want to help others. And I really stuck with it. The only real barrier was back when I was entering into social work into the uni.

There was a lot of backlash with social work where people would say, oh, you know, social work, it's not going to grow as a profession. It's always going to be problematic given our history, Australian history, with social work. It's always going to be tainted. There's always going to be problems with social workers. Social workers have a very difficult. dark history. So maybe you shouldn't pursue it. So I was hearing all these things, but I decided to not listen to those opinions and just prioritize what I think and what I feel. And then there I was

studying for five years, enjoying every moment of it. Obviously, there were ups and downs with anyone studying at university. There's a lot of stress. But the entirety of the degree was incredibly satisfying and so fulfilling and so rewarding and so validating as well, just knowing that I made the right choice for myself. And to this day, I have no regrets. And I'm so proud to be a social worker and the work that we do, how we are so holistic in our practice, it really sort of aligns with my personal and professional values. So I have just, yeah, it's been a journey, but it's been a very, very positive and fulfilling one. Yeah, wonderful. I love that there is that combined criminology, social work opportunity more recently. I've known a lot of people who have studied both and that's come from their sort of curiosity around TV shows like CSI and that sort of thing, but I can understand how it fits in really well with social work in that sense of social justice and seeing inequities and trying to solve problems. What drew you to the criminology side of things?

and do you think you still kind of use some of those concepts or those learnings? So I suppose what had drawn me to criminology was my family was sort of nervous about the social work sort of career. So I was heavily encouraged to pursue a double degree where if social work failed, I could fall back on criminology. That was their sort of, you go for it, you do that, but have criminology on the side. And look, I happily agreed because I was always interested in criminology. However, I actually had a different understanding of what criminology would be.

So like many others who have watched crime shows, crime documentaries, I had assumed that a criminologist is someone that goes into the field and assesses the body and figures out what's happened, how did this crime occur? very much like that. So more the forensic side of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally had that belief. But, you know, again, I didn't know too much about what I was stepping into.

Criminology sort of turned out to be more the psychological sort of, I guess, understandings of why crime occurs, what goes behind a person's mind and what's going on for someone to actually commit a crime to go down that path. But we also touched base on police and the system and how corrupt it is. And look, it was a very interesting and very sort of insightful degree where I do still utilize aspects of it in my current practice, but obviously at this current time I'm not working in that field. So I'm not touching with it as much.

But I definitely have the interest and would like to one day pursue maybe working in forensic mental health because that definitely would be inappropriate there. But I think it was a good degree and it was very good that it was combined as well because it was sort of meshed together where, you know, one semester you'd have social courses and the next you'd have criminology and a bit of law as well. So it was quite interesting and also made me a little bit of curious. about criminal law, which maybe I may pursue one day. Maybe I won't.

Big commitment. But yeah, look, I think hopefully one day I can, you know, utilize that a little bit more, but for now it's in the backseat. Yeah, nice. I did a similar thing. I studied the arts degree first with a focus on psychology because I assumed I would probably become a psychologist. And then after third year stats, that went out the window and I lost interest.

and it was good in the sense that it wasn't done concurrently. It was one and then the other. And then all you needed to have done was to study the right things in the arts degree and then you could skip the first two years of the social work degree and just do the last two years that have the placement and the really focused learning. But yeah, very similar ideas to let's just diversify a little bit just in case this, what is this social work thing? I don't know too much about it.

What if it's not really what I hope it will be? What if there are no job opportunities, which obviously we know is absolute rubbish now, but you just don't know at the time until you know. Correct. And do you do placements as part of the criminology as well? Or is it just through social? No. No, just the social work.

So there was an opportunity to do a capstone experience. I'm not sure what that entailed, but I think it was optional. And at that time, I had my two final social work placements. decided to not pursue that option and I do believe it was mainly encouraged for people who were doing the single degree of criminology could be wrong could have to change now but I do remember it being that way I think it was a bit of a relief though because if you know I had three placements that would have been overkill I think yeah so good that it turned out that way yeah but you also completed your degree during the COVID years if I'm

Correct. You mentioned stress. I'm guessing that was one of them, but how did that affect you? So actually, my final social work placement was literally in the midst of the lockdowns. So that was in 2020, actually. Wow, that was yonks ago. It seems like a different lifetime. And we did have a couple of technical issues where I had started at a place. placement, NDIS sort of placement, supporting like aged care support workers. And essentially we were having the lockdowns and I had to switch my placement. This was one of the best decisions that we could have made because my final placement that I had switched to was an online mental health sort of counseling app where these two gentlemen had developed an app,

where people could provide counseling to adults who are seeking mental health support on a worldwide sort of scale basis. And the people who are providing counseling had to obviously have some sort of qualification, whether they are in the midst of their degrees or they are psychology graduates, social work graduates, counselors, different types of therapists. And yeah, it was such an immersive, really interesting experience where, you know, for the first time I was providing actual counselling, but on an online platform, which is quite a curious experience. It was through a text-based platform. And that was a really, really wonderful experience because it allowed me to develop and start developing some counselling skills. Because prior to that experience, I had worked

in peer support, again in an online space, but it was just peer supports and not really allowing me to provide counselling. And so this opportunity was great as I just continued to flourish with my skills. And then after I had completed that placement, I felt ready to get into the workforce, get busy, get a job and just start my career. So it was a really, it was a launch path, really. And did that inform what you wanted to do when you finished? And I'm guessing if both of your placements were kind of virtual stepping out into the workforce in the first place is daunting. But having not done that face-to-face work before would have been even more difficult, I guess, challenging. It really was.

