Social Work Spotlight - Episode 138: Nicky

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

In this episode I speak with Nicky, who has worked throughout the UK, Cape & Torres, and Cairns, with over 20 years’ experience in Queensland Health and the mental health system. Nicky makes use of a variety of psychotherapies in her practice including EMDR, having recently finished a Graduate Diploma in Clinical Hypnotherapy and strategic psychotherapy.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Nicky’s practice Bluewater Therapy FNQ - https://www.bluewatertherapyfnq.com/aboutGordon Young - https://gordonyoung.com.au/Michael Yapko - https://yapko.com/Ericksonian hypnosis - https://ericksonianhypnosis.com/A Guide to the Standard EMDR Therapy Protocols for Clinicians, Supervisors, and Consultants - https://www.springerpub.com/a-guide-to-the-standard-emdr-therapy-protocols-for-clinicians-supervisors-and-consultants-9780826131164.htmlThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tajWVYP75mNiGsCE5Nw0njeoE-8pbDdW17T8njkIEMA/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 Nikki, who has worked throughout the UK, Cape and Torres and Cairns, with over 20 years experience in Queensland Health and the mental health system. Nikki makes use of a variety of psychotherapies in her practice, including EMDR, having recently finished a graduate diploma in clinical hypnotherapy and strategic psychotherapy. Her practice approach allows people looking for ongoing skills and solutions to be able to have strategies they can use moving forward. Nikki would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land she has worked on in the Mossman, Dane Tree, Cairns and Cape Regions of Queensland.

Hi Nikki, thanks so much for coming on to the podcast. Looking forward to having a chat with you today about your experience in social work. You're welcome. Nice to meet you. I'd love to know firstly when you got started in social work and what brought you to the profession. So I left school, didn't really know what I wanted to do, and all my friends were going off to college. I just sort of went on a youth training scheme, then started doing some work for age care

as an auxiliary, and working with people with disabilities in their homes. And I thought, oh, I really quite like this. I wonder what I could do that's a bit more... interesting and challenged me a bit more. And so I started working with children in crisis. And there were these homes. The first one I worked in was called Armfield Tower in Glossop in the UK. And we would have three months stints with children that were going down a crisis route with the courts. And we would stabilize them so we would take them out on five-day camps into the wilderness, educate them with the environment and outdoor pursuits, and basically they would be taught

boundaries and how to be rehabbed into society. So that was my first experience working with youth and down in the social service route. And I really enjoyed it because the kids were really good. it's just that, you know, most of the time they hadn't had much of a start in life with adults that could guide them and show them different ways. So that was really interesting. But then we realized, well, after the three months, they need something a bit more long term because we would get them bouncing back through the three months system because they really enjoyed what they did. And they got used to the staff and really liked it. So the courts would end up referring them again. So the manager I worked with them worked with the owners and we created a longer term residential home.

And so you'd see these children transition from bouncing off walls really not stable to actually stabilising, then getting education at the home they were in and just growing and developing. So it was really interesting. and the one thing that was always missing was where was the social worker that should be case managing these kids. And you'd see all these notes with labels and all this history of how bad these children were. But when you work with them day in, day out, you were like, this doesn't make sense to me. So it really got me quite interested in, I really need to advocate more for these children going through the system. And so that was my starting point at 26.

I went back to university and I went and did a degree in social work. And at the time they were doing like a diploma in social work and a Bachelor of Science with Honors. So that was my route in the UK. And as I was doing that, I studied with various social services in Manchester and three-month stints with children that were going down a crisis route with the corks. to being a social worker with that service. And that was how my journey started, really. Wow.

