Social Work Spotlight - Episode 14: Renee

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

In this episode, Renee and I discuss her role as a consultant and Therapeutic Life Story Work Practitioner. She has extensive casework specialist experience including with child protection and out of home care, and in executive roles for the Department of Family and Community Services. Renee is particularly passionate about working collaboratively and developing positive relationships with agencies and families to complete assessments of children in out of home care, and ways to support them in unpacking and responding to trauma.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:· Richard Rose: Child Trauma Intervention Services - https://www.childtraumaintervention.com/about-ctis/richard-rose/· Kevin Campbell: family finding - http://www.familyfinding.org/· NSW Department of Communities & Justice: out of home care - https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/families/out-of-home-care/about-out-of-home-care/care-typesThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/12nAItCtkj7bhY1z3552k-9XghR2URGfL/view?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode. I'm your host, Yasmei Niki Wright, and today's guest is Renee. Renee is a self-employed consultant and therapeutic life story practitioner. She has extensive casework specialist experience, including with child protection and out-of-home care, and in executive roles for the Department of Family and Community Services. Renee is passionate about working collaboratively and developing positive relationships with agencies and families, to complete assessments of children in out-of-home care and ways to support them in unpacking and responding to trauma.

Thank you, Renee, so much for agreeing to be part of the podcast. It's lovely having you on board. Pleasure. When did you begin as a social worker and what made you think this was the right career for you? I graduated from Sydney University in 2000, which sounds like so long ago now. But prior to that, I had done a Associate Diploma. welfare at TAFE. So I had had some exposure to sort of the helping profession, I suppose, and I was working in retail. I just finished high school. So I just felt a bit empty that just

exchanging money didn't seem like where I wanted to be in the long run. So I did the welfare course and then quite enjoyed it and moved on to social work. It's just something that fits with me and I've enjoyed doing it. So I feel like I've been lucky to find my home. Yeah. Was there a point at which you felt once you were either completing or you had completed the welfare diploma? Was there a point where you thought,

I can't really progress in the area I want to without the social work degree? Look, I don't remember being aware of that. I knew I wanted to work with children and families. So I think at that stage you actually didn't need to be a social worker to do that. but I've always been someone who's wanted to know that I've known what I should know to do my job. So I guess it's all it's been about just being sure to have the right information and skills and knowledge to do the job to the level I wanted to do it. And then I've always loved learning, I think.

So I've just continued on with different things over the years. Sure. And where were your placements? I did one at a children's hospital and I did another one in a domestic violence setting. working with women and children. Yeah. So both of them would have been very heavy in that area and really grounded that path for you. Yeah, although what I really wanted to do was statutory child protection.

I sort of knew that I had a calling to that. I did that in my social work degree. I did those placements later on in my social work degree. They're both very different. Domestic violence type refuge placement and a hospital placement. They were really different. Yeah. I knew I wasn't suited to either of them really.

So what led you to this point that you are now in your career, knowing what you really wanted to do? I guess I've been working in statutory child protection or with that sort of with children, young people and families in that context for about 20 years. I don't know what it was. I just felt like I needed to be able to make a difference. As much as people who work in non-statutory social work

do make a difference. For me, it was about being able to use the legislation and being able to make decisions and make changes with families. So that's, I guess, what drew me to it. And what is your current role? And what would you say a typical day would be like? So I've been working as a private social work doing assessments for about two years. I was subcontracting to an agency and now I've just gone out of my own just before COVID hit.

So the average day is quoting, looking at assessment work, meeting with care, or grandparents and doing assessments, meeting with children, talking to practitioners and social workers about assessments, and every day is different. Lots of report writing. Yeah, I guess being able to succinctly articulate the needs of people and being able to make recommendations, you'd have to have really strong report writing skills.

Yeah, there's something that I think I continually work on, but it's such a lovely experience. It's just you sort of start off with some information, but then talking to as many people as you need to develop a really rich picture of a child or a family and then sort of bringing that all together into one document with some cohesive recommendations is a really good feeling. It feels very rewarding to be able to pull it all together and to give voices to people that sometimes don't have voices in the day-to-day work. So it's a really, it feels like a piece of art almost.

And then being able to express that the way you want that to come across and pay respect to people's points of views and give them voices in the work. It's a craft. Yeah. Do you find that people are somewhat reluctant to engage with you? Or do you find that people on the whole kind of understand your role and what you're there to do? I've never had anyone not want to engage with me. Generally, though, they're aware that I'm contacting them as a social work assessor. So they're aware that they've either applied to care for a child or that perhaps Department of Community and Justice has said, look, we're looking at changing a child's case plan goal and we want to do an assessment. So they know I'm contacting them.

But I've never had anyone that didn't want to talk to me. That's good. You're obviously communicating the purpose of the call or the interaction really clearly, then they can see the purpose of it. Yeah, and I think people want to be heard too, the way you approach them. If you give them an opportunity to have a say on their child or the person in their life, they're really happy to be heard, really, I find. Mm-hmm.

