Social Work Spotlight - Episode 132: Mel

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

In this episode I speak with Mel, the founder and CEO of Social Care Solutions, a leading child safeguarding organisation in child protection assessment, training, support and consultancy across Australia and Aotearoa. With over 20 years of experience, multiple industry awards, and a passion for improving outcomes for children and young people, Mel is a recognised thought leader and advocate in the sector.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Child-centred Social Work: Theory and Practice by Barnes, V. (2017). UK: Macmillan EducationEcological Systems Theory - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRdlWPB8xS4With Our Two Hands Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Corporation - https://wothatsic.org/Queensland Foster and Kinship Care - https://www.qfkc.com.au/After the Apology documentary - https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-program/after-the-apology/1333274179947Hear Us Roar: Lioness edition - https://www.kmdbooks.com/product-page/hearus-roar-lioness-editionInternational Childhood Trauma Conference 2025 - https://childtraumaconference.org/Queensland Family and Child Commission - https://www.qfcc.qld.gov.au/Peak Care - https://peakcare.org.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/188bF1sxIpSWX0rvyXnZ7wd5HuyWqYb3iSAw92CGCUIY/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

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

I'm your host, Jasmine Lupus, and today's guest is Mel, the founder and CEO of Social Care Solutions, a leading child safeguarding organization in child protection assessment, training, support, and consultancy across Australia and Alta Rua. With over 20 years of experience, multiple industry awards, and a passion for improving outcomes for children and young people, Mel is a recognised thought leader and advocate in the sector. Thank you, Mel, for joining me on the podcast today. I'm so glad to have a chat with you about your social work journey so far. Thank you so much, yes, and it's lovely to be here. I'd love to know firstly when you got started in social work and what brought you to the profession.

So I suppose I didn't have any real clear idea of what social work was. I think 23-ish years ago. Well, actually, it would have been longer. I would be almost 30 years ago when I started my degrees. I didn't really have any idea what it meant. I knew it was helping people and I thought it was counselling. And I remember stories, like memories from school, from high school where friends would be struggling, having a difficult time and they'd sort of approach me or they'd say something.

And you could tell it was a, oh, I need to stop for a second and maybe step aside and might have wagged a couple of classes here and there and sat under the music classroom to sort of debrief and talk and chat and then do a little bit of advocacy. not that I knew what that was, but being with them and literally, I remember standing beside one of them sort of talking to their mum about something, but they just didn't feel like they could say on their own, they needed someone with them. And so even back then, I think I remember fighting with my principal and things like that and kind of advocating on behalf of big groups of people in classes of that's not what happened. And I think you need to hear what really happened, even though I was very much at risk of getting into a lot of trouble for speaking up against principals or teachers or whatever. So I think the, the, advocacy and being the voice of someone who's not heard, that stuff started young for me. And so I got into my, I got into social work, first year thinking that I might go into psych to do counselling, but I really fell in love with social work. I loved the idea and still do, of not being the expert of walking alongside others,

recognising they're the expert in their lives and that us as professionals or practitioners might have some ideas or knowledge or skills or something that we can help them with on their walk on their journey, but that it is ultimately their walk and their journey and that we should be respecting that as well. Yeah, so I added a criminology degree, a Bachelor of Criminology for my second year, so I ended up doing a dual degree. And it was funny because I did think I would probably work with youth justice at some point. I've never worked in youth justice, but I don't think it was a complete loss because I think criminology did align quite well with social work very much about social justice, obviously, but also just questioning, you know,

what's moral, what's ethical, what's legal, and who defines those things, and that if you're not the loudest voice, it's unlikely that you'll be the one defining those things. So I think there were some parallels that made the criminology degree fit really well with the social work degree. Yeah, absolutely. And did that newfound passion for advocating and working with people as opposed to more of a counselling focus, then guide the way that you chose your practice or how did your placements influence how you kind of saw social work and what it became for you? I think they had a huge influence. I remember saying to our placement support people that I didn't want to work in child protection, I mean, just hilarious because my entire career

pretty much has been in child protection and love it, very thankful for that. But yeah, so I think I said in the early days I didn't want to work with children. And my first practice was with Department of Child Safety or back then it was Department of Families. So that was an incredible prack, the speed of the work and just the constant movement and the chaos, for lack of a better word, I realized that I quite enjoyed the pace of the work. I had a brilliant practitioner who was my supervisor who's still, M.R. She's still in the field, in the space of child safety. She was excellent. She challenged me. She showed me how to have really good practice in a in a space that's sometimes kind of difficult to remember your framework. So that was an excellent

experience. And then my second placement was in community development. So quite different, a very different pace. Really enjoyed working with the communities I work with. I work with a couple of community centres and did different sort of activities or, you know, events or helped build networking groups and things like that. And I loved those things. I think that was skill wielding for me, but it definitely wasn't the same level of passion. I mean, the people that I work with, in the community development teams had lots of passion. They were incredibly skilled. But I think it was probably still missed working directly with little people and their families.