Yeah. Look, I felt so overwhelmed and nervous stepping into my first role where, you know, I was hired as almost like a counselor. at a headspace. And even though I had done, you know, a lot of counseling work with my clients online, I had not had any face-to-face experience. So coming into that job, I was shaking in my boots. I did not know what I was doing. And I remember the first couple months, I just felt so overwhelmed. I didn't know what I was doing. And also, it was still locked down at times where the team was complete. completely based online. So no one was going into the office. We were all telehealth. So for me to start a job in that sort of space, it was difficult to establish rapport with my colleagues,

with my clinical lead, with the service manager. It was just such a challenge. I was kind of feeling isolated in a way. But I'm certain that everyone else was as well, because again, Like from their perspective, they've been working face to face for, you know, years and then all of a sudden online. So it must have been quite overwhelming for everyone, but especially for someone new. And so it did take a couple of months to adjust, not just adjust to the work itself, but adjust to working in a multidisciplinary team, which is something that I had not experienced before. because in the past I was working with peer workers and strictly just peer workers and then strictly just counsellors, therapists, that sort of a thing. So when I had entered the headspace realm,

it was a bit of a shock to the system, but a good shock to the system, I think. And what was the team makeup? I'm guessing there were psychologists and maybe some other allied Yeah, so we have a GP, we have psychiatrists, we have a lot of social workers, a very social work-heavy team, got psychologists, we had a mental health nurse and counselors and also peer workers now. So it's just, it was a pretty overwhelming, but positive experiences, it allowed me just to develop skills in terms of interacting and working efficiently with people from different professional backgrounds. Yeah, nice.

And has the role shifted since you've been at Headspace, or are you still doing similar things? Yes, definitely has shifted. So initially when I was hired at Headspace, I was a fresh graduate. I started off as a Youth Access clinician, or back then it was called Practitional. And then we've gone through a couple of name changes since. So currently we've landed on Youth Access Counselor. And so when I was initially hired, I started off with that job and I continued that job for over three years. And that role was fantastic.

It was so broad in terms of what a clinician is able to do. So, for example, I would be doing assessments with clients. I would be providing counseling. I would be providing case management. I would be working with colleagues, with schools, with parents, with families, with friends. It's such a diverse role, such a great role as well for fresh graduates or for people who have switched careers and they want a taste of mental health, counseling. Like, it's such a great role. And then I was kind of like I fell into another role at Headspace.

that was mid last year. My former clinical lead, former supervisor, she had transitioned to another headspace center. And so she had been taking care of the social X students that were doing their placements with us. So she was the clinical educator as well. And whilst she was, you know, packing and then getting ready to leave and start a new journey for herself,

she and I had discussions around transferring that role to me. As I had already been at Headspace for a few years, I had racked up enough experience and knowledge to be a potentially, hopefully, good supervisor. And so I was really blessed to have her there to guide me through and sort of explain everything that I need to know about clinical educator role. Once she left, I took over. Now, that in itself was quite intense in a way because obviously she had to leave quite abruptly in a sense and I already had students there.

So I had to figure out, oh my goodness, how am I going to manage four social work university students with no prior experience or knowledge in supervising anyone else? What am I going to do here? I had a lot of great support from my team just to make me feel comfortable, really accommodating, making sure that I'm not overworked, that I don't see as many clients, so it's just not too much. Because prior to taking on the clinical educator role, I was seeing 20-ish clients a week. And I had to reduce that to around 15, 16, just so that I could fit in my duties as a clinical educator. So I had started that in June, July of 2024.

And we already had that batch of students. And so for me, it was a bit of, oh, my goodness, let's, okay, what am I going to do here? How can I be the best supervisor? What do I need to do? But I feel that I quickly adjusted and I was able to do my best. I had a very interesting group of students and I really appreciated, you know, their work and how they committed to their tasks and everything. And it was definitely a little bit overstimulating at times just because, you know,

you'd come from a session with a client and then you have to address some concerns with the student. So very back and forth sort of a thing. And also the reports, as we social workers know, with our placements, we had our mid-placement reports. We had our final placement reports. So that was a bit of a stress point for both student and myself, just finding time to sort of get their reports done, sent through, and attending all their meetings as well. But I think every student did really, really well, for my first time round, I'm very proud of myself. They all completed their placements extremely

successfully. And now we have our second batch of students coming in January, February. So hopefully it's another successful round. But I have enjoyed that role. It sort of adds something a little bit different to what I'm doing, whereas for three and a half years I was just doing counseling. And now I had the opportunity to branch out a little bit and explore and see, okay, maybe there is something else I'm interested in supervising. Maybe that's something that I could be potentially good at.