And before we started recording, you mentioned that you feel like it's not a very interesting field of work. And I'm wondering to what degree you feel you maybe sell yourself short a little in terms of, you mentioned quoting for services. Is there a real divide between what you quote for and how much work you actually do on a case? So I think the work is interesting. I just don't know that it's interesting to your listeners, is what I'm sort of thinking,

how are we going to have a conversation about guardianship because the work itself is interesting, but to have a conversation about it, I'm not so sure. So we'll see how this goes. Look, because I'm just starting out on my own as a practitioner, the whole quoting thing is a whole learning curve, to be honest. Just a process of trying to estimate the work and how long it will take me and then fit that into the market, obviously, is a challenge. It'll be hit and miss, I expect. So I don't know. I can't answer that yet. I'll need a couple of months. to see, but I think you get to the point, certainly I've gotten to the point where I would rather be working and meeting people and being part of decision-making for children and young people's

lives than to be profiteering from it. So, yeah, it's just a matter of finding the right balance, I think, yeah. Yeah. How have your expectations had to change, given that you started the contracting work just before COVID hit and you've had to adapt quite a bit. What did you expect from the outset and what is it looking like now? It's pretty much going the way I thought it would go, well, I had decided that because it was a new decade, I would just start working on my own and trying to do assessments at my own pace because I didn't want to do a lot of work. I just wanted to stay busy, keep practicing the skills, stay relevant. And then COVID hit, of course. So there was no work for a while, which I think everybody experienced in different walks of life.

And then just recently it's picked up again. But I didn't really have any expectations. I'm prepared just to ride the wave and see how I go because that's social work, isn't it, we'll have ups and downs. Sometimes we're flat out and sometimes it stops and it's all okay. Yeah, so I have no expectations. I just seeing how it all goes and learning my lessons along the way. Yeah.

Yeah. Are you finding there's a bit more of a work-life balance working for yourself? That is a good question. I find I can do the work in my own hours so I can work around the rest of my life and do things that I'd like to do during the day or the weekend. But I also think working for yourself is 24-7. So I'm always answering calls or emails or text messages. So there's no real clear boundary between work and home sometimes. But, that's necessary because it does give me the flexibility to choose where I spend my time. So give and take. Sure. Yeah.

But I think, you know, such a privileged position to be able to take time out of your day to exercise or go to the park or go to the beach, go for a walk. So to do that. Hang the washing out. Yeah, that's right. That's the trade off. And of course, our families that we work with, they don't work 9 to 5 Monday to 5 either. So it works well that I spoke to somebody yesterday and she said, I can't see you during the

week and I said, well, that's okay, I work weekends. So that works well too. You know, it's just meeting meeting the need where the need is as well. So that flexibility goes both ways. Do you expect that you'll have to do quite a lot of travelling? What sort of regional areas would you cover? Yeah, so I'm in Sydney, so I will travel anywhere in Greater Sydney. I'll be travelling to Cessnock in coming weeks, perhaps Bathurst, down the south coast. I do travel quite a bit, Penrith, Blacktown, and all those areas. Yeah, happy to travel. Don't mind the travel either. Yeah, that's part of it. It just means you're probably having a lot of conversations via Bluetooth in the car with other clients if you needed to kind of coordinate, set up things. But that's like, I don't mind the travel

because everyone travels to go to work. So that's just how I look at that. It's just might be four hours at a time as opposed to two hours each day that other people do. Yeah. And have you had any difficulty going into people's homes to do assessments at the moment? No, no. People do not seem to be too worried about COVID. So I just do the general screening questions with them and ask them how comfortable they are with me in their home. But I think for the people I'm visiting, what I've noticed is life has gone on through COVID anyway.

They're not people, kids have had to go to school, people have had to work or be in the community. So they're sort of essential workers, essential people and their day-to-day lives seem to have gone on. So for me to do an interview doesn't seem to have worried them. But of course, there was one lady who, They had some health issues in their home. So we did a lot over Zoom and telephone conversations.

That was her preference. So I think it's a good way of working. I think it's really efficient and, yeah, just a bit harder to build rapport sometimes electronically. Yeah, that's right. With the ministerial work that you've done, what sort of information did they want at that ministerial level? Is it advocacy?

Is it policy? Is it just reporting on a particular child? So that was a position I held when I worked at DCJ. And that was usually around a concerned family member wanting to make inquiries about a child that was in the out-of-home care system generally or before the children's court. So they might have been saying, you know, I'm not seeing my child enough or they're disagreeing with decisions that were made by the department. Everybody has the right to raise a issue with the minister.

And then that comes down through the district. So my role was to support the regional director in managing that correspondence and making sure that people got answers and things got. looked at so that there was some equity and fairness and transparency in the work that we were doing. Yeah, that was a great role. Yeah. I just feel like I would have a hard time. Maybe you have an objective checklist that you work towards to avoid any sort of moral subjectivity, but I think it would be really challenging just being able to stick to the facts and not get too involved. Yeah, I don't know. I think it would be for others to say if I got too involved. I think if your

compass is just geared at what does the person want to know, just taking the perspective that family members have the right to know about their child that's wrapped up in this big system, giving them answers and being really child-focused provides some clarity. Yeah. Yeah. I know you've completed a diploma in life story work as well, and that's a fantastic program that helps with enhancing engagement with children and young people affected by trauma. Are you able to explain how you use that in your work?