And it's just such a lot of responsibility as a younger person yourself to be entrusted. I mean, the parents entrust you or caregivers, guardians, and the system itself. How much training and support did you have in that initial role? So, quite insightful compared to some of the ordinary people on the streets, you know, intervention. So we were trained, I think it was either three or five days and it was quite an intensive model of training from America and you actually were taught restraint techniques

because some of these children would sniff aerosols and become high or, you know, they'd try and assault you. And so I worked with a lot of men that were ex-Army. But you had to be, you had to think on your a lot. That training was really good, not because you used to restrain kids a lot, because it taught you that if you did need to look after yourself and keep them safe and give them boundaries when they felt unsafe and were just really emotionally dysregulated, that you actually had a way to bring them through that, that wasn't aggressive, it just contained them, kept them safe, and you actually worked with them all the way through. So if you did restrain, it would be a two or three person restrain. And initially you think, wow, three adults holding a child. But it was how you

could do it safely. You talk to them all the time, reassuring them. And at the end of it, you drop off one by one and only one adult would stay with that child then. The others would go and make them a warm drink or run a bath for them and the last person would be actually helping them caring for them and showing them that there are good adults out there that do care and want you to succeed and we want to keep you safe when you can't keep yourself safe. So that was really quite an eye-opener for me and it didn't mean that you didn't get upset when you saw these kids distressed. But when you'd work through it with them and you saw them come out the other side and you actually built that bond with them, it was really quite humbling. And probably very difficult

to let that go, that relationship that you've formed once they're ready to leave the program. Yeah, yeah. And I guess that's the skill you learn over years and years of social work, which you're not equipped with initially. You know, you want to care for people and you want to show them that they're lovable and can have adults that care and want to support them. But I guess it's as you get more experience that you learn that you really need to just switch off when you leave. There's other people that will step in and do that for you and then you'll be back and you can do what you can do in that time. But when you finish, you've finished. Yeah. It reminds me so much of a film that was actually recommended to me by another wonderful guest. It's called Short Term 12.

I don't know if you've heard of it with Brie Larson. No. But she is a person who grew up in a fairly difficult environment and ends up working in one of these homes and needs to be able to contain and regulate and support these young kids who all have their own traumatic backgrounds. So yeah, it just sounds so similar to what you were dealing with. And it is, yeah, really challenging

and especially when I think about restraints and all the protocols that go into that. that and how much authorization or permission you need to get to restrain someone in the first place. So each person within that setting probably had their own approval or guidelines in terms of what you were able to do with them to support them. You know, it was about 20 or years ago I'm talking about. So it was before. Maybe the same protocols weren't in place.

It was before there was so much red tape. But you had a team leader that would be involved. in that, that was more experienced. And at the end of the day, it was the last resort. But if you needed to keep somebody safe, then that was the priority. And that isn't the thing that I remember. I remember having some really good memories with these young kids where you'd get five days worth of money and you'd go, right, we're going to save this money to the end of the five days and you'd have like other food and, you know, supplies there. But if you're really good at the end of that five days, we can do whatever you want with that money. And so we would camp rough in caves in

Wales and we would swim across to an island in the Lake District, putting all our gear in, just little it is in their homes. And I thought, oh, I really quite like this. I wonder what I could do that's a bit more. And just getting really back to basics and keeping these kids excited and occupied. I was in my 20s then. I mean, I'm 50 now, so I couldn't imagine doing it now. But, you know, you'd see them get all excited and then on the last day you'd go, right, you've done so well and it's freezing. Do you want to stay in like a warm bed and breakfast? And they'd be like, no, we want to camp under the pier at Colwynne Bay. You know, they just loved it because it was exciting and a bit out of the norm. And I remember us driving round in Wales one time. So there was myself and another guy that I

worked with and then these two young boys. And we just ended up putting up, putting up, our swags in the field of a farmer's field because it was late and we'd had a really great day and these kids were just so excited that they were sleeping in the outdoors looking up at the stars. It's just memories that, you know, is to work out how I was going to do referrals, what it looked like, what my job. You don't need much to be grounded, I guess, and enjoy the time that you have and the environment around you. Yeah. And then on the last day, we took them to a theme park and they just spent all the money, you know, on the rides, having a great time. And then we took them for a curry.

That was what they wanted. So they just had the best time ever. But we enjoyed it as well. That sounds so wonderful. Yeah, it was great. Did you get an opportunity to work in any other areas as you were going through your... Did I take one bottle of wine or two with me? for in the evenings.