Yeah, so that's, I think both of those placements really helped me define where I wanted to go. I think having that first experience, you mentioned the pace and the chaos of social workers in those statutory departments. It probably was a really good demonstration of how resilient and strong social workers. workers as a profession can be and how well we work together because we see that there can be a way forward. We don't just kind of give up and think, well, okay, we're resigned to the way things are. I'm sure in a large government department like that, you would have seen so many different ways that someone can achieve similar outcomes and that would have been such a great learning

experience. Yeah, 100%. I think sometimes when I've got the privilege of sessional teaching, University of Sunhane Coast on the side of my current full-time job. I love it. I've been doing it for a couple of years now. And I think when people are talking about, often I'm working with first, second and third year social work students. And when they're just getting into their degrees, trying to help define what social work could look like. I think sometimes there can be. The idea that it's counselling or therapy-based or clinical, or it's task-based, you know, you go and do these tasks. So I think that first placement fee really showed the concept of advocacy and networking and collaboration, all these almost intangibles. They're quite hard

to put your finger on, but you didn't just go and supervise a contact. You know, you built rapport, you had relationships, you had difficult conversation, all these additional concepts that can sometimes be kind of hard to lock down what they actually are. I saw those in practice in that first placement. So that was really great for me. It wasn't just a, oh, you go and do counselling here or you go and write a policy over here. It showed me some of those intangible. Yeah. You just reminded me of working in the hospital and keeping stats and so much at the time none of that is representative of the actual work you do. If anything, maybe the length of time for a specific intervention is the most representative part of, you know, you completed a referral. Great. Why did that take you three hours? I don't feel like that's interrogated enough in that setting, but we could probably have a completely separate podcast discussion around that. Yeah. But. you know, there are so many strong, really important skills that we learn in our placements and through our theory. And I just feel like it lends itself really well to the field of supporting

complex young people and their families and being able to understand all the nuances of what you're dealing with. But I would imagine in those departments and within the different agencies that you've worked, it's not just social workers. So I'm curious from your perspective what it is specifically that you think a social worker lends to those scenarios or those roles that maybe another allied health professional might not bring. That's a good question. It comes up sometimes actually, because I've got a team of about 70 and not all the social workers. And I try to think of what sets us apart. And I think, or what brings people in that I kind of look at them and go, I would have sworn you have a social work background because of the way you articulate yourself.

I think it's around your framework. I think having a framework and being able to articulate, I make decisions and I assess and I intervene because of the way my framework is built. That's what separates us. I think, I mean, I love practice framework discussions. It's an area of passion. So being able to say, I think for me, when I think of ecological systems theory, which is a big part of my framework for practice,

that helps me, you know, determine what's the priority, what's the risk, what's the level of intervention or advocacy required, etc. So I think having that concept of a practice framework, which is built up of so much more than just what counselling tools you use or what tasks you do. And the other side is probably having practice wisdom, that concept, a beautiful concept of practice wisdom, that we gain knowledge and skills and experiences

from every interaction with every person we've ever had. The practice wisdom and my supervisor is part of my practice wisdom. you know, the knowledge and the stories of the people that I work with, once they're shared with me, they become part of my practice wisdom. So I think that's another unique element to social work as well. Yeah. And you've done so many things, not just in child protection, but in other areas of work. Can you speak to maybe what's led you? We will talk about social care solutions, but I'm keen to hear what's led you to this point in your career. I've had some amazing opportunities, I think. I've worked with really incredible social work mentors.

and social work supervisors and some who that weren't social workers, both in direct practice and now as well as a business owner. But I worked abroad. I did what so many Aussies do. They get their degree and they total overseas. I did a year or two here. And then I went and worked in Frontline Child Protection in the UK, worked in a couple of different local boroughs. And that was mind-blowing. It was fantastic. It was hard. It was fast. It was overwhelming at times. but it was an incredible experience that I'm still connected to a number of the social workers and practitioners I met 20 or years ago. And I think the experience of working in such a diverse community with such diverse needs and wants and interests,

you couldn't help but learn. Like it was such a fantastic. I mean, I remember being absolutely schooled by a 15 year old who, you know, I was, I think I was like 23, 24, maybe, 25. And I think I thought some of, you know, what was going on for her that, that I was above that. There was a lot of arrogance there. I think I'm not meeting to. I don't think back then.