Peabills Richard Rose, he's a professor in the UK, and he developed the therapeutic life story work model. So I did that training over a year ago, and I was just so wrapped up doing a lot of assessment work, particularly for out-of-home care adoptions, that I didn't really have a chance to practice that. So that was part of this year, this decade's goal, was to really practice the therapeutic life story work,

and then COVID hit. So we obviously weren't sitting across the table from many children at that time, But it's a really wonderful model that can just do amazing things for kids that have experienced trauma and their carers and their placements. So that's part of what I'm trying to set up in my business. But it's a model that's probably not well utilised as yet in New South Wales. So it's part of my roles when I get to talk to people. I can give them some information about what I think the model could do for a particular child or young person and their care and their placement.

or maybe use some of the techniques when I'm interviewing children and their carers for other assessments. So that's how I've been using that. But it's an area that I hoped this year I'd be able to really expand upon and practice more intensively. Is that difficult in the sense that you're having to really justify your time as a contractor? And you know that it would be so much more beneficial if you had more time to do that work if you had that therapeutic focus and the theoretical model behind you, how do you justify spending that extra time when someone's paying for that service? Yeah, I think one of the issues for service providers in contracting that service is the,

it's a year commitment of time. So it's quite an intensive therapeutic process, as you would expect, because, you know, you're dealing with often years of trauma. So it is about explaining to purchases, caseworkers, service providers, the benefits of the model, but it is difficult because if you look at a financial investment over a year, it is a lot for one child to be allocated in a really tight financial environment for kids in out-of-home care. The benefits can be amazing. I mean, there's been children who have been medicated for attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, who have gone off

their medications as a result of participating in therapeutic life storywork. The potential benefits for the health education systems of having kids who, aren't walking around traumatised, who have an opportunity to process that trauma and know more about their identity and their families. It's obviously priceless. But yes, it costs. That's a sticking point. I think that's difficult. But I also believe that once there's a body of work undertaken in New South Wales by practitioners like myself and there's a few of us, that the benefits will be seen and it will pick up. You know, it costs more than people probably expect. Every intervention. is pre-planned for that particular child and carer. So there's a lot of thought and work that

goes into it as well as time. So yeah, that's one of the challenges. And how do you promote yourself? How do people refer to you and what kind of referrals do you get? Yeah, look, as I've just started, what I did is obviously being a social worker, you don't come with any sort of business degree or anything like that, but I do have a network of relationships of people that I've worked with over 20 years. So I just developed a brochure about what therapeutic life story is and what type of assessments I do as an independent social worker and sent that out to my network and said, you know, look, I'm doing this, working in this space. Can you give me a call, keep me a mind if you think something comes up?

And I spent a lot of time talking to people about what the model is and how I think it could help particular children, young people. And then I quote and then leave it with them to see whether that's something that is going to be approved by the management team to. proceed with. But at the moment, I haven't done any formal advertising or I don't have a website. It's just word of mouth. Okay. And that's working really well so far. That's good. Yeah, you don't want to do too much and then find you have a waiting list. Yeah, well, that's it too. You know, everyone needs their service pretty quickly. So it's just finding the balance,

finding the balance between doing the social work assessment stuff and the therapeutic life story work as well so that, you know, for my own mental health and well-being, just to have different things to focus on and different challenges to meet across my week and my mum. Yeah. What would you say is your favourite thing about what you do? What do you love most? I really enjoy meeting the children and carers. I really enjoy them.

Their stories are amazing and the fact that they share them with me, a complete stranger. People, they're just so honest and upfront. the things they say are unbelievable and just that people trust you with their stories is really rewarding and then I feel like when I'm able to craft them into an assessment with recommendations I feel like that is rewarding as well because sometimes it's the first time that a person's voice has been heard or part of their story is actually been heard and I feel like that does some good because we can focus on people as their deficits so what we often know is someone might be a drug use or they might have chosen to use violence towards their partner or their

children perhaps. But often what we don't know is, you know, the backstory, what was their family history like, you know, that people tell me about when they were younger, their first true love and what happened. And you can see the sliding door moments in people's lives. And it starts to make a lot of sense, the trauma that they bring, the trauma of the next generation and the next generation and I just, I like doing justice to their stories or trying to do justice to their stories and just show different perspectives of people. And yeah, just giving people a voice who might have been silenced otherwise. I think that's a really important part of my work. It's not just about talking about what has gone wrong, but it's also talking about who

these people are, especially for children. You know, often they don't know their parents beyond what's in a statutory child protection file. They don't know their parents' favourite. color. They don't know what music they like to listen to. And that can sound a bit silly. But, you know, if we think about our family and our people, we know that. So they can be things that mean a lot to children now or in the future. I like that side of it. And with the counselling work that you do, how do you see that different from, say, a psychologist or someone who had completed a welfare diploma, Tave? I think for me, it's a passionate commitment to children, young people and their families. And I think that most practitioners have that.

I mean, all practitioners have that. So I don't think it's a social work versus a psychology thing necessarily. I think it's the use of yourself, which maybe in itself is a social work thing. But the use of self and turning up and being present for people is probably the most important thing. And I think you can do that. You don't have to be a social worker to do that. But I think our training definitely helps us with that. And also, you know, things like Naslo's hierarchy of needs,

when I was at university studying social work, I never thought I would ever use in my whole entire life. It's become something that's been really important because, you know, when you're visiting people, you need to understand that they need to have food on the table. That's their primary concern, not so much, some other things that might be a requirement of your assessment. So, for example, sometimes I talk about religion and I can see people look at me like, why do you want to know about my religion? And I think, well, part of my assessment is often looking at a child's religion and their religious values and that of the parents and the family and how that's being upheld.