And I'm not saying that I'm an expert at all. It's, you know, baby steps still. I think it's something that I enjoy, it's something that I value, and, you know, it's our emerging social workers, so I want nothing but the best for them. And, you know, the feedback that we received at our center from our students was incredibly positive, where I know a lot of social work students who may be listening might relate where some placements are just not ideal. You know, not a lot of support, the hours, the expectations, the tasks. And I really didn't want that for my students. So the team and I, we've really tried to accommodate and make their placement

experience as best as possible, as comfortable, as safe, as calm as possible, because I didn't want to add to their already stressful lives with their assignments, exams, everything else. So that's where we're up to with the clinical educator role. I'm excited to see what happens with that ongoing, but it's been pretty successful, I would have to say. It probably helps that they've had someone who has just recently gone through being a student themselves. You're able to support them from that very recent experience capacity. But did you receive any training, any support around providing supervision? Or you just kind of had to go with it?

So from my former clinical lead, she did provide me with resources. and support and did her best to provide me the knowledge needed to excel in such a role. So again, like super grateful for her support. My service manager had also planned for me to receive some formal training around supervision. And that's still underway. But definitely something that I will be completing, as I think it's very important. I've done a lot of research in terms of supervising, some independent research. And it's sort of a see-how-you-go situation and just work upon what you already have

with the skills you've got and then just further developing via training and gaining knowledge from peers, I think. And so it's just an ongoing process. I know that we have a couple of monthly meetings. coming up for clinical educators as I think that they're sort of finalising the role, setting it in stone, whereas last year was sort of up in the air. So this year, the agency that runs our Headspace Centre is now implementing these meetings, and I think that those will be quite educational and really helpful in terms of how I can best

support my students. Well, I mean, also how you can best support your clients while you're doing all of that, right? Which I think if you're given that balance and the opportunity to diversify, it's only going to be good for your clients as well. You're not going to come to sessions, feeling incredibly stressed. They're going to feel that. So yeah, I think it benefits everyone. Absolutely. Just that flexibility, that balance. I think being the best version I can be for myself, for my clients, where I'm present, I'm holding space for them, and I'm not sort of in a distracted mode where my mind is elsewhere because a client can tell, right?

It's just not fair on the client. And so I've definitely been able to be very present with my clients because I've got that balance, that flexibility. It really has just worked out really nicely. And you've also done some more study. Tell me about the sexual and reproductive health course that you've completed. So I completed my master's in psychosexual therapy. in 2023.

I completed the master's in a year. It's typically advised to complete it in two years part time. But I decided, you know what? I'm going to be just playing around with madness. And I'm going to do my full-time masters and I'm going to work full-time. That was a journey, if you will. That was an experience. The masters in itself was absolutely.

absolutely amazing. It was, I cannot recommend it enough. So interesting, but also quite confronting in some ways, right? Like, especially when we're talking about topics around sex, some topics might be perceived as taboo or unusual or distressing or uncomfortable. And there was a lot of that in these sessions, in these classes, in these tutorials, in these lectures. The course was partially online and then there were blocks of times where we would have to go in for two weeks. These were called intensives and we would have to sort of just engage in content in person and just participate in class activities. But it was a really, really great course. And to be honest, I had actually planned to complete this course for, well, many, many years.

I remember back when I was 16 years old, my plan was I'm going to become a sexologist. I don't care how I get there, but I will get there. And I had initially thought about completing the course in Curtin University over in Perth, I believe. And I had read one of the requirements to complete the master's is you would have to have a psychology degree, a nursing degree or a social work degree, allied health degree. And so even with that, just clicking, okay, I need to have a social work degree to then be able to complete this master's. That as well was the final decision where, yep, I'm doing social work.

And then I'm going to build upon that and get my masters in psychosexual therapy. So I decided to pursue the masters when I was in a good space at work where things were pretty stable, we didn't have much change happening, and my team was incredibly supportive in terms of me pursuing this. They were very flexible, allowing me a little bit of extra time off, paid leave, study leave, so I was extremely grateful that I could continue working whilst I was doing this course. The course in itself, there were eight subjects that I had to complete. some of them were the intros to sexual health, intros to psychosexual therapy, but there were other courses that were sort of piqued by interest.

So for example, adolescent sexual health, which I mean, is quite appropriate as I do work with adolescents primarily. And one other topic that I got to explore was looking into risky sexual behaviors in survivors of childhood sexual abuse. I was able to explore this topic in my capstone project, and so I had written a bit of a report slash literature review and was able to present that piece to my peers. And I think that that was just such a highlight for me

to be able to present a project on something I was so passionate about. Now, another really awesome thing that came out of that degree is I established a really strong connection with my lecturer. And earlier last year, we had gotten into contact and he had let me know that he was planning to open up a clinic in Sydney as he was based in Melbourne. And he had said, look, you know, you might as well start working. as a psychosexual therapist in my new Sydney Clinic. So that was an offer I could not resist. I could not decline that no matter what because again, you know, I had finished this degree.