And she looked. And that was really interesting. And I also did a final placement in fostering an adoption in a predominantly Asian area. So it's Indian. We class Asian as Indian in the UK. Right. And we had a big community of Muslim Indian people in that area. So that was quite interesting for me.

I actually got to do an assessment for a family that wanted adoption. Okay. And did that sway your desire to go into any one of those workplaces or you were kind of set on continuing on that path with the young people? So I ended up really enjoying child protection. That was how do you take a step before they end up in care and keep kids safe? And so I started working in child protection doing cases. management and I think again the interesting thing having seen the system in the UK versus over here

because I flew into the cake doing child protection here when I first came over so it was it was very eye-opening on a number of levels one because the UK has a child in need where you throw lots of services in but you sit with the family and all services police health education child protection, education welfare, all sit round a table with the family and say these are the concerns, what do you need for us to support you? And it's multi-agency and consistent from the start. Or that was my experience. I'm not saying it's consistent everywhere in the UK, but my experience of that was very consistent and everybody was very committed to get good outcomes. And then I think that was like an 8 to 10 week time frame. And if in that time there was no

improvement, it then automatically went to a child in need of protection. And they'd go on the child protection register. But the family knew from the start that they could do the work and get the help and it wouldn't get to that or if they didn't. That was the plan and it would continue. And at the end of that 42 week process, the child would have permanent. what ever that looked like for them. And then I came here and I was flying up to the Cape. And my first experience was I was going for five days with one of the girls and I said, oh, should I take one bottle of wine or two with me in the evenings? And she looked at me really weird and she was like, what are you talking about? It's a dry community. And I went, what do you mean? A dry

community. It's a dry community. I don't understand what you mean. Well, you can't drink up there and I'm like, that's against people's human rights. What are you talking about? I clock off at five o'clock. I should be able to have a drink and how can you take the other week when I was talking to them, they've worked all their life and now find themselves in a position. So it was like I'd gone back 20 years. It was just, it was so bizarre. And then I flew up there and there was no. resources to give people. So you'd go and tell them what the concerns were. You couldn't tell them where the concerns came from and you couldn't really implement any change with services. So I was like, how do you actually do this then for people? I don't get it. It really took me a while to get my

head round it. Yeah, for sure. And I'm curious as to, firstly, what prompted you to come to Australia? Did you have any connections here and how did you then end up in the Cape in such a remote place coming from a fairly, you know, metro area, I guess in the UK? Yeah. So my brother was already living in Sydney and he'd been here for a while. So I'd been over to Australia a couple of times and then it was because I'd met somebody when I came over visiting and they were up in the north, which is why I landed in the north. Okay. But it was certainly an eye-opener for me.

I can imagine. Yeah, you're just thrown in the deep end, not only in a different area, a regional area, and one without the supports and the wraparound networks that you were used to dealing with with these young kids. Yeah. So it meant I had to be really resourceful in terms of connecting with the elders in the community

and what, you know, the council that was there, I think there was a little. little bit of family support and as I continued working there they started to do like a dry station with some of the elders taking responsibility for that so yeah you just had to be really flexible and open-minded with how you address things yeah and how long were you in that role and what prompted the change when it did come so I was there for about 12 months I think and I worked really hard at trying to support the people in the community because I knew the history of, you know, white people fly in, they remove Aboriginal children and the distress that caused.

So I worked really hard at trying to change that. And I think my last experience was I'd worked with a family for a fair while and the dad was still drinking and struggling. And when I went up, I had to remove the child and that was really difficult because I'd got to know the family and the community and I was just trying to be really mindful of how that was going to impact them. So I spoke with the local police and we spoke with the family and we gave them the opportunity to spend a bit of time with their little one before they were removed and they knew it was going to happen and they chose to spend the time there and while they were doing that the dad panicked and took the child and the police were panicking, we can't guarantee you safety and, you know,