That's part of a template. But really for that family, religion isn't sometimes what they want to be talking about. Their day-to-day struggles are a lot more tangible. Sure. Yeah. So I think social work gives you a really good foundation for just the use of yourself and understanding who you're sitting across the table from or on the floor with and what they need from you at that point.

What would you say is most challenging for you? what's the thing you dislike most? There's nothing really. There's nothing that I don't like. I accept the bits that, you know, like the quoting bits and the business side of it is sometimes challenging because as social workers, obviously we'd like to be doing every assessment

that people can give us and it's hard to put a price on your value as a social worker in any field, I think. And I think we're always people who think, well, that's okay. We can work those extra hours for free. so not doing that is important because we need to have a value on our profession and our practice and ourselves. So I struggle a little bit sometimes with the quoting and asking for money side of things for my work. But by the same token, I've got to put food on my table too. So that's uncomfortable, but I don't. I just accept that as part of the job. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think we do the same

thing if we're working for an employer and getting a salary. It just looks different. It's less regular and it's less seen, but it's essentially the same thing. I think when you're a solo practitioner, you are very explicitly putting a price on your service or your skills. That's hard because that we're not used to doing that. But I just don't take it personally, really. And I always say, you know, we shouldn't say this, but I always say if you want to talk about the quote, just give me a call because you don't, you know, I'd rather do the work than make, as I said, especially with the therapeutic life story work. You know, I've said to people, I know that that's a lot of money that is on that

piece of paper, but it's going to have a really good outcome and it's a real investment, it's a relationship, it's a time thing, it's worth it. But if it's a matter of me losing money to provide a service and make a difference to a child, then just ring me and talk to me about that because I'd rather be doing the work than not doing it because it costs too much. Sure. So, yeah. And then word of mouth is a valuable thing.

as well. Yeah, yeah. Sounds like you've hit a nice balance of different types of work. Like you suggested you kind of break it up and try to get a nice even spread between the two roles. So that's probably a good way to make it less draining on yourself as a person and as a professional. Yeah, it is. And I think the good thing with doing assessment work is you can get in and get out. Like it's quite discreet. It's not going on for months at a time. and there's no great longevity going on. So that's nice for now.

That's nice. I like that. And every family is different. So every time I start working with a new family, it's all new. It's all exciting and interesting, getting to know people and, you know, looking at new dynamics and thinking things through.

So it's always interesting. Yeah. Sounds like it would be. Do you have your own supervision then, especially working for yourself? It must be hard to get the time. and really book it in and commit. I do external supervision.

I'm looking for somebody else because I'm also now wanting to move into, aside from the social work side of things, the therapeutic life story work and someone who can guide me in that practice, but also someone who has perhaps the background of having their own business and working on their own

so that I can get some advice and guidance on those issues specifically. So I'm looking at somebody else, but I also have the most amazing network of social work friends who I can always just ring and ask advice from and always get a response. So I'm very fortunate. Yeah, takes a village, I guess. It takes a village, yeah, absolutely.

And how else do you look after yourself, given that some of the work you do is quite heavy? I exercise. I like to walk and just try and exercise and find a balance between the thinking and the doing in terms of moving. and yeah, just keep it in perspective that it is just work. It's important work, but it's work. And yeah, it's because I get a lot of flexibility to choose when I work and how much I work, I think it's probably quite a good position to be in for a social worker.

So I don't find it too difficult. I think when I'm actually actively working with a family, I spend a lot of time thinking about them. But once I feel like I've pulled the assessment together and I talk to them about the recommendations, I feel like that sort of helps me with closure. Yeah. And I move on.

Yeah. Sounds really healthy. Well, I try. Have you noticed any changes in that 20 year period that you've been working in social work in terms of maybe how it's received or what impact we can have in these fields? I think the changes are enormous and I feel like we're on the cusp of some amazing change. So for me, as a practice, when I started 20 years ago in statutory child welfare practice anyway, I think children and families

didn't have a lot of power or voice. And I think statutory child protection workers had the great share of voice and power. And I think very fortunately, that's moved significantly to current times where, you know, children's voices are given some more privilege and parents and families are given more respect and their roles are seen as being really valuable and important. And some of that power base is being shared. I think we've still got a way to go, but I think we're on the right track. And then I think there's a lot of stuff happening in America around social work and statutory child protection practice that's really exciting around, you know, really shifting that power away from service providers towards families. And I think that that's inevitable for us to follow.

I think we're very much on that track. So I think they're exciting changes. I think one of the greatest burdens for me as a young caseworker within a statutory organisation was the responsibility of the decision making was huge. It's absolutely huge and didn't have the experience or necessarily the supervision to guide me appropriately and I was really aware of that. So there was a lot of anxiety and a lot of worry for me as a worker trying to do the right thing in really complex environment.

And I feel like now that for caseworkers and people working in statutory child protection, it's still a very difficult job. But I feel like being able to share that power and responsibility for decision making with children, young people and their families and all sorts of significant other people is a massive development. It's just going to go really good places. Yeah. But we've got a long way to go.