I was still a social worker, still a counselor at Headspace, but then, you know, what would I do with this degree? And so for this opportunity to pop up, I mean, I had to say yes. Because again, psychosexual therapy is quite a niche area of practice. You don't typically see. that in like an NGO or a mental health organization. It's more seen in private practice or in sexual health clinics. So I sort of was like, okay, you know, this could be something interesting. This could be worth my time. And it definitely was. We had opened up the doors in July, August, September time. And that's been really enjoyable, but also challenging. It's something. It's something that I obviously didn't have much experience in prior to studying, as my professional experience

really just was all around mental health. So to jump from mental health to sexual health was quite intense. And of course, mental health is related to sexual health, but sexual health is its own entity at the end of the day. And so all my knowledge, all my understanding was literally based around my master's. So when I had finished my master's, I felt a little bit lost. I was like, okay, well, what now? What am I going to do here? How do I build upon my skills? Where do I practice with this niche specialization? What do I do? And so, of course, I could have reached out to different private practices, but was I ready? I didn't know. Until the lecturer had sort of suggested opening up the clinic and I felt safe because I knew that I had his support. We had that

prior rapport that was built. So I knew that I was in good hands. And so starting off in private practice, again, this was completely new to me. I knew nothing about private practice and I probably still don't know enough. But it was definitely interesting to see a different demographic of clients. So in my professional experience, I for what, three and a half years, was working with young people, literally aged from 12 to 25. That's where my experience ended. So for me, to jump to seeing people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, even 70s was just something else. It was something that I had to actually adjust to because it's a completely different demographic.

And I remember my first session with clients over there in in private practice. This was a couple, elderly couple. And I had no experience in this. And I thought, oh, my goodness, how am I going to go about this? And I had started off the session sort of tapping into my youth friendly approach. And I quickly realized, oh, no, hold on. We can't be doing that. This is not appropriate.

And so I had to change my approach really quickly. And I found that I was able to find a really nice balance of still maintaining my bubbly and really sort of open personality. But really sort of respecting and understanding the room, reading the broom and sort of seeing, okay, these clients are, you know, presenting with XYZ. I need to sort of tap into that and just see what sort of presentation they're dealing with. And it's been successful after that. Like, you know, I have a very interesting case load over there in private practice. Lots of different concerns in terms of sexual health. Relationships.

There's a lot of couples that come in, a lot of single people, 30 and up. So it's all just completely different to what I'm doing five days a week. So five days a week is at Headspace. And then the one day week is the private practice. I imagine having had that experience at Headspace, though, in the early days of I'm working with people across different sites. There's a bit of online. There's the telehealth.

I've got people in Melbourne. Just trying to build that team and understand where you fit in was probably helped by the fact that you had that early experience at Headspace. Correct. Absolutely. Yeah. I think like one of the like reflection points for me, though, is with Headspace or, you know, when you're working in an organization or you're working in.

in a team, you've got that community, you've got that support, you've got that relationship with your manager, with your co-workers. And I found with private practice, it is a little bit isolating in the sense where, well, number one, the main clinic is based in a different state. And the only therapists on site in Sydney is myself and I believe one other person, which I don't actually interact with. I don't see as they work on a different state. different day. So essentially I attend the session and it's just me and the client and next client, next client, next client. But there's no interaction with my peers with my colleagues because they are none. So it is a little bit isolating in that sense. And look, for some people, I think that'd be a

dream. Some people prefer to just work by themselves, get their work done and go home. And, you know, I respect that. I appreciate that. And sometimes I'm exactly like that. But I also really, really value engaging with colleagues and having debriefs, having a tea break, having moments to chat around client concerns. It really sort of, it makes the work not feel like work. Whereas with private practice, I mean, it's still incredibly fulfilling and rewarding, especially when you're seeing progress with these clients, but it is just you and you yourself. And that's that. So it's definitely like a. different scope of practice. But I think that's really good to have that at least once in your

social work career where you explore something that you might have been a bit too scared to explore in the past. You're a bit nervous. Am I going to be good at this? Can I do this? Should I do this? Will it bring in money? Will I be satisfied? If you're questioning and you're wondering, but there's a little inkling, there's a little part of you that wants to at least just dip your toes in a different field or in a niche, you'll specialize in something, then try. Because you're not really losing out on anything. It's just you exploring, seeing if you want to sort of pursue something else or specialize in something. And that's completely fine. If it backfires, that's okay. You have your other job. You can fall back on. You've got social work,

which is diverse to fall back on. But I always am advocating for just exploration. Exploration. Exploration, in your career. Yeah. I also wanted to ask whether while you were studying your course, Candace is one of the lectures there. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Do you know Candice? Yeah, fun. I went to uni with Candice, so we go back.