this is really going to kick off in the community and I was with another Aboriginal lady that was like my liaison that would advise me and I said to them, what do you think we should do? I would like to stay and be accountable and, you know, let the family answer, have any questions answered, but I'll be guided by what you think. And she was really good and she said, no, I think we should stay. And so the police were really panicking. They found the man and the child and we knew he wouldn't hurt the child because he was just distressed. And the next day, people would normally go to the plane and wail when a child was being removed. But because we stayed and we were accountable, nobody really turned up to wail at that plane because they knew we'd tried everything we could to

stop that happening and the father took responsibility. So it was a really big call and it could have gone really wrong, but we were really lucky that the community knew that we tried hard to work with them and saw that we weren't just doing the same as before and getting on the plane and going with that child we stayed. Yeah. And it must be hard knowing that you're not going to get to see the end result of that. You don't know if there's some sort of return to family. You just kind of have to go, this is what I can do in this moment and that has to be enough. Yeah, we did connect the child. So the child ended up out of community for a little while and then another family member took on the care of the child. So they got taken back to community and stayed in the community.

But it was shortly after that I thought, I can't do this. It doesn't sit right. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you. And you. You moved into health, I understand. How did that happen? And where did you land? So then I ended up at Mossman Multi-Purpose Health Services, which is north of Cairns, north of Port Douglas. And I did general social work there. I was just shown an office with a desk and a phone and pretty much left to my own devices to work out how I was going to do referrals, what it looked like, what my job description would entail. So it was two days general social work and two days.

It was home and community care at the time, which is now CHISP. Okay. And so again, trying to balance the need for the hospital, the little multipurpose health service, was greater than the community need of all the people that had other services like nurses and physio and dieticians and things. So again, it was trying to balance the pull between the two services, knowing that there wasn't going to be much increasing services.

So yeah, I've always enjoyed the more challenging work in my younger days. And I saw a fair amount of things. I've done palliative care with that, domestic violence, age care. And then I went over to mental health. So we did community mental health. We were mainly the consultants for the GPs in that area. There was a clinical nurse consultant who became a very good friend of mine. She was one of the first people that I met when I came there. And she's still a good friend now 20 years later. She taught me a lot and we basically worked together. There was two of us with a caseload of 70 mental health people.

Wow. And was that community visiting? as well with that in a clinic. So that was community visiting, case management and crisis response because we were it. That's such a huge number of people when you have to factor in travel and all of that as well, right? And liaison advocacy, it's not just the face-to-face time. No. We dealt with some really interesting things.

But, you know, it was always interesting to me that the people with the so-called label of mental health were actually really quite insightful compared to some of the ordinary people on the streets. Social work status because I've had very mixed reviews. Yeah. Really hard. I enjoyed the work. It was great. Yeah.

And within that, you probably got a lot of other general social work such as the DV and the kid stuff and probably bits of age care and even guardianship probably. So, because there's different tribunals and things that you'd have to sit on and make application. You on what you do. It's really hard to promote yourself. I was lucky because I'd work. Absolutely.

I think that's where I learn the most without a doubt. Yeah. And did it change much in that 20 year period? Because that's a huge amount of time to be in sort of something fairly static. And you would have seen a lot of change, I'm guessing in that time. Not in terms of resources. Yeah. Unfortunately.

I think they got one extra person over that time. I was at the multipurpose for about 14 years doing that kind of work. And then I moved to the eight people's strengths, and you allow them to take messages from what their strengths are and their metaphor. To our age care assessment teams, I guess, in other settings where normally you'd have a team of people that can go out to hospital or to home and assess for care packages or, in accommodation age care facilities, but I can imagine if it's just you. You know, people are waiting for quite a while to get seen.

We were quite lucky because I was connected with the team in Cairns, and then I'd provide the outreach. But if we got too many referrals, somebody would travel up from Cairns and help. So that team was quite well-resourced, and it was run initially by a really good social worker that I knew for a while called Judith Grub, and she was very good at what she did. And again, I got taught a lot from her. Yeah.

