Social Work Spotlight - Episode 141: Carol

Episode Date: August 1, 2025

In this episode I speak with Carol, a dedicated and trauma-informed therapeutic social worker with a degree also in Criminal & Community Justice. As the child of immigrant parents, Carol's upbringing instilled a deep understanding of the systemic barriers many individuals face, as well as the importance of empathy, empowerment, community care and social justice. Carol is highly experienced in Domestic and Family Violence, Out of Home Care, Child and Adolescent Mental Health and in upskilling and empowering social workers and other helping professionals through clinical supervision and training, and is also a trained facilitator in Circle of Security, Tuning into Kids, Westmead Feelings Program and Black Box parenting program. Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Got It program- https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/resources/Pages/got-it-guidelines.aspxAustralian Parenting website - https://raisingchildren.net.au/Emerging Minds resource for social workers - https://emergingminds.com.au/Gabor Maté; Hungarian-Canadian physician - books, podcast, interviews - https://drgabormate.com/WDVCAS-  https://www.legalaid.nsw.gov.au/about-us/our-partners/womens-domestic-violence-court-advocacy-programTuning in to Kids program - https://tuningintokids.org.au/Parenting Stress Index - https://www.parinc.com/products/PSI-4Circle of Security parenting program - http://www.circleofsecurityparentingprogram.com.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1g_hpCeXKkOCq0chzlT9NXiHkGRJuFVOtHjWxxyJiTdM/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 Carol, a passionate and culturally informed social worker with a strong foundation in anti-oppressive practice, committed to amplifying voices and creating meaningful change within diverse communities. As the child of immigrant parents, Carol's upbringing instilled a deep understanding of the systemic barriers many individuals face, as well as the importance of empathy, empowerment, community care and justice. For Carol, social work felt like a natural way to turn those values and experiences into action, a belief that everyone deserves access to opportunities, dignity and support. Thank you, Carol, for coming on to the podcast. I'm happy to have a chat with you about your experience in social work today. Yeah, thank you for having me.

It's a pleasure speaking to another fellow social worker. Yeah, I want to know firstly when you got started in social work and what brought you to the profession? So I graduated from social work in 2016. So that's almost 10 years ago. But I have been working in the field for 10 years because I did a double degree. So the first four years of social work and then I did that extra year of criminal and community justice, which then brought me over to graduate in 2016.

But I was working a year prior to graduation. And I guess I think my path to social work, I would say, really started with my family background. So I come from a family of immigrants and growing up, I guess I was surrounded by lots of conversations around social justice, equity, the importance of standing up, I guess, for those in need. My parents really carried strong, I guess, socialist and communist values, not in the political extreme, but in the sense of believing deeply in community care. about fairness and a collective responsibility. And just my experience is kind of living there and here. Often my parents taking me over to their home country. So seeing, I guess, their experiences as newcomers really open my eyes to the challenges.

People face when they're navigating, I guess, multiple identities, different cultures, systems, different systems, and the barriers that they could face in that. I guess I witness firsthand by not just living here with immigrant parents, but again, going overseas from a little age is seeing how class and culture, I guess, and immigration really intersect in people's lives and how those intersections can create. I guess both obstacles, but also resilience because I did see that as well. And I, when I reflect on that question, I think that's where my social work journey started

because I was quite, I finished high school and I went straight to uni. And then I finished uni and I went straight into social work. And so it's been everything that I've ever known and I've never looked back. And do you think your parents' strong desire for change and their sense of justice, was that bound by their experience in their country of origin? Or do you think it was kind of compounded, layered by their experience once they got to Australia? No, I think it was developed in their country of origin, and I think they saw Australia as that fair and equitable place. Yeah. And what was your experience then seeing other opportunities or lack of opportunities in other countries?

And from a young age, how did you make sense of that? I saw how different intersections really play out in people's lives. again, I can see how even myself with the opportunity that I got given here differed from those who had opportunities there just based on their class or the socioeconomic status. And I don't think I was conscious of it growing up. I think it was something that I was able to reflect later in my life. And as I have gone through my social work journey and have learned more about the field and sticking strong in the field as well.