But also, she's been on the podcast a couple of times, and I've worked with her in professional life to a degree. So, yeah, if you or anyone else want to go back and have a listen, her first episode was number 20. And then I actually brought her back with a nurse. So we had a double episode with her and Arlen. And they used to run the psychosexual therapy service at Royal Rehab in Rite. Yes.

And yeah, so I've worked with her in that capacity as well with my people with severe brain injuries and spinal cord injuries. So, yeah, she and Arlen were on episodes 45 and 46. So that's a lot of fun if you wanted to go back and listen to that. But, yeah, Candace is an absolute power. house and now, as you know, has her own business. She has her own business, yes. And I saw she's moved as well. And Arlen, wow. Yeah, I actually met Arlen. Yeah, he's absolutely lovely. He had attended one of his seminars slash lectures during the master's degree and he was absolutely amazing and just strengthened my experience on relationships, really. And I find that anytime I need some sort of

I suppose guidance into what I should be training. What sort of training should I pursue moving forward to strengthen my knowledge, my experience, my career. I look on his website and I see his little blurb about himself, his bio, and I have a look at what he's done. And I sort of say to myself, uh-huh, okay, that's my next training. So he's definitely an inspiration. And Candace is absolutely lovely. I met her again for a second time at Sexpo, which is a sex convention that was held in Sydney in 2024, and that was sort of a collaboration between the clinic that we are working at, as well as the owner's sex toy shop. So that was really fun. But yeah, it's been a really, really awesome experience working in

private practice and sort of just developing on my fresh skills of psychosexual therapy. I You're really blessed to have that lecturer. So his name is Chris Fox. I'm really blessed to have him as my supervisor as well. So I meet with him monthly. And as we all know with supervision, it is incredibly validating to hear from someone that with so many years of experience and wisdom

for them to say, yeah, you're doing everything right. You're doing everything right. There's nothing I can add. And just hearing his suggestions, his advice, it really strengthens my own. practice. So another thing that I would recommend for, especially the graduate social workers or social workers dipping their toes in a different area of practice, find a good supervisor because these people are your backbone. These people are your right or dyes. They will support you

and make sure that you are progressing in your career. Obviously, we have our wonderful supervisors in our workplaces. But if you want to sort of extend that, then look for a social work supervisor or a supervisor in an area of practice that you want to specialize in. I saw that you also have a specialty in out-of-control sexual behaviors, and I was wondering how you go about trying to relate that in-clinic work that you're doing to translating to real life, that must be pretty hard for you with your clients. Yes. So out-of-control sexual behaviors, it's a broad term, right? We sort of figure out, is this behavior out of control? Is it? We do a bit of an exploration. And if it is, what does that look like for the client? Is it sort of a problem for

them? Is it causing them distress? What does it look like on a daily basis? And then if the client is sort of saying, look, yeah, this is pretty intensive. Let's say I am, you know, struggling with masturbation, for example, where I'm masturbating 10 times a day, it's out of control, or I'm watching so much pornography material where it's consuming my everyday life. I just can't cope. I'm very distressed. We have to first hold space. We have to normalize, and we have to provide the client with just that building of the report, building that trust. because for a client to attend a session and disclose that they're experiencing out of control sexual behaviors, whatever that may look like, right? Whether it's, you know, having sex with,

you know, no protection, reckless sex, it's sort of the pornography use, if it's the masturbation that's excessive, we have to hold that space initially because one of the worst things that could happen is if we make the comment, we say something, the client doesn't necessarily agree, or it might be a little bit too confronting for them to hear that in that time. And so they will withdraw. For someone to share something so vulnerable, so private, and then be met with, oh, a bit of judgment, oh, a bit of questioning, a bit of confusion. That can send them right away. So we have to just sit with them for a little while and really dig and understand where did this sort of occur? How did this occur?

When did it start? What does it currently look like for you? Is it causing you distress? Does it cause you anxiety? What are your mental states during post pre these out of control sexual behaviors? And then we work towards a treatment plan. So treatment plans, again, sounds very medical, sounds very psychology-based, but no, essentially all this means is what are we going to do together as a team to reduce these out of control

sexual behaviors or to bring you back down to a point where it's not causing you distress and you're able to function how you want to be functioning ideally. And so this takes a few sessions because again like it's a slow process especially with with such vulnerable topics being discussed. And if a client doesn't have full faith and trust in you as a clinician to support them, not a lot of progress will be made. Another really important thing is if a client is presenting with these concerns and they are not ready to address these concerns or if they are in, let's say, denial or they are too ashamed to talk about it or they are avoiding this concern, there will not be a lot of progress. So we need to make sure that the client is actively ready to make change.