I don't think I would have, if, you know, thought it actively, but subconsciously, you know, 14-year-olds saying that they want to have a baby, just like their mum, just like their grandma. And, you know, I remember getting school by her going, what makes you think your way's right? What makes you think that you traveling the world and living on the other side of the,

I'm with my family all the time. You're living on the other side of the world from your family. So it's those experiences, I think, cornerstones that reminded, really grounded me in my practice and reminded me to bring a non-judgmental lens and to be mindful that because of cognitive bias there's always a judgmental lens so yeah I think those sorts of elements I think working overseas was huge and I do think working for different organizations like I work for government but I've also worked for non-government organizations and those colored my

experiences as well of even wanting to work for myself both my parents had their own businesses growing up very different to having a child protection consultancy, but still had those experiences. So probably not even consciously aware that wanting to work for yourself and build something that you're really proud of is probably something that's in my genetic makeup. But yeah, I think some of the most fundamental things that led to where I am today is probably working in child protection, working in NGOs and seeing lots of gaps and going, surely we can do something better, but because of funding systems and because of organizational setups and things like that being told, well, no, there's nothing we can do about that. And there was that arrogance

of me in my late 20s going, oh, well, I reckon I could do something about that and going, okay, I will. So leaving a very secure, permanent, well-paying job to go and work for myself and start my own child protection consultancy. That is a cornerstone as well for where I am today. Yeah, I love that explanation of the path of how you got there because for a 20 year old or even, you know, a 50 year old to say that's not right and I'm going to make it better. It takes, you know, some significant confidence and just you called it arrogance. I would say it's confidence and just a certainty of, well, you understand the system well enough and you have seen how people react within it and you've gone, look, this might not work, but I have to try at least. And I think that's incredible. I'll talk more

about that with you in terms of developing a business. But how did you know it was then time to come back to Australia? What stopped you from being a forever pom, do you reckon? Oh, gosh. And I mean, yeah, I haven't been asked that for a long time. That's such a great question because I was working in a team with some of the best people who I adored and were incredibly good practitioners. I had a brilliant social work practitioner for my supervisor who, yeah, is today still probably the one I think of what I think of best practice. What brought me back, honestly, was probably personal that I realised I was just such a long way away. My dad became really unwell and I was about three, three and a half years into my stint over there. And I'd gone to a permanent role, been sponsored by

my borough. So I was at that point where I really could have stayed quite happily. But then I realized I just was such a long way from my family and from home. So I thought I'd come back. I was here about five weeks and I remember thinking, oh, what have I done? That's it. I need to go to Canada now. And so Canada was the next option. But I think, yeah, the powers that be, it was just the right time for me to be back here. And then I ended up actually finding my husband and having my children. So this was the right place to be. But I think that experience of being challenged, constant learning, incredible people to work with. I mean, we were removing kids in black cabs, you know, in the rain. It was just such an intense experience. But when you did it with such

brilliant people together, it was, yeah, incredible part that, oh, yeah, I'm very thankful for, even though it was very difficult. I'm very thankful for that experience. So you had this idea, you wanted to start your own business. How do you even begin something like that taught me through that? You know what? And you said before, like I probably shouldn't have said the word arrogance, because it was a level of confidence, but it's also a level of being a social worker going, this isn't this isn't going to work for me so I have to do something about it I have to put my money where my mouth is and actually take the risk and be prepared to be innovative and be prepared to be creative and yeah so I suppose I saw a gap the gap I identified was foster and kinship care

assessments they weren't being developed and written particularly well they were tick and flick they were you know I mean assessment of any kind it's such a niche skill set so when it's just tacked onto someone's job and perhaps if it's not their primary skill set we can really do some damage. So we were seeing foster carers who were perhaps better suited to respite or who were better placed to have teenagers but were ending up with little ones or, you know, maybe best place for one child but ending up with three or four. So we saw lots of placements ending and I suppose I kind of went, there's got to be a reason for it. I went to a systemic kind of review, went back and looked at all the assessments that I had on file. At this point, I was a manager,

so I had access to a lot of that information and it was good to be able to just do that. And I was going to do all the initial assessments, then review all the renewals, which are like reviews, and then look at case management and go, where, where will we potentially needing to add support? And what I identified was actually just did the initials and stopped there. They were really thin. There was no analysis. They were just, they were wrong in some places. They were just inaccurate. Things like under stress management, not applicable. And I don't know about you, but I think raising humans is difficult and stressful, raising somebody else's who's experienced trauma, it's got to have some levels of stress to it. So I suppose I saw those,

realize that there was a direct correlation between poor quality assessment and negative outcomes for kids and carers and thought, well, I could probably do better. So I started just as a sole trader. I'll just go and do assessments one by one. And I got to a point where I was too busy. You can't really carry more than six to eight at the time. I couldn't because There was a lot of personal, you know, people's private information in my head. And you don't want to mix those things up. You know, I want to do it justice. So I found that I was saying no to work.