That makes sense. So it was while you were. studying that you were able to kind of unpack that a little bit more based on your learnings. Yeah, yeah, and I think it helped me come from a much more cross-cultural lens. Yeah, and if you had continued down the criminology path and community justice, what did you feel your trajectory would have been and how did you then make the decision to kind of take the road over to social work rather than continue down that way? Yeah, so social work was always the more dominant.

career path for me. However, when I was younger, I envisioned seeing a lot of change within the criminal justice system. I had a strong interest and I guess uni really supported this interest when learning about different systems, criminal justice systems in different parts of the world and how they worked and how they didn't work. And again, back from my parents' home country, I saw strongly how it didn't work. And I think that's where that little, I guess, passion ignited, where I kind of wanted to go down there. However in saying that I never actually got the opportunity to work in the criminal justice system, my social work path has taken me other ways. Yeah. And did your parents do anything similar or that was just kind of in their bones as something that they talked about

quite a bit. No, my parents didn't have the means to do something. I mean, my parents, one of my parents only went to school till third grade and the other one dropped down in, I'd say, year 10 to support their family. So no, they didn't do anything similar. Yeah. Okay. What would you say has led to this point then in your career, what were your placements leading out of uni and how did that influence where you wanted to go with it? My first placement at uni was in disability, and that was a great entry point, I guess, for me as a social worker or as an emerging social worker student. It really brought me a lot of knowledge. It started to build my confidence and questions around systems and working with a diverse range.

However, I think my last placement was what really had a big impact on, you know, my practice framework and how I, I developed. So my second placement was in domestic violence and that was my first job. So I was one of the lucky students who got a job from their first placements and I was there for four years roundabout. Yeah. And was that an easy transition for you? Because I imagine going from being a student and being a professional in the same agency, the expectations can kind of get muddled. Yeah, the expectations I think could get muddled. I had a really supportive team and a really supportive supervisor at my placement. She really guided me and I guess she took more of a mentoring coach role. So the transition was quite seamless because I had done all the training as a student. Now it was just a little

bit more responsibilities and I was, I guess, seeing clients alone and I was getting paid for it. Yeah. Was the big difference. Yeah. Whereas before all that induction, none of that had to happen because I had done all that. And I guess thinking back, she was strategic in the way she did because she must have seen some sort of potential and it worked really nicely. That's such a luxury when as someone providing a placement opportunity, you can do that mentorship with the expectation that if the person's interested in what we're doing, hopefully they can just continue. Because as you said, you do all that onboarding anyway.

It's a big undertaking and it's a big investment in the people that you're supporting to then have them there for three or four months and then, okay, goodbye, you're off to the next thing. Yeah, it's a huge investment on organizations, especially NGOs and, you know, I mean, all organizations, but those, you know, that funding might be a little bit more difficult on. And I think it's nice when you do have that opportunity to kind of grow and be employed by the placement. I think it makes sense. It makes logical sense. And you would see disability in the work that you're doing now anyway.

It's across all sectors. So do you feel like you've been able to use part of that first placement in what you're doing? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Not as much in terms of, I guess, the disability work that's done with clients who experience or have a disability. but I think a lot of the skills are transferable. And I think where I was placed in my first placement was really out of my comfort zone.

It was in a completely different area. I went to university at Western Sydney and I live in Western Sydney as well. So I guess I have a really close bond or a really good understanding of Western Sydney or South West Sydney as well. And so my first placement really took me out of that comfort zone, let alone it being the first placement that I've experienced. And so I think it definitely helped me in my second placement. And again, I was lucky enough that my second placement of domestic violence was in the Southwest Sydney area.