So once that actually occurs, we can start working towards what we want to be working towards our goals, right? And we establish goals with the clients as well to figure out what exactly are we wanting to achieve here, what's really achievable and what's not. We determine that together. And then ongoing sessions, we work. Whether that looks like the basic CBT, if you will, I've had a couple clients with masturbation and pornography sort of addictions and in their case, it sort of was leaning towards a bit of like an OCD trait situation where they had obsessive thoughts and their compulsions were to be masturbating and watching pornography to sort of relieve that obsessive thought. So we sort of angled our treatment, if you will, from an OCD lens, and we

eventually got to a point where they were able to not necessarily control their sexual behaviors, but they were able to manage what was happening for them and reduce their anxiety levels and reduce their out-of-control sort of behaviors, actions, thoughts, that sort of thing. And this is an ongoing process because, again, like once a client has skills and strategies to cope and to manage their concerns, they can't just do it once and expect everything to be fine. It's an ongoing sort of process where they need to continually practice, practice, practice, practice daily so that they can form a habit, if you will. But it's a very tricky presentation, especially because it is quite broad.

When we look at out-of-control behaviors, I mean, it could mean anything. So we just really need to explore, okay, is it just you excessively masturbating? Is it you having unsafe sex? What is that? Is there more to it? And we can also look at their mental health, see how that's sort of going. So it's a very sort of complex process, but I mean, at the end of the day, we have a goal and the goal is to reduce their symptoms of distress and to allow them to have a healthy sex life.

I feel like there's a lot of motivational interviewing in there as well. And that kind of also assumes that the person you're working with has inside or has decision-making capacity. Absolutely. I'm wondering how you go about working with people who have maybe a supported decision-maker or a carer or a family that might need to help them through that. I did have a client late last year and essentially their concern was around, it's very similar, sort of increased sexual urges, unable to sort of control their sexual urges, their desires, constantly thinking about sex and wanting to have sex with every single person they saw on the street, that sort of a thing, got to the point where they were unable to actually control their urges and had led to an incident. And so when I had met this

client. First of all, what I found was really necessary is providing psychoeducation. I think that that's the number one thing that needs to occur here. And obviously, you tailor that education to the person that you're working with, right? Whether they have limited capacity, it's irrelevant because we still work within what is working for them. So if, you know, I would change my use of language to make it appropriate for them to understand and to really connect with what I'm saying. I would also be using diagrams, using, for example, a vaginal puppet or a dildo or just to showcase, really allow the client to touch and feel exactly what we're talking about and just gently and calmly and slowly going through that education.

because for some people, and look, to be honest, a majority of people at some point in their lives, you know, the sex education that we've received hasn't been ideal or thorough. And so just starting there and seeing what the client understands and seeing what they don't understand and then working with what they don't understand so that we can expand their knowledge, expand their understanding so that they can go off and live their best lives, right? and be able to control urges and desires and also understand that not all sexual behavior and majority of sexual behavior is not necessarily a bad thing at all. It's just that how we conduct ourselves.

Consent is a really important discussion to be had, especially without a control of sexual behaviors, the thoughts that someone might have, how can they sort of contain these thoughts or behaviors? How can they express these thoughts and behaviors or urges? or urges in a safe, consensual manner. So it's all about that education without judgment. Another really important thing is we don't want our clients to ever feel judged or criticized by us, even if they are presenting with really concerning thoughts or feelings or urges.

The last thing that we need to be doing is judging these clients because they're coming there to feel hurt, to be supported by you. And again, similar to, you know, masturbation, pornography addiction, if you say, hey, that's a bit strange or that's not normal, that's not okay, the client will completely withdraw, and then you've lost that client, and you've caused damage. So no matter what, we come from a non-judgmental perspective, we are compassionate, we give our clients grace and respect. And even if we are sort of facing really uncomfortable or really intense discussions with these clients, we have to maintain that level of respect. Yeah. What support do you need then in that space, given that you've got, you're working six days a week,

you've got a lot of things happening over different sides. How do you make sure that you don't burn out? Yeah, I know. I'm a workhorse, if you will. Look, it's all about self-care. I mean, self-care is fundamental to our practice as social workers, right? As we all know, without it, how can we function? How can we be the best version of ourselves for our clients?

So even though it is a pretty path schedule with the six days of work, I think that, you know, having a balance between, okay, after work hours, focusing on yourself, a lot of self-care, doing things that are good for you, right? working out, exercising, eating well, socializing, spending time with loved ones, tapping into your hobbies, whether that's reading or whatever else someone might enjoy. I think that's, it's essential. Otherwise, your mind is then consumed by work 24-7. Another really important thing that I learnt from universities is a lecturer had once said to us, once five o'clock hits, work doesn't exist. It is done and dusted. You don't work. You don't know anything about work.