Yeah. And where do you see that end point? Where do you think we're going to get to in the next 10 or 20 years? Look, I'm not really sure. Sure, it would be really good to have things like children, young people being involved in, like, say, the statutory organisation, recruitment, reviews, staffing, that sort of thing, like to really have them take more of a lead in the work that's being done, particularly around our Aboriginal communities.

I think they need to really be given more power for the decisions that are being made for Aboriginal children. Obviously, that's a no-brainer. Something fundamental needs to happen there because, you know, one of my greatest places of discomfort is making decisions with Aboriginal families when I'm not Aboriginal. Can you consult all your life. I just feel like the work is best done by Aboriginal practitioners and communities. Having frameworks for that and really pursuing that in a legitimate sense is really necessary

and that's where we need to go. So it could be really exciting. There's so much opportunity. There's so many young people who have the capacity to express themselves and say what they think needs to happen in a child protection framework system and they're just there waiting to be heard really. Yeah. It sounds like there's then a need for improved access for study opportunities for people who identify as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander just to at least know the opportunities that exist for social work and provide them with more chances to take that line of work if that's

what they're wanting to do. But getting into study, like I imagine, I don't know what the figures would be, but I imagine the percentage is probably quite low in terms of how many people study social work that are Aboriginal. Yeah. I mean, I know for in New South Wales,

Aboriginal people don't require a social work degree to be caseworkers because, you know, that's part of accessibility. And there's so much that our Aboriginal colleagues know that we don't know about their people and their cultures and their traditions that you don't learn from a society. social work degree anyway. So just valuing different types of knowledge, I suppose, and different

types of experience is really important. Yeah. Just when you were talking about that, I was thinking about rabbit proof fence and a few other films where it really hits home the injustice that's been caused and continues to be. But are there any other films that you think portrays a good example of what social work can do in child protection? Look, there's nothing I can think of. I don't tend to actually watch social work films. I don't watch violence or child protection type stuff anymore. That's just part of my self-care because I think, you know, after two decades I've seen a lot. I don't need to be watching it in my spare time. So I can't really answer that. But I think, you know, social media is doing amazing things. I just saw something yesterday that a friend had posted

a social work friend about some African-Americans telling their children how to engage with the police and what to do and what not to do to be safe. And I thought that was really powerful. And that's just people in the community talking to their children about keeping safe from the authorities and just the fact I thought about the conversations that I might have with children about the police. It's a really different narrative. Of course, that would be different too if you're in Aboriginal Australia.

And that would be a different conversation again, wouldn't it? So I think that there's lots of social media stuff going on that can do that. But I don't know about any movies because, yeah, I try and stay away from, it's not entertainment to me anymore. Yeah. It must be horrible for children growing up in an environment where they're just completely fearful and there's so much uncertainty around their own safety. It's hard for us to imagine.

Some children actually think they don't realize. It's not until you take them out of the situation. I think a lot of children, that's just the life that they live. And that's a really important point because I think sometimes as a child protection worker, if you think about how sad it must be for the child to not have a lot of food for dinner, for example, we can't place a value on that for other people. So we need to see what that means to the child and their family before we make sense of that. So I think a lot of kids possibly don't know that their family is very different to others

until they get to a certain age. And then I think, yeah, it starts to hit. So I think that's some of the stuff with the therapy. therapeutic life story work is it's not until a child is in a different environment or is safe that you can really revisit the trauma of what their childhood really was because a lot of people in the situation they may not see that it's that bad. I mean a lot of children would choose to be with mum and dad who do some low level harm to their child than being foster care for example. So yeah, it's not an easy thing. Yeah. Given that you've worked,

pretty much your entire career in this field. Has there ever been any other type of social work that you've been keen to try out? I don't think so. For some reason, it's always been about children and families. I think I saw the most hope with children that if you could make some difference in a child's life, that that would be something that would really be beneficial. Although having said that, I have been recently thinking about the application of therapeutic life story work to older people and people in nursing homes.

I have a really smart friend who's doing therapeutic life story work with a gentleman who was quite traumatised in a nursing home. And she was saying that he would often talk about his trauma to other residents. And that was in turn traumatising them. So she was doing therapeutic life story work with him to help resolve some of his trauma, whether that was a wartime trauma or a family trauma, I'm not sure. So that was a really interesting application. I've always been really interested in the wisdom of older people. So that would be something that I would be really open to, you know, hearing older people's stories,

whether that be through a therapeutic life story lens or some other way. But really, I just really enjoy working with children of families. I haven't really coveted any other position. I'm really comfortable in this space and I just feel like there's so much that can be done. It just remains really interesting to me. Sounds like this is really where you belong. Yeah, I was really fortunate to stumble upon it. Yeah. And are there any particular side projects or any programs that you're working on other than

trying to implement that training into your work? No, I'm studying. I'm doing the certificate for in training and assessment just because when COVID hit things were so quiet that I thought it was a time to do some study. So a friend and myself enrolled to do that. That's really, really challenging. And I guess that means you could teach at TAFE if you ever wanted to go down the education pathway. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. so that could open up doors in the future. I've always enjoyed training. So to have the certification behind that

seem to make some sense. And yeah, I think I will keep studying. My mind is wondering to what's next. I wouldn't mind doing some training in professional supervision because I think that could complement the business side of things. I think it's been a real journey trying to establish myself as a practitioner. And I didn't find there was a lot of support there

from people who had gone before me. So to perhaps be in a position where I could pay that forward and share my learnings with other people who perhaps want to work for themselves or to build the therapeutic life story work market, I guess, so that there would be more people who could practice to provide some sort of business leadership or supervision mentoring to other people somewhere that could be something that I pursue, I think, just because I found it really difficult myself. Like, you know, trying to work out how to quote for something.