Yeah, okay. So that was your people. That was my people. And I'm a strong advocate for South West Sydney and Western Sydney. And I've continued to work in these areas. Has that ever been a problem with working close to home? It was in my domestic violence. role, but I guess I've always had really great supervision and I guess self-care has been

something that's been really important along with boundaries and going through scenarios of what if this happens. But I think also working in domestic violence, there's precautions that you take as a work are. Yeah. And with the roles that you've had then, have you changed roles? It feels like you've done domestic violence and then some family work, take me through that journey. Yeah, so I started in domestic violence and I did a little bit of, so I started in intake, so referral in intake and I was in domestic violence when the DV sat was first brought in and the sand, the safety action meetings were brought in. So I was part of that. So part of my role was client intake and the other part of my role was I supported women at court that were going through AVO. So I worked closely with New South Wales Police and the DB legal aid unit.

So I didn't do case management per se. There were aspects of case management, but it wasn't long-term or intensive case management. It was really much more, I would say, crisis work and short-term work. We could then refer to organisations or groups like staying home, leaving violence and things like that. but I would predominantly support them through court, the AVO process, run hearing clinics to support women who were going to hearings. And I would often be in communication with different stakeholders. So Centrelink or Housing, DCJ.

That was, I guess, my first role. And then I jumped over to out-of-home care, and I was an out-of-home care case manager. Is that court support the one with the culturally diverse people? with people from different backgrounds or is it kind of generalist? No, so I belong to South West Sydney women's domestic violence court advocacy service and they were based in South West Sydney. So they supported women that were at Bankstown, Fairfield and Liverpool courts. Okay.

Which is a very diverse. Diverse, yeah. Population, right? Divorce, which means I had to work alongside lots of interpreting services. Many of the clients were non-English speaking. many. Yeah. And is there sort of more of a push to be culturally sensitive in those situations and flexibility

around approaches for people for whom this is very foreign to begin with? So I guess the beautiful thing about WDVCAS was what they did have roles where it wasn't essential, but it was preferred that there was bilingual court assistance support workers. and so the office was made up of lots of multicultural workers, including Aboriginal worker as well, especially in the Liverpool area. Yeah. And do you have a second language that you can fall back on for that? Yes, I do.

That's nice. Yes, I speak fluently. Spanish, actually. Okay, all right. And you would have to have a really good understanding of the legal systems as well to be able to guide people through the processes. Absolutely. So there are also a lot of training around, especially in my induction phase, around understanding of the legal system, understanding especially of AVOs, the conditions of

AVOs, the difference between a mention and a hearing, even to the point of understanding how the courtroom looks, and who's who in the courtroom. A lot of people come with, and especially, again, I had a lot of clients that were, come from different cultural backgrounds. and I guess the only experience they may have had with the legal system or the court system was either in a political sense or from the television. Yeah, so there are expectations that are being potentially right on the money or completely wild and you have to deal with that.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. And you mentioned the out-of-home care work. Is that what you're still doing now or is that? No, I moved again in the 10 years. Yeah. So, yeah, I did out-of-home care and I was a case manager. And then I transitioned to a team leader.

And I had a team of about six to eight case managers with about 12 cases each give or take. So I transitioned from case manager to team leader. And I did that for about four years as well. And then I completely changed my view. And I think, again, all my skills have been really transferable. everything I learnt in my DV work helped me in out of home care, but I think out of home care really upskilled me and I was really shaped. And I guess that was, I would say, my turning point in terms of social work where I was able to really then reflect on what do I need, where to

from here, what do I believe in, what's my practice framework? Am I practicing from a humanistic point of view, am I taking a feminist approach, which then led me to my next role, which was early intervention. And it's what I absolutely love. Okay. And is that where you're working with the children with challenging behaviours? Correct. So at the moment, I'm in an early intervention program. It's a social and emotional learning program. And I have a very specific age group of five to eight year olds. So the little is that your kindergarten to year two. So we're target those age groups. I continue working in Western Sydney. I work in public schools. It's a free program. And what I love about this program, it really involves, it's a holistic

approach, which is the beauty of social work and why I think I did social work more than any other degree like psychology. It's because we really have that macro level and that holistic approach. So I don't just work with the child. I work with the parents. So in order for families to accept their program, they both have to be on board and I do psychoeducation to the teachers and work with the teachers. So we're targeting different systems again. Yeah. And what do the other people in your team have in terms of professional backgrounds?