And when did you move on from that and start your own practice? I moved on, I think it's just over two years ago now. I could see the declining resources. The red tape was getting worse. And I just couldn't see that we were providing good, consistent quality care for people. and I just had to remove myself from that because it was causing me a lot of distress and frustration. Did you see yourself going into therapy

when you first started out in social work because you were very practical hands-on, less of the, I mean, there would have been so many elements of the therapeutic work in the background, but yeah, I'm wondering if that's something that came as a shock to you or you thought, no, I actually, I feel pretty confident going into this. I wouldn't say I was confident. I think you always query whether you can do a good enough job. And I think if you think you're doing a great job, then you need to check yourself. You know, I think it's really important that you reflect on why you're going into doing what you're doing. What's the reason for it? I'm a big believer that my role in my life is to serve my community in whatever form that takes. So I was nervous. But Before I left health, I made sure I did some upgrade in my training.

And I started with just a basic certificate in hypnotherapy. It was an online thing with Mind Valley. And it was with a guy called Paul McKenna, who's quite an interesting guy from the UK. He started off doing a lot of shows, you know, where he'd make people quack like a duck or, you know, be something like a ballerina on stage. and then he got quite serious and started to really look into like the neuroplasticity of the brain and neurolinguistics. So he'd done a big journey himself. And anyway, this course was online and I met people online and we did it. And I thought, wow, this is really interesting.

And while we were training, they'd actually help us with hypnotherapy for ourselves. So it was a really interesting experience, but I thought, I've just scraped the surface on this. is a really interesting topic and something that I want to know more about. So then I started doing EMDR, eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing. And I found that there were a few similarities, but you'd speak to the hypnotherapy people and they'd go, no, no, this is very separate. This is hypnotherapy. And then you'd speak to the EMDR people and they'd go, no, we only do EMDR. And I'm like, well, I can see similarities in both.

So I'm like, you know what, call it what you want to call it? and I'm just going to keep studying. So then I found another course, and it was with the Institute of Applied Bottom Up or something. I can't remember. I'll have to let you know. But there's a couple of trainings. She was amazing.

So I've just finished a diploma last year. It's clinical hypnosis and strategic psychotherapy. And that was a very, very interesting course. Again, challenging myself in terms of learning with the brain and what it can and can't do and just the everyday messages that we might get and how media and just day-to-day media messages can impact how we perceive ourselves.

So I'm just on the start of another really big learning journey and Michael Yapco is another American. He's a psychologist and he has done a lot of training in hypnotherapy. So him, Gordon Young and Ericksonian are all the pathways. So Erickson was very much, you give direct messages to people and they will sort of implement it without realizing. And Gordon Young is more of a, you explore people's strengths and you allow them to take messages from what their strengths are and their metaphors and things. So I still don't feel like. I know what I'm doing properly with that and I'm okay with admitting that it's a big journey and one that I'm committed to learning more about. What was the process like for you of obtaining your accredited mental health social work status because I've had very mixed reviews?

Yeah. Really hard. It was a long process. You know, I'd never done it because I left the UK registered as a social worker and then I lost that when I came here because there wasn't any registration. I always kept up my supervision because I knew that was really important in terms of reflective practice and challenging your perceptions of, you know, the people you're working with and being aware of your own bias and things. But I was just like, I didn't see what the AASW offered me as a professional.

and then when I started to go, I've got to get out of health, I was like, I really need this accreditation to look like I actually know what I'm doing. So I started the process and I think it took me probably about six months. I just started it very slowly and started ticking the boxes and then I started talking with a few other social workers at work and they'd started it. So we just sort of kept helping each other along. One would get so far and then they'd stop and then another one would get so far and you'd just sort of keep moving each other up the path a bit further. So another two of my colleagues ended up getting accredited around a similar time, but the process itself was really hard work.

And I understand it keeps changing. So what was working a year ago might be something completely different now. Yeah, I would encourage people. to do it because I think as a profession I think we just get on with what we're doing and we don't want accolades for it. We're too busy doing the work with the people that need it. But I think we place such an import. So one of my friends that I worked with a bit in forensics, she was like, I've just saw people getting accredited and being able to get that Medicare rebate that it's going to start speaking for itself. So I would really encourage people even if it's difficult to do it.