And I had an amazing, incredible, I'm very, very lucky. I've had many mentors along the way, but one, who Steve Jakes, who was actually the key asset CEO at the time. And he was like, man, you can't be saying no to work because I'll have to give it to somebody else. And I was like, I'm a human, Steve. I can only take on what I can take on. And he said, well, I'll go out on a limb and I will let you subcontractual. out if you'd like to do that. We've never done that before. We could both get in a bit of trouble,

but we'll give it a go and we'll see what happens. So I would then, I turned to two colleagues who I knew who were Sykes, actually, who I knew were exceptionally good practitioners, had a very good understanding of bioseco-social models, understood and had strength-based practice as a cool part of how they worked as well. So I said, well, did you want a subcontract? So I managed all of the probity and all the onboarding and I did all the quality assurance work. And Steve and all the other clients I was working for at the time were really happy with that. And so it sort of, it started out as a bit of a, I don't want to have to say no to people because I really love this work. And I love the privilege of meeting foster and kinship carers. Just like such an honor to work with. I've worked

with so many beautiful thousands, literally thousands of carers over the last 10, 15 years now. And yeah, yeah, feel very, very privileged to be in that space. And so that's what I love doing. And I want it other people to do it and love it as well. So I remember it all aligns at the birth of my children is how I remember things. So when I had my son in 2012, I had three staff and I had my daughter in 2014. I had seven and then my youngest I had in 2019 and I had 30 at that stage and we're sitting around 70 contracted and employed staff around Australia and Outroa, New Zealand. So we've grown pretty big but we won't be growing any bigger than that. I'm very happy with the size we are now. We've stayed that way for a number of years. It's nice and stable. But I think

I look back at those early day conversations with Steve and I didn't realize we were talking about business and companies and entrepreneurship. I didn't really think about that. I was just thinking about, wow, the impact we could have, we could change and improve outcomes for children more than six to eight assessments at a time. Yeah, that's so good. And I think being able to say no to something in the first place is a skill in itself and it's something I'm still struggling with. as a professional and a person. So the fact that you recognised that and were able to do that in the first place and then had Steve's support to be able to take it further is incredible.

What was the hardest thing for you or what is still the hardest thing about running your own business, would you say? I think there's probably two things that I struggle with the most. The social work hat is not always the same as business hat. What the business needs is not always going to be what the client needs or what staff need. So I have to take off all the hats and stop and pause and reflect and have some insight around what's the most ethical and moral. What's going to actually make me sleep at night?

And I think I've found a way to have a social work business hat, a bit of a combo, where I will look at the cycle and we've just experienced in Southeast Queensland and New South Wales. You know, Thursday, Friday last week it was saying to team members tools down. You can take carers leave. You can take annually, whatever you need, work from home, no pressure. You will get paid. We're not going to not pay people. It's just be safe.

Be with the people you need to be with because you're my priority. It's probably not the business money-making, for-profit kind of approach, but that's not who we are. We're a for-purpose. Social enterprise, everything's about giving back to the community and trying to make or trying to improve the world we've got so that it's better than when we got here. So, yeah, I think that's one of the challenge.

I mean, does you do stop sometimes and go, oh, hang on. How does this fit between being a social worker? and being a business owner and okay, so that can be a challenge. But then I think the other part that can be a challenge is probably the systems element. Like, I mean, the whole point of starting social care solutions was to recognize I wanted to still work in child protection. I love child protection. I love the people I work with.

I'm really, really blessed and lucky. But I knew that working in it directly was not for me anymore. I wanted to work with it, not in it, working on the system rather than in the system. So I suppose for me, one of the challenges is running a business that's in part, you know, we are in that system, trying to be a voice for children, not just in direct practice, but in systems levels that need to change you. You know, when we hear that there's more prisons being made for young people as opposed to just simply increasing funding for family support and intervention, you know, just those sorts of things can really drive you a little bit crazy if you let them. Otherwise, you can spend your energy connecting in with, you know, the QFC and peak care and QFKC and the ASW as well, being part of peak bodies that can actually represent your voice as a practitioner and also as a business owner to try and make those changes that need to happen. So there's a rainbow behind the cloud that whilst it's a challenge to work in the system and see so many broken parts and to see that perhaps good practice or good research isn't actually at the forefront of what's changing policy, you know, we get to at least be a voice. We're in a position. We're a 15-year-old business now. We've got a really solid footing.

So now we actually get to be a voice for our clients when they can't. Do you still get to do any of those assessments that face-to-face work? And if you don't, is that challenging for you? Yeah, it is. I'm laughing because I make jokes if we haven't got someone to allocate an assessment to it because we're at full capacity all the time. I might occasionally do that. And then my senior leadership will go, Mel, just questioning how you're, just curious, how are you going to fit it in? Yeah, you make a good point.

Yeah, so look, I don't actually get to do the assessment so much anymore. I do get to quality assure them every once in a while. I'd like to do a random pick and just review what the quality is and make sure we're actually doing good practice. I do get to do supervision. I provide external supervision to a number of managers in the sector, which is really lovely. I do get to be part of the projects that we work with. I think that's probably what I'm really.

really proud of us that our whole organization walks alongside of others as well, not just in child protection, but in child safeguarding outside of our sector. So community mental health, education, health, early education, child care centers, et cetera. So we work with a whole cross section of the community. And I get to, you know, co-write training and work with the projects team on the different projects that they're running. So I do get to do some of the work. But yeah, I'll be honest, a lot of my, you know, the day in the life of. There's a lot of paperwork. But, yeah.