Because I'm assuming it's not pitched directly to social workers. No. So I work in a multidisciplinary team. So we have clinical psychologists, senior psychologists. clinical nurse consultants, and we also OTs and social workers. Yeah. Plus you're working with the expertise of all the networks around you, right? You've got educators, you've got medical professionals, people that you can draw on for support.

For support, absolutely. As well as the family and extended networks, I'm guessing. So the family would be really integral in bringing together some of that translation of the education and the support into practice? Yeah, so we, I guess, our first point is really trying to target those families or those children. And when I say target, I mean, pick up on those children who may be struggling with conduct and emotions through, I guess, a screening process in the school or K to Year 2.

Again, it's all consent-based. So, again, parents need to be and families need to be open. And what we try to do is we try to gather information from both settings. So we're not just relying on the information that the teachers are giving us, but we're meeting with the families together their information on what they're seeing at home. Because what we've seen with a lot of these kids is they present differently in different settings. Then we formulate, I guess, the group based on that. And the group is really therapeutic.

And it's, again, very structured for that purpose because that's how we're, it needs to work in order for all the pieces to fall together and for us to see the change. So it's a nine-week program, two and a half hours. Once a week, we have the children and the parents together in the first hour, and we're doing a lot of diet work, lots of observational, very similar to PCIT, lots of modelling and coaching through fun games and activities, lots of connection building. Then the parents go off with two clinicians from my team, two and one and a and a half hour parent group and the children then stay back for their one hour children's group.

And then of course, throughout that term, we're doing lots of professional development with the teachers. Yeah. And do you have specific training on group leadership or facilitation because that's a completely different skill set? So I've done training, informal training throughout the years of leadership, especially I did it a lot more in my whole job action. in out of home care. And aspects of that did integrate group facilitation. However, in order to be part, it is an essential requirement for you to do all. It's highly desirable for you to be a facilitator in circle of security and tuning into kids.

So I have done that and I'm a facilitator for both. Because we draw on aspects of that. A lot of our work is attachment work. And I guess by doing those programs, as facilitated, program. You're able to really, not just learn the content, but really learn the skills of how to facilitate and co-facilitate because you're always doing it in pairs with your colleague, a group dynamic like that. Yeah. And is that funded through DCJ or education? It's through New South Wales Health and it was a collaboration with the Department of Education. However, it's directly through

New South Wales Health. So it's called the Gotta Program getting on track in time through New South Wales Health. It's funding and each local health district has one. So it first was piloted. I believe it was developed in 2011, piloted in 2016, I believe in three areas, and then rolled out across New South Wales. And after the nine-week course, if you feel as though people aren't quite reaching the objectives that you've aimed for, what happens? So after the nine-week course, so we would call that term B. So your term A is all your screening at the school when meeting with parents and your assessments. Term B would be your group.

Term C is what we call your feedback term. So we develop an extensive individualised report. In that report, we've got all our observations right from the beginning. In our screening phase, we even do classroom observations. So we go in what's nominated the group to see how the children are in the classroom. So you've got all our assessment. or observations and all our data. So we get parents to do SDQs, ECBIS, SES for the teachers, or vice versa.

PSI, so parents stress index. So all that data, we do it. We get them to do it at the beginning of group and then at the end. And then we also do summaries of what our observations are from each of the group. So the together group, the children and the parents. And then we've got personalised and individualised recommendations. And so the way we run our feedback sessions is we meet with the parents in that third term. So for some, that'll be in term three.

For some, it'll be the following year, depending on when we've done the program at the school. And the reason we meet with the parents is because we don't want the parents to kind of just receive a bigger report and go, oh, this is just too much. So we read the report through them and we go through the recommendations with them. And it sounds like it's modeled as such that you have objective measures and then subjective. You've got a lot of observations, but then you're probably measuring quantitative things like people that just aren't turning up to school or parents that are feeling overwhelmed and stressed, like you mentioned with the PSI. So how do you, that's a lot of data.