And how did you go about setting up the business and developing it and figuring out what you needed to do and how to go about it and using the existing networks that you had? I didn't have a clue, Yasmin. I really didn't have a clue what I was doing. I guess I'd just go one step forward and then I'd do a little bit, get overwhelmed and then I'd stop. So I think the first thing that my partner helped me do was set up a very basic website. site and my email and then sole trader, you know, you've got to decide a name. How do you decide a name? How do you know what's going to stand out for people? It's just, it's all really overwhelming when you just used to go in and doing the work and getting on with it. And then all of a sudden, you've got all this other. In Sydney and a guy called Gordon Young, and he was quite good with that side of things and help me. And then I'd help a friend. And then,

you'd apply for the Medicare. And every time you moved or used a different place to work, you'd have to apply for your Medicare number in a different, you know, a different provider number. So it got quite overwhelming, but I just kept sort of stopping and pausing, using the networks that I had, like, good friends, good colleagues, and I just kept going because I knew that I needed to if I was going to get out of health.

Yeah, just need to keep that momentum going. And also, it's hard to promote yourself. It's hard to put a value on what you do. It's really hard to promote yourself. I was lucky because I'd worked in, you know, a smallish area for a long time. So a few GPs knew me from my previous working mental health, and I guess that's where I was lucky. And then I started working.

A lot of my friends were psychologists as well, and they were really good. So one of my friends that I worked with a bit in forensics, she was like, oh, I've just started working at this GP surgery. Why don't you apply there? And I was like, well, will they really want me? You know, you're a psychologist. She's like, of course they'll want you. You can do the same as me. Come on, apply. And so she was really good for me in terms of building my confidence. And I'd apply for that. And then I'd get referrals there. And then I'd be told about another practice and I'd link him with them. So it's taken, I would say it's taken me about two years and I still feel like I'm just getting people used to

referring to me but the referrals are coming in now and I guess one thing I'd say is don't give up you've just got to persevere and and keep communicating with the GPs that do the referrals so they know the work you're doing and they can see the outcomes and given that you've spent most of your working life with limited resources and having too many people to support all at once how do you know when to stop taking referrals? How do you know that you're at capacity? Well, we have an admin worker now that does that for me. So she's really good. She's like, no, Nikki, you can't take on any more referrals. There's nowhere to fit them in. We can have a few people on a wait list, but we don't like to do that because we don't want people that need help being,

you know, sat there waiting for too long. So I guess the beauty with EMDR is that it's quite a quick therapy in terms of its practical hands-on and you get people through. I couldn't normally do it within five to six sessions. People are normally doing okay. Because I'm used to that sort of brief intervention, solution focused. I'm very much about not create independence and you're your own best resource. Remind yourself of what your resources are. What are your strengths? You are managing most of your life, how have you managed? Let's remind you of those strengths. Yeah. And what's been the hardest part for you in setting all of this up or even just about the work that you're doing? I guess day to day when you have cancellations because people have lives, right? And their doctor's appointments

come up or they get sick or the kids ill. And just that your heart sinks and you question, am I doing a good enough job? That's the hardest thing for me. And luckily I've got good colleagues around me that go, you do an awesome job. Don't doubt yourself. It just is what it is and you just keep going. What support do you need other than those informal networks? Well, I have regular supervision and I think it's important to have good self-care. What does that look like for you?

Regular massage, regular pedicures, catching up with my friends and just having a chat and a glass of wine. walking the dog, spending time in nature. One of those sticks out to me is if you don't have all of your self-care capacities available to you, it's going to be that much harder if you're in a dry community. You know, you just have to find other things that are going to work for you. That's right, yeah. I mean, it still blows my mind when I think about that. But again, I would go up with people and then there'd be other workers that would be visiting

doing their role in community. And so I was working in Pompraouse, so we would go and look at the crocodile farm, or we would go to the beach and they've got the most beautiful shells, just walk along there and collect shells, or just go back to the room and debrief and read a book, have a bit of dinner. So, yeah, it's just important to make sure you take time out. What do you like most about the work you're doing at the moment? Just knowing that you can see change and that when people,