Because you're doing so much, you're obviously across many, many things. Tell me how on earth you manage this. You're also teaching. How do you coordinate all that? And just tell me a little bit more about the subjects that you're teaching. Well, I mean, I'm a sessional teacher, which is what we used to call tutoring, basically, obsessional teacher. So I get to teach just done an intensive masters for three days.

So I just took three days leave from my business. to go and work at the uni instead. And I do try and take a day a week for the semesters and teach a couple of chutes for my professor. And honestly, like, sounds ridiculous, but a couple of years ago, 2022, so three years, I honestly was looking for a hobby. I was going, oh, I wonder if I should pick up photography

or learn the guitar or learn Spanish. And I just happened to be talking to a friend, a colleague that used to actually work for me. And she was like, well, why? you're thinking about what you might like to do, why don't you go and do some sessional teaching? And I was like, oh, why not? I mean, that sounds interesting. And I did the first semester. I loved it. I loved. I mean, it was actually really eye-opening to go back to practice, the core practice stuff that I hadn't really thought about in a long time.

You're thinking about Brunf and Brenner, thinking about person-centered theory and all those sorts of things and I loved it. So I've continued doing it. I don't know if I'm any good at it, but I do love doing it. So I keep doing it and they keep asking me back, so I'll keep going. I think it feels a need where sitting as a CEO of two companies, it feels the need of doing that direct practice stuff. If I can't get out there doing assessments and I don't get to do as much training as I used to and those sorts of things, then sitting with a bunch of second year social work students and talking about ecological systems theory and how that looks in the real world, that stuff really. It really gets me inspired and excited. I learn every single group that I've

done any teaching with, I learn so much from working with them. Every single time I walk away going, oh, wow, that is some powerful stuff. So, yeah. It sounds so refreshing being part of that environment even and all those thinking minds, but I always thought it would be kind of cool to be an external placement supervisor as well. So for students who are placed in organizations or departments where they don't have a direct social work supervisor, I feel like that would be kind of fun as well. But, you know, in your spare time, when you're going to fit it all in? When I'm looking for my next hobby, right? Do you have the opportunity to have social work or maybe other kinds of students

at social care solutions? Yeah, we've had a couple of students through. Actually, we've got a master's student with us this year, which will be phenomenal. And, we've had a couple of social work students and a couple of human services students, actually, over time. I think my biggest worry for them is that it is a really unconventional work model in that we don't, we do have an office, but it's a small office. And it's, I mean, for the majority of the 70 of the team, we work remote, we work from home and we, you know, we don't have an officer that can come and go, right, go out on a meeting

with this person, go and do training with that person, write this resource book. Like, you know, it's a non-traditional kind of workplace. but in a way that's part of the great learning by coming and doing a placement with us because you will get a non-traditional approach. I think that idea that I had way back when that social work was about being a counsellor, that's a small part, I think. I think social work, you can be a policy writer. You can be working in age care.

You can be a community development officer. You can be doing frontline child protection. You can be doing research. Like there's such a deep breadth of what social work is and can be. So I think having placements with us, I hope, is a really positive experience. And you did say that you had parents who ran their own businesses, so you probably had a little bit of support around that. But what other support do you require, either as a social worker,

or a mom as a business owner? How do you make it sustainable, I guess? Oh, I have a lot of help. I have, first of all, I have a brilliant husband. Like, he is hands on. From day dot, it was, they're half yours, they're half mine. So you walk in the door, you'd, dump everything and you go, right, where are we up to? Is it dinner? Is it showers? Is it homework?

Is it, you know, so it's always all hands on deck? He's incredibly put if I travel a lot because obviously I've got staff all around the country. We work in every state and territory of Australia and we have obviously an outdoor company as well. So I travel really regularly and he's always keeping home fires burning. And then I have an incredible senior leadership team and management leadership team. We are a full female executive and they are just brilliant social workers and human services practitioners who have worked for me for, I mean, I think one is it four or five years and one is it nine and another is it eight years so that we, you know, we've been together for a long time. They know how to challenge me. They know how to be reflective and insightful with me. They

know how to debrief with me. They know how I think and they've made this company ours, not mine. And I love that. I love that there's so much. We wouldn't be where we are today without the team that I work with. They have absolutely guided the development of this business. So I'm very lucky. And is that an intentional decision to have? Was it important to you to have an all women executive? No, it definitely wasn't intentional. I've had a male on our executive and he was brilliant and added a lot of value as well. I think it's just where we're at at this point. And, you know, it ebbs and flows very open to whatever might come. but at this moment it really feeds something for me that I've got this. I mean, we're 97% female team anyway and it's just an 100% feminist team, 100% of the team are 100% backing women and supporting women, especially relevant because we're just, it's, you know, International Women's Day last week. So mindful of that.