It's a lot of information to keep tabs on. What's a good outcome measure for you? for me I don't solely rely on questionnaires because they don't paint a picture and I feel that parents can be having a really good day when they're filling that out or parents could be having a terrible day and that can come out in the questionnaire so it is it's difficult so I think it's important to note that and have that data there to kind of show the parents some sort of progress and for those parents who data is important. But the professional judgment and observations and the key reflections parents make

throughout group or the key reflections that the child may make throughout group is really telling. And I guess that's why our group are so small with so many clinicians in the group is because we are doing that modelling and so we can pick up on those small things each week for the parents. And of course, you have your ad hoc phone. and cause for some parents who want to share things in private or who had a hard week in group that week and wanted to kind of debrief.

Yeah, I think especially in that setting, it would be so important to celebrate the small wins. Absolutely. For you, do you have an example of something where maybe the outcome measures weren't astronomical, but for you, something really made a difference in that person's life? Oh, I see it every day. every day that we're in a group where with the little is. And so a lot of the things that you fall back on is, what's your expectation? Are you having to hire an expectation?

Or are you meeting the child where they're at? And so for me, it could be as simple as the child actually acknowledging you. So I have some children with severe anxiety who can't give eye contact with separation, anxiety and things like that. So the child actually acknowledging you or the child putting up their hand to answer or on the opposite end, your child who actually came up to you and said, can I have the fidget toy so I can listen to the story? I was able to regulate using a strategy that we taught. So it is about the small things.

But in the grand scheme of things, I think early intervention is such a critical role. And I know that we need crisis programs. we need all the other wonderful programs that are out there. But I truly believe that there's lots of power in early intervention and in really integrating the parent in that. Yeah. And in your reporting to health or to whomever needs it, do you get an opportunity to use parent's voice or child's voice in providing that feedback?

So we really value feedback in the program. So we have individualized feedback form. all the time. And one of the boxes there actually says, are we allowed to use any of your quotes, you know, or anything? And they can tick it if they're comfortable with that or if they give consent. So absolutely, we're able to then pass that on to management and show the progress. And it's really nice to see sometimes parents come to the end of nine weeks and reflect on the change. We see many times. And I mean, each cohort is really different pending on which public school you're at but you see the penny drop or that spark moment that light bulb moment in parents

in around about your week six of a group and do you find that that rapport building with other parents that perhaps they didn't have before is integral to that is i can see other people are having similar problems it's key it's key in their learning key in their growth and key in their mental health. Most of the feedback that we have received is I thought I was alone in this. The only one that had issues with me. And so what we've seen more and more, especially after COVID, is these parents that did this group for nine weeks, then continue the catch-ups for coffee because they found

it nice. I mean, the two hours and a half for some parents is really hard, but they found it nice to step away from work or step away from their routine. and fall back on their community. I mean, it takes a village to raise a child. And I think that's one of the key things about the Goddop program is we're trying to foster this village. Yeah, creating community.

Yeah, which I think really is difficult and became even more difficult after COVID. Yeah, right. Were you running this program during COVID? We were. What happened? How did that work? It had to go online and it was very difficult.

So it moved to individual phone sessions with parents and online sessions with the kids, only 30 minutes because their attention could go longer than that. And we really had to alter some of the, I guess, activities for the children and the learning for the children. We had to become really creative, show videos and just change the more so the children's. The parents continued, but we lost the element of community. However, it did work for parents because they were locked inside and they had the opportunity to speak to two adults about how they were feeling generally. So for an hour and a half program, you were probably doing an hour and a half individually with the parents.