it's really difficult. So there's a need there. And that translates well to teaching. There's been a trend in the last, say, five years with TAFE, not necessarily employing people who have a good amount of experience or theoretical knowledge in the field that they're actually teaching. So I think it's really important that there are more people that have that breadth of experience and are really passionate about communicating and educating. I think it means that the next generation of welfare workers are in a good position. I know, I really agree with you because it is that enthusiasm and commitment that you want to get across to the next generation of social workers.

When I was in DCJ, I always took on social work students and just got so much from them as well about contemporary theories and knowledge and what they were thinking about what we were doing was always such a great exchange. So, yeah, what's your space? I think people underestimate that. I think they're fearful of having a student. maybe they think there's not that much that they could learn from their supervisor or they think that they're taking up too much time but really as you've suggested and at least in my experience

it's very much been me learning from a student and being able to have those really robust discussions about the work that we're doing and give it that theoretical basis yeah i think the students have been invaluable to my career and just keeping me refreshed as well because they're not once you give them, once you have a conversation and say, I really want to know what you think about the way we do things, the way I do things, the way I see things. If you give people permission to be honest and open with you, it's just invaluable, you know, to hear people who are being trained 20 years after you will actually, we look at it like this now or, you know, it's just invaluable. And they're just, it's been so rewarding. Social work students are great value. And they just,

you know, they work really hard. They just want to learn and succeed. And, to see them progress in their careers is really lovely as well. Is that something that would be more challenging for you than in private practice to take on a student? Yeah, I haven't even thought about it in private practice. I'm not sure how that would work. So, yeah, I'm not sure. Maybe if your service or your business develops and expands, that would be an option. But I was thinking the other day, I was just thinking, you know, with DCJ, I do a lot of assessments for them.

And I thought something that I was curious about was whether I could somehow start up some sort of opportunity for the caseworker who has the family or another caseworker to somehow shadow me or I could coach them how I do the assessment so that there's some give back. They could be exposed to the assessment process, what my thinking was, how I came to the conclusions, then the report writing side of it. So I was sort of thinking, I wonder if that's an area to play with because, you know, I think when you're talking about fee for service, you want to provide the most value for money. And I think doing that coaching and offering the chance for a caseworker to come and shadow you and see how you do the assessment, well, perhaps next

time they can do the assessment, you know, and then you're ultimately, we don't we want to be without a job in one way or another, don't we? It's such a wonderful idea. I love the transparency of that as well. They can really see the value. Yeah, so that was just something I was thinking about, because it just seems a shame for me to take a lot of information and have the opportunity to meet families and work through really complex issues and not share that with the caseworker or another caseworker if they were interested in seeing that, that could be something that could easily be done. So yeah, something that my mind was thinking about. Yeah. They probably don't have the time, though. Well, it's an investment, as you suggested. Yeah. Where would you direct people if they were

interested in knowing a little bit more about what you're doing? Is there any reading, any websites or books that you would direct them to? Yeah, Therapeutic Life Storywork, Richard Rose, has two books. They're a really good read, but he's also got Therapeutic Life Storywork International, which is just a website people can go and have a look at. There's lots of resources on the internet, but really it doesn't go past just taking time to see the value in people and listening, really. I mean, we can have all the resources and tools and techniques, but really the most important thing is having an open mind, treating people with respect and giving them a good time.

And the more experience I get in social work, the more I feel like it just comes down to that, to be honest. I don't know if that sounds silly, but that's just what it feels. I feel like, you know, sometimes on Facebook I see people with all these wonderful resources, batteries that you can have colored in about what happens when your battery's low or when your battery's full and how you fill your battery up. And they're great resources. and they have a place, but there's hundreds and thousands of them.

And sometimes I just think we just need to sit across the table and listen and give people time and give them a voice and help them make sense of their story. And yeah, it's not that complicated sometimes. Sometimes the simple stuff's the best stuff. Yeah. And I think where social work perhaps stands apart from a lot of that is just our emphasis on reflection and just wanting to further ourselves and be a better version. of whatever it is so that we can give that time and give that energy to someone in order to tell

their story. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Is there anything before we finish up, anything else that you wanted to talk about that you think other people would find interesting, anything about what you do? The only other thing is just seeing family members. Now, I don't know if you follow Kevin Campbell. He does family finding. No. So he's a practitioner in America and he talks about the importance of finding family for children, young people in the system. Through my experience doing, particularly in the adoption space, doing adoption assessments for kids, there's so many family members that aren't linked with their children and people don't see them or find them. And they're not really hard to see or find. So I think that that's a really important part of social work

and where we're headed is hopefully we're going to have kids that are more connected to their families and communities. I just think it's not that hard to find people in this day of social media. Everyone's on Facebook. People know people. So I think that's a really important thing is connecting children back to their families, particularly dads and paternal families is really important. Yeah. So I hope for social work that we can focus more on keeping children connected to parents and keeping children connected to their families. I think that's really important. And it just doesn't take that long. No. Maybe I can put some links to the work that he's doing and also to the other resources you've mentioned,

just so people can go and have a look and spend some time researching if they're interested in knowing more about it. Awesome. For someone who's never worked with children, at no stage has a child been my primary client. Right. So child protection and children come into it inevitably all the time, but it's not my primary work. And it's not like the depth of what you do, the extent of what you do, is something I have no idea about. So it's, even though for you it obviously comes second nature and it's something you've been doing for such a long time and you're obviously really passionate about it, it's just stuff that unless you're specifically working in that area, you just don't come across it. Yeah, I guess.