So I think everyone has the same shared values and vision and that that's what makes or breaks a company, you know, and I think the culture of our team, we get told regularly and consistently from our team and from other people. And we're not perfect. Obviously, as a business, there's always mistakes that people make. And there's things that I kind of go, oh, I probably should have scripted that differently or had a different narrative for that. Or I probably didn't understand what was going on there.

I'm not perfect by any means. But I think for the most part, we have a really dynamic culture of thought leaders and people that want to be part of being change makers that we're not just here for the ride. No one's here turning up just for the paycheck. I'm so very, very lucky. So I think it's not just my leadership team, but my entire team. across the countries that get me where I am. And not just them, it's all the people that used to work for me as well over time.

I've had so many incredible people that have fed in and been part of the legacy of the business. So they also helped me get to where I am today. But I think the final part is that I've tapped into the expertise of people in their spaces. So I'm not an expert in finance. I'm not an expert in business development. I'm not an expert in marketing or HR. So I tap in and work with experts who are. So I've got a lot of, I've got outsourced HR teams and outsourced finance, external financial

accountants. And it's all of them that I listen to and lean on and get advice from so that the business side can run and I can focus on the practice part. Given that you've had such a breadth of experience, both here and in the UK and over a long period of time, what changes do you think you've noticed in the field in social work, in kinship care or maybe what would you like to see happening that's not? I think, the thing that's really on the forefront of my mind at the moment is, you know, we've got obviously a lot less foster carers.

Community and society has changed a lot since the 50s, 60, 70s. We don't have one person at home. Most people are working double incomes. Most people don't have spare rooms. Most people don't have capacity in time to add another person into their family, especially one that has significant trauma, not for lack of. of want to. You know, I think people still really want to help and be part of a community response to help children who are experiencing trauma and can't be at home with their families of origin.

But I just think practically it was very different. I think we need a continuum of service responses to address that. And I think kinship is an absolutely critical one that we need to do and do really, really well. When a placement breaks down and it's a general placement, it's gut for the carers, for the carers family and for the kids, obviously. When a kinship placement ends, it's not just a placement that ends. It's a relationship that long after 18, that relationship should be there. And it won't be if we don't do, you know, the right thing by kinship carers and support them in the beginnings that those placements can be sustained.

So I think we need to do more in that kinship space. I think it's starting slowly to change, which is lovely to see. But, yeah, definitely a lot more work and a lot more research required in that space. And I think we've, especially Queensland, we're relying really, really heavily on residential services here. I think there's always a place for residential care. Therapeutic residential care should exist. It needs to be there.

But I think the whole sector would agree. I'm not saying anything out of school that, you know, we are heavily using it and we're over-reliant on it at this point. And it's a very, it's a million-dollar, billion-dollar sector that we could be spending on early intervention. So that's probably my bug bear and my passion at the moment is trying to do a little bit. That's why we've started, you know, we deliver mandatory child protection training in early education centres and outside of school hours care services because we believe really strongly that

if we can do the work at the start and that we can be therapeutic and trauma-informed with how we work with all children, not just children in foster and kinship care, then we're going to be reducing the reliance on the tertiary services down the track. So I think that's probably what is keeping me busy, I suppose. Yeah. Are there any projects or programs that are coming for you at the moment. I saw the Tribe project. I'd love to know a little bit more about that. Oh, Tribe. So Tribe is actually something, we actually closed Tribe after a couple of years. We did it as a project. I say we. It was with the beautiful Mason who had a lived experience as a young person in care. And I'd actually invited him to come along to one of our social care solutions annual conferences.

We have a different focus, a different theme every year. And this year, that particular year was about celebrating diversity. And he came along on a panel. So we had a non-binary care with us. We had a CSO, Child Safety Officer, who worked with a lot of transgendered children, and we had Mason who came along as a gay man who had lived experience of being in care. And, you know, we're a tough bunch of social workers and human services, but we really are. Like, it takes a lot to really rattle us. But, you know, Mason's story, we were all sitting around kind of going, oh, I need some tissues. Hang on. No, excuse me, I just, I need to step out for a second. Like, his story was really powerful. He's an incredibly narrative person, a very, very good

storyteller. And I suppose it was after that, we were just having a bit of debrief over a glass of wine and chatting. And he said, I want to do something, Mel. Like, we need to do something about this. And he's a digital native. It's all about the digital technologies, things that, I mean, I can barely tell my computer on most days. So definitely outside of my skill set. But we sat together and we, I was just talking to him about the sector and how, you know, funding is sent to different agencies. Different agencies are responsible for recruiting and marketing as well as training and assessing and then supporting carers. And he was like, what? Hang on. So all the ads we see, they're all funded, but they're all going for the same pool of carers.