You're not working at all. What is work? And the mindset of, oh, I'm a worker, I'm a social worker, I'm an employee, that starts at 9am. So if you're working a 9 to 5 job, that's the sort of cycle. And obviously for myself, in my situation, I really prioritise my Sundays. That's my day of self-care, as well as Saturday evenings because with private practice, I finished a little bit earlier, so it's not the full, full day. So I still have time a little bit to relax. But I think that if there is no self-care, we may experience compassion fatigue,

we may burn out really quickly. So it's all about being in tune with yourself and understanding when you need a break. And if you need a break, and I know we love our clients, and I know we want the best for our clients, but if you need a break, we take a break. Because if we just keep soldiering on and we say, oh, no, it's fine, it's fine. I can continue working.

I can continue seeing 20 clients a week, even though you're feeling burnt out. Not only is that going to affect you, but it's going to affect your practice. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's so important. I think that it is so hard to prioritize ourselves. So I'm glad that you've found some balance. but I'm also very aware that you seem to always be looking for how can I improve what's next for me. Are there any other areas of social work that have been of interest to you, anything else

that you want to explore? What comes to mind immediately is the accredited mental health social work stuff given that you've worked in mental health. Oh yes. Yeah, what are you looking forward to try next? So I definitely have that on the horizon. I, and slowly, slowly, slowly, planning to get that accreditation sorted. But I am aware and very mindful of the process required to obtain their accreditation. It is a very lengthy, very intensive process.

And as someone who is time poor, it is definitely a challenge, especially after work, then you have to hop back onto the laptop and write all your stuff with your accreditation. So it is a lot, but I definitely am planning to pursue that as soon as I can. Another area of practice that I've been quite curious about is art therapy and play therapy. I think that these two therapeutic interventions are just so interesting.

I'm not sure how I would sort of mesh all of my interests together, but I'm sure I'd find a way. There is an art therapy course that I've been looking at. So maybe that's something for the future. But for now, I think I really want to continue developing my skills and knowledge and practice with psychosexual therapy, as it is quite fresh for me still. And I do want to sort of just continue growing in that area. As well as mental health, right, of course, you know, with the clinical educating, the supervisor role and just continue to expand on my skills to best support my clients at Headspace.

So it's just more of a yes, the accreditation is incoming, but I also want to just focus up on my current skills, current practice and really master them. Yeah. And it is a real shame that the NDIS has decided to deprioritize art therapy and music therapy and things like that as well. as what we've got going on at the moment with the psychiatry resignations and the flow on opportunities that that will have for young people in crisis. How does that all work within your systems and how worried do we need to be? I think in terms of where I work, we have a strong

relationship with psychiatrists at a service called Docketella. And fortunately for us, we are able to send through our clients quite directly and seamlessly to those psychiatrists. But in terms of clients accessing private psychiatrists, I have heard horror stories where clients are waiting six to eight months for an appointment. And this is extremely disturbing as I've got clients that, you know, require immediate support in terms of diagnosis, in terms of access. medication and they are not receiving that support for such an extended period of time. So realistically, I'm holding onto a client that requires additional slash external support

and there's no change. There's nothing that we can do to progress because we're waiting for that singular appointment with the psychiatrist. I know that there's a major backup now given the circumstances, but it is just so unfair on our young people and just our clients in general who are waiting months and months and months for an ADHD assessment or for a medication or review, if you will, right? I had a client telling me that they have been on the wait list for an ADHD diagnosis slash medication slash review. They've been on the waiting list for, I think it was 10 months,

10 months as an adult. And I was shocked, to say the least. It worries me a lot because obviously our clients are waiting for their outcomes or whether they, let's say, for example, I do have ADHD or I don't. And, you know, waiting, waiting, only for the psychiatrist to say, actually, no, you don't. It can seem like a bit of a waste of time for the client. And if they do end up having a diagnosis, requiring medication, then there's another

waiting game of them to access the same. psychiatrist another couple months time to review their medication and sort of update. It's quite a stressful situation, but we are very fortunate to be, at least with Headspace, to be connected with Doctaella, the psychiatry service. But even sometimes there, we've had a bit of a wait list. So it really just depends on which psychiatrist is available, what they offer, what they specialize in. It's definitely something to be stressed about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And do you? Do you have any resources that you'd point people towards if they wanted to know a little bit more

about the work that you're doing or even you mentioned the resources for supervision, which I think would be incredibly helpful for people to know about? So I do have a few resources that I think would be really useful. So now, in terms of general mental health support, I am a person that obviously loves my digital mental health given my startup there. So if we have any clinicians that are working in a space with young people or even adults that would sort of like to tap into that digital mental health space, I would recommend two services. So the first one is this way up. This way up is essentially a digital mental health platform that has a bunch of courses around mental health and the clinician is able to

to collaborate with the client and work through these courses with them. Pretty successful in terms of outcomes, lowering of symptoms of mental health. So I have been using this as a tool in my sessions when appropriate. Another really cool resource that I recently found out about, and I'm sure some GPs listening in are familiar with this one, mood gym. So Moogim is very similar to this way up where it is a digital mental health platform, where it supports clients who maybe don't prefer face-to-face contact or who maybe thrive working independently.