people feel low and feel like they're on their own that just by being there can make all the difference. And probably also helping someone to find their strengths, things that they perhaps didn't prioritise before or couldn't see in themselves. That's something it sounds like you are really honing in on and helping them to see for themselves. Yeah. Somebody said to me the other week when I was talking to them, they've worked all their life and now find themselves in a position where they can't work. And they're like, well, I've got to make the money last for 30 years. And I'm like, how does anybody know whether their money's going to last for 30 years? And they looked at me and went, oh, that's so true. But everybody else has been telling me, don't worry, we'll provide you

with noodles or we'll help you, you know. And I was just like, nobody knows what happens tomorrow, never mind 30 years down the track, why are you planning for that? That's right, yeah. It was just a little light bulb. Yeah, absolutely. I think it's really important to be able to focus on the here and now, but also keep sort of that wider context in mind. Yeah.

Given that you've only just started in this area, you're obviously really focused on it, and this is all consuming, but do you have colleagues who are doing things in other areas and you've thought maybe, oh, I'd like to try that, one day or that sounds like something where social work can have a real impact that maybe in future you'd be interested in exploring. I've just started looking at schema therapy for eating disorders. So there's some training coming up online for that in June or July, I think. And I'm also going to

Melbourne. There's a guy coming over from the UK and he's doing schema instead of from the top down, the bottom up or something I can't remember. I'll have to let you know. But there's a couple of trainings. So with the EMDR, it's like anything, it's a tool, and it can complement other therapies like attachment, family systems. So I just think that you can't just pick one and stick with it. It's my personal thing. I think it's very eclectic.

And I guess what I learned from the work that I was doing is that I don't try and plan. When I get a referral, I skim over it, but I wait to see what I'm presented with in front of me. And I listen and I ask questions and the person gives you the information and that's when you know where you're going. So I don't think, or I've got to think of this therapy or what would I do with that therapy? It's what's this person presenting me with?

Because sometimes the referrals say one thing and it's completely different. And I think the biggest thing I've learned is you have to listen. You have to listen to the person in front of you and be really open to what they're giving you instead of having your own agenda. Yeah. It sounds like you've kind of been developing your toolbox or your tool belt so that at any given point if something comes up for you and you think, or I can pull that out. I know what I'm doing with that and that's a really good applicable skill as opposed to, you know, trying to hammer something with a spanner. It's just not going to work. Yeah, and I always think, well, I might have this idea of what I think might work, but you're in your own head and your own skin 24-7. So I try and make it a collaboration where I'm asking, well, this is what I'm thinking, do you want to try this? How do you feel about it? What have you tried before?

What's worked for you? What hasn't worked? So I think that's the difference with psychology and social work, that psychologists want to try and find the root cause of something and they'll go back in the history, whereas for me, I'm presented with what's in front of me with the person and what they're going through, and I'm like, I don't want to ret traumatise you.

Let's look at what's going on, what do you need help with, and how can we help you move forward? Yeah, and I think also there's an acknowledgement that there might not be a root cause. You know, a person is made up of multiple experiences. So it's that cumulative experience and the multiple things that have happened in that person's life that have led to the point they're at now. Absolutely. And the one thing that I've been learning lately is perception at the time of a trauma or an event can have such an impact on the outcome. So me and you could be in a room like now having this debate, both having completely different perceptions

of what's going on and how it's going. It doesn't mean that one's right and one's wrong. It just means that we're experiencing what we're experiencing in this human journey. Yeah. When you first were working, you mentioned you had quite a multidisciplinary team around you. I'm wondering if there's any element of that you've been able to bring into the private practice because you are working in solo for so much of it, but is there a way to bring in more people within this person's team

to support them holistically? Yeah, so you liaise with the GP, you're communicating with them, you're looking at the supports they've got around them and whether they need to be involved in the care, and you're just, as part of your holistic assessment, you're looking at who's in their community when they leave you. you're giving them 50 minutes once a week, once a fortnight, where's the scaffolding that's holding them up in between that?