Hang on, I'm confused. So that's a lot of duplication of funding. Hang on, shouldn't we just be trying, like, everyone chucks in some money and everyone does the marketing and the marketing is, you know, customer-centric. And it's, you know, if you come into the sector and you want to be a carer, we work with you when we find out what you like and what you're interested in. And then we kind of pair you. We match you with the right kind of agency. And I was like, oh, yeah, that doesn't happen. If you see the bus with the ad and you ring the number on the, well, then you're linked to that agency.

And he, as a customer service focus, that's what he does in his everyday jobs, he was like, that's insane. That's insane that we do not treat foster carers as customers. They deserve their own autonomy and the respect to pick and choose the agencies that work for them. And if they don't even know that they have that choice, they'll just go with whoever they connect in with it. It may not be the right fit for them. So together, we started thinking about the concept of having a project. called it the tribe project where we recognize that you know foster careers deserve a tribe and they need to find their right tribe in order to really thrive so we worked with a number of

agencies that were really innovative and really prepared to kind of go yeah let's think outside square with the funding let's not do it the same way we always have and a number of them pooled their funds together and we did multiple advert series and we got to do i got to do things that social workers don't normally do like go on sets and do interviews and you know have cameras everywhere and it was just incredible experience and to look at advertising from a different perspective so we did that for three years and we bought in three and a half thousand leads we created a nurture sequence because we recognize that people who might want to foster might not want to do it right now but there's no funding to sort of go oh well let's put you into some training let's

let's get you meeting other carers let's get you doing some upskilling so that when you are ready in three or four or five years time to be a carer you're ready to hit the ground running you're informed, you are skilled, you were qualified and ready. So we built a nurture sequence and things like that. So we did all this beautiful stuff. We did it without income. That's not what we were aimed for. So we paid our staff, but we didn't pay ourselves. And so I guess we did it during COVID, which was interesting. But it was just, it was great to have to do that. And then towards the end, we, yeah, we sold off the different parts of the business and closed it because we feel like we'd proven the point. The point was it could be done differently. And when we approached different organizations,

different government departments. Not everyone agreed with us. It had to be the status quo. So I think we did it as a little bit of a, all right, well, we'll prove to you that you can look at fostering differently. You can look at the system and the structures of how we set up the system differently. So we did, we proved that. And then we kind of went, right, what's next? And I think it was an amazing experience working with Mason. I learned a lot. I learned a lot more than just being able to turn my computer on, which was great. But I really learned the power of people's story and the power of really, I mean, we know it from a client perspective, we know the importance of respecting people's voices and supporting their autonomy

and increasing self-efficacy. And, you know, we know those things. But we don't often apply that in fostering and kinship. So I think that was an amazing experience that I think I've taken with me into my other companies. Yeah. What an incredible thing to be part of. Does your company now, or is there a link somewhere that I can pop in the show notes where people can go and read a little bit more about it. Yeah, I mean, you can jump on and have a look at us at socialcare solutions.com.com. And we've also got social care solutions.com.m.m.m. It's our New Zealand company. So you can have a read a bit more about who we are and the journey that led us to where we are today. And any other programs or things that you want to shout out that are coming up?

Not for me. I'm not promoting it for me. We don't get kickbacks for it, but I really recommend anyone that's interested in working in the space of trauma going to the ACF's trauma conference. You know, it's a big one and it's expensive, but God, it's brilliant. it's just forefront of current research. It's always great. So I really recommend anyone that wants to learn more about trauma to head along to that. And I think for us, project-wise, you know, we're really passionate about working with the industries that touch on child protection but aren't in child protection. So we're working with, you know, education departments and the Department of Health and we're working with community health. And we're actually really, really

privileged to work with a number of ACOs, Aboriginal community-controlled organisations and doing some really cool partnering with them. So I do really recommend that that's a place that if anyone sort of is interested and wants to learn more about what we do and how we can work and support one another, then yeah, absolutely reach out. I would love to talk to anyone about it. Brilliant. And if you have any other resources, you mentioned Brenner and person-centered approach and ecological systems theory and if there's anything else like that and you want to send me any resources or links, I can pop those in the show notes as well. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, we'll do.