So yeah, Moogim is also a really fantastic resource. Now, as for sexual health, if anyone listening is interested in pursuing a career in psychosexual therapy. I've got two resources that really helped me and I continue to utilize in my practice. So during my studies, we had a book that was highly recommended to us. It is called the ABC of Sexual Health by Kevin R. Wiley. This book contains everything and anything you need to know about sexual health. It has so much great information and I often refer back to it when working with my clients. So in the book, it talks of the effects of medications, psychological aspects of sexual health, sexual dysfunction, orientation, gender identity,

parapherias as well, which is really interesting, forensic sexology. And of course, psychosexual therapy and education, so sex education. So really, like, it ticks all the boxes, and any time that I need to refer back to something, just to assist me with, let's say, a client, or just to enhance my own knowledge, I go back to this book. This is Holy Grail. Like, I really, really do recommend it. Now, another and my final resource, because I do not have my supervisory resources, but I do have these. is a book called Sex Positive Social Work by S.J. Dot. Now, the reason why I found this book really, really interesting and useful,

especially for those of you who are interested in psychosexual therapy, is there is a segment on sex history taking. So sex history taking is a fundamental aspect of psychosexual therapy. It is conducted in the first sex history. could be second session as well with the client. And essentially, we look at the five P's model in the sex history taking. So the five P's essentially stands for partners. So sexual partners, sexual practices, protection from STIs, past STIs and prevention or just pregnancy. So we've got the five peas. Now, the clinician goes through the five P's model to gain information about

their client and to further understand what's brought them to their appointment at sex therapy, what's happening for them. It also gives us an insight as to whether they are currently sexually active, if they are partnered, if they are currently pregnant or have experienced pregnancy in the past, if there's a history of STIs, current STIs. All of this is incredibly important as it provides a basis of future sessions. So for example, if we have a client that sort of discloses that they currently have an SDI and are dealing with that, we can sort of support them in terms of, you know, going to the GP, getting a blood test, explaining the whole process to them. If there's a client that says, hey, you know, I'm in an open a relationship, I'm sleeping with multiple people,

we can sort of explore that as well. But otherwise we wouldn't if we didn't have the five piece model. I highly recommend for anyone interested to check out the sex positive social work book. It's really awesome as there's a segment on creating a sex positive space for clients. Again, with the whole concept of non-judgmental approach and obviously person-centered. There's segments on gender identity and sexual identity, which are obviously quite important in sexual health. And also there's segments on love and intimacy and sexual dysfunctions, ethics and sex positive social work. So all of these segments in the book have been incredibly helpful. And I often refer back to this book as well.

So please do check these books out. If you have access to like a university library, it could be for free. Otherwise you can purchase it. Yeah, thank you. Those are such good resources. So I'll put those in the show now. notes and people can go off and do their own reading and research. But yeah, I love the idea even of doing this additional study that's so curious and there's a social work lens throughout

it, but it's also really consistent with your values and also with social work values in terms of access for people and making sure that people feel as comfortable as possible discussing these things that are really difficult, which social work is a great at doing. But But throughout your degree, there have been so many incredibly rich learning experiences. You've had the counseling as well, the case management opportunities, more education, supporting students, and you've been able to really help with their planning and taking them through and helping to shape the kind of social workers that they want to be and can be. And even from your beginnings in your first role and having very little face-to-face experience

and just kind of having to run with it and go, cool, I think I know what I'm doing, but I have to make it up as I go along to a certain extent. And all that ties back to your sense of social justice and why you started this in the first place and the diversity of social work and how incredible this profession is and what contributions we make as professionals in realms that, I guess, more traditionally have been occupied by psychologists, but more and more now we're seeing nurses and OTs and physiotherapists even who are retraining

or upskilling and bringing a very different flavor and perspective to the same sorts of work. So it's also incredibly rich and I appreciate you sharing all of that with me. Is there anything that we haven't touched on? Anything else you want to mention about your work or about social work in general before we finish up? No, I think we've covered a lot. it today and I think it's it's been really lovely to just share and and have this conversation with you and sort of explore my journey into social work. It's definitely been an interesting and really fun one but I know that us as social workers we're always growing, we're always

changing, we're always developing and I know that we may start at one point but then we often find ourselves in a completely different job or career or part. way and I think that's so awesome because again social work is so diverse and it allows us so many opportunities just to explore what interests us what is a passion for us that we want to follow and for that I am so grateful and it's just something that I'm excited for for my future in my career yeah I'm excited to see where it takes you especially with any additional learning that you might do and just building your confidence and skills so yeah definitely keep in touch let me know what too. Thank you again for sharing that all. Thank you so much, Jasmine.

Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Yulia, 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 Corin, who has been working in the disability space for the last four years, currently working in behaviour support and supporting a team of practitioners under the NDIS. In this role, Corinne supports people from various trauma backgrounds and helps to improve their

lives and educate support workers, families and other providers to enable them to live out their full potential. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you will notify when this next episode is available. See you next time.