And you don't really have the opportunity to delve into something in detail and say from A to Z and then maybe all the way back to A again, what do we actually do with these people and how do we make a difference? Yeah. So I guess that's where I'm coming from. I find it really interesting. Yeah, it's all about perspective, isn't it? I think, if anything, people will find value in your take on the work, what you give in

in terms of your energy and how you perceive the work that you do. Yeah. I think that will be really interesting for people to hear about. It's very enlightening having the perspective. of someone who has to make it up as she goes along, has to kind of figure it all out because you don't have that back up. You don't have someone on call to go, I can't deal with this anymore today. I need to hand it over to someone. You just can't. No. Yeah. But it's just, it's so rewarding working with those children and families. It's just, it's such a privilege.

It really is, you know, and the kids are just so beautiful and loving and I met a little boy last fight a night and he said, I'm bad and I want to be good, but I just can't help the bad. And I said, why do you say that? They just tell you anything and they'll just be so open, you know, and then you can do some good with it. You can say, look, this is what this boy thinks about himself. That was really sad to witness. What can we do about that? Because we don't want him feeling like that, you know? Yeah. You've obviously gained distrust though. So there's a lot of skill that goes into that, even if it's not something you do consciously. Yeah, possibly. Yeah. I'm interested to see if you do take this to older populations because I'm like you.

I love working with older populations and I think they just have so much to give and so much rich history and experience. I think it's going to be a really interesting prospect. But again, it's just hard to get therapeutic life story work being so unknown in Australia. I think it's hard to get momentum, I feel. But I think we need a body of practitioners out there making a difference. before it will really be embraced. And then because it does go for a year

and it's quite a solid model, it's hard for people, people want quick fixes sometimes. And I think just the sessions that are just about building relationship and building trust are so important, but people don't necessarily have place of value on that. So that's what you're up against

is the value of relationship. Of course, we know as social workers, relationship is everything. Relationship can change a person's life. Yeah. But that relationship needs to be paid for and that's the problem. So I think we'll get there,

I hope we'll get there in the low rate. It would be a shame not to, but. Yeah. Do you think it's our state that's being slow or just across Australia we're being slow on the uptake? My understanding is Victoria, we're practicing it,

but they had similar issues around people not wanting to pay for the model. And obviously the model is created in a really planned and intentional way that it does build that relationship because, you know, obviously you're talking about at times

some quite significant trauma. for children to explore. And I mean, you see a child once a fortnight for an hour. If you're talking about some really difficult things, you need to make sure that you're managing that and holding that and keeping everybody safe. So that's really planned thought through work. It's not just rocking up and having good conversation

and then out the door. So it's a model that we can't sort of pull apart or put bits of out. We can't just throw bits out the window to save money. So, you know, I think that's difficult. But then someone said to me yesterday, counseling for a child can cost the same amount of money, but I think because they don't project a year's counselling,

it doesn't look as expensive. Sure. So it's, again, you know, breaking it up, trying to make it manageable or acceptable to the people who have responsibility for funding, which is, you know, it's important to spend money in the right places. You know, with this model, there's some fantastic assessment tools that go alongside it to demonstrate progress and to, you know,

evidence what you're doing. and the difference it's making. So I think if we can get some practice in, I think it will be in demand. But it might just be something that's a bit down the track. I think Victoria, they've done more. They've done more with at-risk teenagers with the model. Yeah.

So that's been particularly beneficial, apparently. Even if you need to say this is the 12-month plan and at certain points there will be objective measures and we can demonstrate the effectiveness of it. At the point, we'll just ask for the funding. up until this point and then, you know, write our reports and demonstrate a need for ongoing. But, yeah, again, you just, you want to be able to demonstrate overall. This is going to be really helpful.

And it needs to be done for a year. We can't just cut it short. No. And I think the thing with that is if you got three or six months funding and then funding wasn't re-approved, where does that leave the child? So you can't tell them a quarter of their life story or you can't rush the rest of it because you've only got two sessions left. And again, I think, you know, that's about knowing the value of our work as well.