You've also co-authored a book. I feel like you've been a little bit modest here. Tell me about the women changing the world. Such a fun co-lab. I get to work with Peace and Katie from the original Osmond Printer group. So they're a group of women who recognize the power of moms that are in business. They then created the Women Changing the World Awards Awards and conference and gave me the opportunity to ask if I wanted to be part of the book. So I got to write a chapter of what made me hit be an entrepreneur basically, which is still a strange word to wrap my head around. I don't call myself that on an everyday basis, but it was my story of what got me there. And I do include that 14-year-old

who schooled me and reminded me of my judgmental approach at that time and how I thought I knew more than I did. I talk about her and how she, yeah, really helped me understand the need to ask the questions why and be more curious and to be aware of your own biases and things like that. So, yeah, so it was really such a great experience to do that authoring. I've got another one coming out, on Hear Us Raw. It's part of a collaboration with Karen Weaver. So yeah, that comes out. It's actually out now if you have a look at KMD books for Hear Us Raw, Lioness, is what it's called about stories about stealth and faith. That's incredible. I might also host's choice here. I'm going to put after the apology as a link as well, the documentary film, which I assume you've

seen. Yeah, it's incredible. I mean, it's a little bit older now. I think it was 2018, but it's a really important thing, I think, for a lot of social workers, especially those interested in foster care and kinship care and just how the rate of indigenous child removal has increased exponentially since the apology, which is kind of the opposite of what it was supposed to do. So it's these four incredible Aboriginal women who come together and generate a response to those rising rates and just basically says, look, we've got ways of doing, working, knowing that are already working, why are we trying to reinvent the wheel, use this as a resource, put this together and there are things that are already working and there are relationships

that need to be maintained. Let's be doing the right thing. So I think it's, yeah, really good viewing, really important for people to check out as well if they're interested in this area. It's great to share. I think one of the things we're really passionate about here is getting out of the way. You know, we've got a lot of beautiful echo. those that are doing beautiful work and we always say, you know, we're here if you need us, but at the end of the day, we're going to get out of the way and let you do what you do best. And it's been an absolute privilege. I was recently just asked to be part of the, with our two hands, Aboriginal community

controlled organisation. And I'm a non-voting member on that board, which is incredible. I'm there to be able to provide any child protection expertise that I can for them. But I'm really aware I'm going to get a lot more out of being on that board with the brilliant aunties that are on that board. what I'm going to be able to give them. So I think, you know, where possible, we should be supporting ACOs to stand up and get out of the way as non-Indigenous practitioners. That's a really big important part for me. Before we finish up, I'm mindful of your time. You've got little ones to get

to. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention or talk about in relation to your work or social work in general? It's probably important that we can get really into the tasks of our jobs as social workers, we can get really head down, bum up and I've got to do this and task and this task and this task and we get into our lists and we forget to step back and see the bigger pictures. So I think even just being connected to your peak bodies, for us in Queensland, peak care and QFC and QFC, and QFKC, all the acronyms, I do recommend being connected in any way, shape or form because you get to be part of influencing sector change and having a voice and those organisations, they're incredible. and they have incredible capacity to make change in the sector. So if you want to see it,

you have to actually be part of it. You have to actually be willing to put your hand up and go to those sorts of events and network and not just spend your time doing the tasks of your job. You need to step back and recognize your responsibility as a social worker to be part of the change that's needed. Yeah. Mel, it's such a privilege to have heard your story to go through that journey with you as someone who people would come to for advice and concerns and initially that counselling focus that I think evolved into a solution-focused practice for you, even though you didn't quite know what that was going to be. You had some really strong mentors as you went through who helped shape the social worker that

you wanted to be. And you've interrogated those tasks and those systems in what was a really fast-paced environment as a student even. And you've taken us through the process of developing an idea and making that a reality and wanting to make things better. You saw a gap and you were comfortable with taking risks, which you said very early on. You know, I sit with it all the time.

I'm okay with it. I don't care. It's important to work on these things and to be able to know enough about the systems to be able to take those risks and understand what I can do to make things right. You're running an international business. Like, this is a significant thing to be doing.

And I think also what you've highlighted is the importance of diversifying your tasks, right? So you've got the roles that you have within your business. You've got the role as a mum. You've got the role as a sessional teacher. You're contributing in so many ways to cultures of the schools, of the workplace. You're building culture and you're building other people's passion for wanting to work in these areas. And you're investing in kinship carers. the longevity of those relationships and those families. So you're not just focusing on the here

and now. You're focusing on how do we make change for future. So it's so incredibly rewarding from the sounds of things, but it's also incredibly inspiring. And I hope people will listen to that and go, hey, you know, how do I interrogate the work that I'm doing or how do I take risks in what I'm doing so that they can change things that they see are unjust or just not happening in the way that they could be. So thank you again for sharing your story. Thank you so much for taking the time out to do this. I've loved hearing about it and I look forward to seeing where it goes. And I'll put all those links in the show notes so that people can go off and do their own reading and connect with you as well if they wanted to. Oh, thank you so much. Look, thank you so much for the time. I love having a

good chat with anyone and everyone, but talking about practice just gets me really excited and inspired as well. So yeah, absolute privilege. So thank you so much, Yasmin. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Mel, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Stacey. a social worker and program manager with extensive experience in youth homelessness, leading crisis refuges and transitional accommodation services. Passionate about trauma-informed care, she also leads initiatives supporting male survivors of domestic violence and is pursuing a PhD focused on suicide bereavement in Australian adult males.

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. Thank you.