Wow. It's so comprehensive. It is very comprehensive. It's very structured and very comprehensive, but that's why it works, I feel. There's so much of all of that that's unpredictable. So you might have a perfect plan and structure, but something could be happening for a parent, for a kid, for you as a person, you might just be having the worst day. What's the hardest part about this program for you as a social worker, as a professional, as a person? I believe it would be stepping back and knowing that each parent has their own strengths and not one family is the same.

everybody is an individual family. That's, I guess, from the parent perspective and also being really mindful of, we cover all of Western Sydney. And so the dynamic of one part of Western Sydney is very different to the dynamic in a different part of Western Sydney. So just to give you a bit of an idea,

given that you're a Sydney girl, wise men vary to Auburn. That's huge. Different. Yeah. We will have a school in one area, area and the dynamics and the families and the need is completely different to the different area. And I think one of the hardest things as a social worker, but I think that as social

workers, we do do this well, is being really adaptable to your approach, being ready to approach things differently with different cohorts of parents based on the areas and cultures and the need of the school as well. Yeah. In a practical sense, I guess one of the other challenges would be if you've got a couple of children escalating or showing heightened behaviours at once in the children's group. But I guess that's why we do everything in pairs and we have a teacher facilitator who we also train with us to support that as well. Yeah. You must just be completely wiped at the end of those days. How do you wind down after that?

So self-care has been really important for me. And I guess it's even more so important because I like practice. practicing what I preach. So my casual job, I'm a field educator, external field educator for students who are doing their placements at Western Sydney University. And so I talk about self-care all the time. But I don't like it being just talked about. I kind of like walking the walk, not just talking the talk. So once I left out of home care, I realized how important it was to have those boundaries, to have things outside and to have self-care at different points in your day. So you're not always going to be able to have a bubble bath or, you know, read your favorite book. But it is about going for that

walk, if that's what, you know, calms your nervous system down or grounds you. It might be, you know, buying coffee instead of making coffee in the office. So again, you can get out. But I think one of my key takehomes when I transition from out-of-home care crisis work to early intervention, is really having strong boundaries. So, you know, once it's five o'clock, it's important to then transition into home carol. It's a different carol. I mean, your social work values travel with you everywhere,

but I think it's really important to switch off or have some sort of downtime. The other really important, I guess, aspect for me is having a network of really strong social work colleagues and friends that you fall back on, that you can debrief on, that you can reach out to and supervision, absolutely. Do you get direct social work supervision? Do you have to seek it elsewhere?

So you get supervision as a team, which is great. But as you said, we do have diverse range of disciplines in there. So that can be really nice, but sometimes that differs how you may work, how you may practice. So you also have the opportunity of seeking external. So I also seek my external individualized supervision. that's nice to choose who you want. And you also, it also may change supervisors along the way, so they meet your needs as well. Yeah. And you talked about values and frameworks. How do you feel

as though that's met within the organisation, within health, obviously, they've got their own priorities and their own values. I've been speaking with people a lot about when the organisation's values or I guess the practices within which you need to operate are different to your values or making you feel as though it's really hard for you to do what you do. It sounds like the culture where you are is really good. And I feel like that makes or breaks a professional and their ability to feel comfortable with what they're doing in that environment. How do you see that play out within the organisation?

The term I think is clinician distress, moral injury. Moral injury. That's it. Yes. moral injury. So the program sits under perinatal and children and youth mental health. So I think it fits nicely into what we provide and, you know, the outcomes of our program. You know, our clients or our most closest stakeholders are schools. Schools need to request us. Yeah. We don't get individualized referrals or referrals from the community. We get referrals from schools wanting the

program. So I think in that sense, we sit a little bit different to, I guess, New South Wales Health than in terms of the programs that run in hospital or acute care or the crisis intervention programs. However, in terms of the values of health, they do align with the values of the program and with social work. In saying that, most systems are not perfect. I always say, systems are imperfect but they're there and we have to work within them and I've seen systems let us down in multiple settings not just here in DV in out of home care so definitely I'd say as a general comment I feel systems can challenge a lot of the social work views and I think I do come from a various systems based framework and practice framework because I can see it however in

in particular for this program, it does align nicely. And I think that's because we're not crisis and we're early intervention. There's lots of planning. And we kind of sit more on the community side of things. And our stakeholders are very clear. It's the Department of Education. So in that sense, it does align and sit nicely. I feel like your parents with their activism mindset would look at that and say,