And I think as social workers, as I said, there's a whole culture of, you know, the caring professions, giving away their time and their skills and their expertise. It's sort of part of, it's an unsaid part of our social work culture, right, to be really generous with our time and ourself and our thoughts. And there's definitely a place for that. But I think when you're delivering a model that has been developed to go over a year with specific outcomes in mind, if you start to butcher that or reduce the price too significantly, we're just selling ourselves short. it's not sustainable and then you know you can't turn up and give quarter of yourself to a child you've got to give 100% so yeah probably deserve to be remunerated for that that's tied up into a bigger issue about the value of social work and helping professions in society and seeing the value of early intervention of children and families you know that maybe if you can avert them from the juvenile

justice system avert them from the complex health issues that we know trauma brings children you know anti-social behaviours because they don't feel connected to anybody in the world. They feel really alone and isolated. If you can work on that, clearly that's a huge public investment. It's a huge saving to society, but it's not tangible. Yeah. Yeah. Was it in the UK that the program was developed? Yeah, UK, yeah. What do you think it is that's different about the UK? Is it just that they've had it for longer? Or do you think there's something different about the model as it relates to that environment? Yeah, I'm not really sure. That's a really good question. And I'm not sure. I mean, I think it could be part of Professor Richard Rose is really well known and respected.

And I think there's also, he does a lot of work for the children's courts in the UK, so they often request his opinion and his work. I guess that that would be about the really acute phase of children about to enter the juvenile justice system or children who have, you know, really acute harm has been done to them, possibly sexual harm. So it could be a little bit about that, like positioning that model where it can do the most good. And then I think ultimately we need to reposition it to be an early intervention type model because the earlier we can get to kids and connect them with family

and tell them their life story and explain to them why they're in care. I mean, it's just really for a nine or a 10-year-old to not know their mum or their dad or have any pictures of themselves as a baby is unquestionably harmful to them. Yeah. And we need to do something about that. So that's where I think the value is. and to explore, I mean, you can, in child protection, we give kids life story books where we write about the story for them and hand it to them.

But that hasn't encouraged them to be part of exploring their life story. Or they're not sitting there working out who those people are in their lives, what actually happened to them, why adults make decisions to hurt children sometimes? Why dad's in jail, for example? You know, having that someone sit down and take the time to explain that to you in the context of a therapeutic relationship is obviously really, really important. Handing them a book saying, you know, mom or dad are in jail because of A, B and C isn't the same. Yeah.

I think that that's the real benefit is engaging children in their lives. And also, you know, talking to those people about what is their story? How did they get to jail? What happened before that? It's that richness of our human connections and where we belong and who we belong to that we all need. Yeah. And that's what therapeutic life story work looks at. Yeah.

Yeah. We just need the opportunity to practice it. That's it. You need it to be recognised for what it is firstly. Yeah. But I mean, I'm optimistic that we'll get there. There's lots of ways of helping children, young people and families. So I think that that's the other thing.

As time goes on, you get more of an evidence-based around a model. And that's being worked on as well. Do you think there's a saturation of models? Do you think people can't quite piece them out from each other? Possibly. I mean, I think the traditional mode is counselling, but there's not a lot of, in my experience, there's not a lot of specific trauma counselling for children. There's some health ones, which are very good, but there's also often waiting lists for that. But what would be different about the therapeutic life story work is hands on, it's craft based, it's

really creative, and then it's a child creating their story with you and with their carer. So it gives the care of the opportunity to hear about the child's story, which perhaps they never have either. There's a whole lot of carers out there who don't know particularly why that child's with them. So when the child starts misbehaving in quotation marks or acting out, they sometimes might perceive that as a child being naughty or they might perceive that as their parenting skills are inadequate when in fact it's just the child saying I need something. Yeah. This happened to me and I need something and I don't have the words for that. So doing that process with the carer can be invaluable in terms of the carer, hearing the child's story as well, having some empathy for the child,

and taking on that role of, okay, I heard your story, I'm here with you, we're in this together, we're going to be safe, it's going to be okay. And then possibly the child's behaviour can be seen more in a lens of trauma than misbehavior. And then, of course, that just leads you down a whole different path of attuned emotional caregiving as opposed to discipline placements lasting longer because carers aren't taking it personally. The child's misbehaving. They're actually seeing it as being something that's not to do with them, but something they can support the child with. And also more empathetic towards parents, if they can know the parents' story as well, they're not just bad people, that people who have probably

had their own trauma, never been resolved. The more we can understand about people's stories, the more we can treat them humanely. And that's got to be nothing but good, right? That's it. Yeah. Are there any subsidies or rebates for any of those services? No, I have some friends who are working with people with disabilities who, I think the NDIS has come on board and might be funding some practice. But no, I don't think there's any subsidies, but it would be something that the statutory child protection agency would have as part of a child's case plan to fund. And some agencies run it as part of their programs. So that's where most children will be receiving a service would be through an agency and out-of-home care

agency. So the staff that are trained can do that as part of their day-to-day work. And that's probably the most cost-effective way of doing it. Yeah. Yeah, but it also would limit how many children the practitioner could work with at a time, so that makes that a bit difficult. I think it's just about creating that awareness and being able to demonstrate the effectiveness, which everyone's about, you know, but what are you actually doing? And, yeah, there's just not enough emphasis on this needs to be done over a period of time

because this trauma was developed over a period of time. Yeah. Keep doing what you're doing because it sounds wonderful. Thank you. And I'm so grateful that you could take the time to do this. This is wonderful. Yeah, it's my pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Renee, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular. topic you'd like discussed or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show.

Next episode's guest is Kate, an early career mental health social worker, passionate about creating communities to connect students, graduates and academics in Sydney. She is passionate about social justice, political science and humanitarian aid work and gender studies. 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. You know.