Who do you need to be liaising with to keep them safe? Yeah. So you need to have a really good understanding of your local community? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Is that hard in another sense of you are in relatively small community and you would potentially come across people that you know that you've worked with? Is that element of it difficult? Not for me, because I believe that confidentiality is confidentiality.

You know, you like a priest. They come in, they say what they're saying. When they leave you, that information stays with you, and you just move on and get on with what you're doing. And I think that's a skill that I learned quite early on. Again, probably because I had really good mentors when I first started out. but that served me really well in a small community. You never knew who you were talking to, who was connected to who, who was married to who.

And so, lucky for me, I didn't ever feel the need to share any information about people. And I was professional and that kept me well served in a very small community. Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention about your work, about social work in general? before we finish up, Nikki? Just that I think it's a really valuable, rewarding career, and I think that whilst it's not promoted

in such a massive way as psychologists are, I think we all play our part in our community and collaborations key. I think that's changing, though, with the accredited mental health social work status, with greater awareness, especially with GPs, as you mentioned, I think there is more acknowledgement

and understanding of the place of social work, especially in mental health and in seeing people as a whole and networking and liaising and being able to make sure that people do have that wrap around support. It's not just you in the clinic, 50 minutes at a time. The person has context, the person has behaviours and the person has environments. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, even on LinkedIn, I'm seeing it more and more that people are actually standing up and advocating as social workers for social workers explaining what we do and just getting the word out there and I think it's a really strong time for social work in general. Are there any resources other than the ones you've mentioned with Michael Yapco and Gordon Young and Eric? Is there anything else,

any viewing, any reading that you'd recommend for people? I don't know where I'd start. I've just, I've got a really good book that I've just started called a guide to the stand. standard EMDR therapy protocols for clinicians, supervisors and consultants by Andrew M. Leads, that's good. I just think you can never stop learning, just keep reading, finding what you enjoy and keep talking to people and just keep challenging yourself in terms of your learning. Yeah, I think that curiosity really comes through with that lifelong learning and you've always got further training on the go and you're not limiting yourself to one or two.

modalities or ways of working. And that's probably because you started in an area where you had to be able to provide really quick practical supports to people. And you had to have that really conscious effort towards, because kids are going to, they'll smell you out really quickly. If you're not genuine, if you're not sure what you're doing, if you're not confident, they'll bite. They'll go, okay, hang on a second. I've got some leeway here. I can test the boundaries a little. So the work that you've done with the families and the young people has really, I think, set a great foundation. And then what I've seen from what you're saying is just the disappointing lack of resources and the lack of supports that people had access to across the globe.

Wherever you've worked, it's been fairly consistent, unfortunately, although the UK sounds like it had a great model. You've been able to build on that and use that energy and passion to develop your own private practice, which is furthering the reputation of social work. It's supporting people in your community. It's making sure that there's that safety net and that people understand what you can do and how you can support and how social work in general can be an asset. So I think that's all incredibly wonderful. And it's such early days yet. I think there's so much more mentoring that you can potentially do in your community and other people that want to go down similar paths. I think, you know,

the world's your oyster at the moment. Yeah, I agree. Never place any limits on yourself. Yeah, yeah, I think we do plenty of that. I think as social workers, we're often too humble and we do just, you know, think that we need to sit in our box. We're really, no, actually, we've got a lot to show and a lot to offer to people. So, and we do work really well in teams. We do a lot of that. So even if you're working in private practice, you're not working alone. No. Yeah. Thank you so much, Nikki, for the time to meet with me. and to share your experience. And yeah, I love to see where it takes you.

And, yeah, just again, thank you so much for sharing. Thanks very much for your time. I hope it's not been too boring for you. Not at all. It's been incredibly interesting. And I'm sure other people will benefit from hearing about it as well. Thanks, Yasmin. Thanks for joining me this week.

If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Nikki, please visit my anchor page at anchor. 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 Charlotte, the program manager of a youth crisis refuge and outreach program in Sydney. She has been in the housing and homelessness sector for the last five years,

and has also worked in men's domestic and family violence and community outreach roles. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you're notified when this next episode is available. See you next time.