yes, this is the system we have to work within it. But how do we agitate? how do we lift it up so that it's doing even more than it's already doing? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons why I joined New South Wales Health and specifically this program, because I feel that there's lots of this work in the private sector, whereas this beautiful program, such a structured program with great resources,

is in the public system and you don't see much of that. Yeah. with the work that you're doing for the university, I've always been very interested in that concept of providing external field education supervision. Are there points at which you've felt you really, because I've, as a social worker, it's easy enough to supervise. I mean, it's always challenging, but I've never had to rely on an external supervisor. Have you needed to intervene at any point where you feel like the person doesn't have a social worker supervising them and maybe something's going down and you kind of go, hang on a minute, I really need to step in here to support the student's learning. Yeah, yeah.

And I think, again, that's when your professional judgment comes in, just like you would, you know, working with clients. And you really need to go back to having those difficult and reflective conversations with the student. And if you feel that hasn't made the progress or you're still sitting with uncertainty around that, it would be going back to the university and to the organisation as well. But always your point of court is a university. So you're external, which means that you're not at the uni actively. It's on a casual basis.

So it's not ongoing work. It's for the time of when the students have their placement. But I think with Western Sydney, it's really nice because you know who's who, I guess, in the department and who you need to refer to. and they're strengthening that, you know, by allocating each student a certain tutor. And so you'll be made aware of that. And that would be your point of call if you feel those reflective conversations or bringing things up in supervision didn't quite meet what you were expecting.

Yeah. Are you interested in delving more into the academic space or even other parts of health? So I absolutely love external supervision. I didn't realize how much. I liked it. So I had never done much of academic work before. I've always been practicing social worker on the floor with clients. I've got leadership like I mentioned before and I had supervised students that were in my leadership role as a team leader that came and did their placements at my old work players. But I had never done external supervision to students, to emerging students in

their third and fourth year. And I have really enjoyed it. And I think it a lot of, with my passion for early intervention because they're new. I can, I wouldn't use the word mold, but I can really, I guess, set the tone and support those really early stages of social work. And that brings me great joy to be able to support them through that. Because at the end of the day, they're going to be my colleagues in a couple of months. Sure.

And what would be the steps for you if you wanted to take that teaching further? Well, I think I think I'd have to do my master's if I wanted to then become, you know, an academic or a tutor. So I think the stepping stone would be conflating my master's. I've always, that's another area that I'm passionate about or that I believe in for myself, always kind of learning new things and staying on top of your own professional development. So, you know, hence why I've done the circle of security and the tuning into kids. I'm in the process of doing my diploma of counselling because I wanted to just, I guess, refresh my knowledge and possibly look into counselling and maybe dip into private practice while maintaining, you know, the job that I'm currently in. But I think another key area of interest would be maybe getting my master's and being able to go into more of a tutor or a lecturer role.

And does the diploma of counselling give you any sort of RPL credit towards a Masters of Counseling? I haven't actually looked at. So I'm just about to finish and I have this conversation with my TAFE tutor, my TAFE course teacher, which happens to be a social worker and who did his Masters of Counseling as well and has been a great mentor and a great teacher. And he encouraged I call up to see there's any RPL transfers and also a how I can be acknowledged by the ACAP board as well. I mean, it's just how long's a piece of string. How much time do you have in a day?

How much energy do you have? Masters is a huge undertaking. It is. It is. But it's always been an area which I wanted to do. I think I wanted to enjoy social work. So I never wanted to do it early on. I wanted to find my feet as a social worker.

I wanted to be in this position that I am now where I'm able to provide supervision to students. The person that I was up to. years ago. Yeah. And I think I'm in a nice position now to then take my study further. I always planned it that way. I always planned to do my supervision later on once I was really certain in the type of social worker that I wanted to be, where I was much more confident in my skills. But of course, always knowing that I can always learn more. I can always refine my skills and learn from different people as well. Yeah. And now you've got more of a voice you can articulate. what you're doing and why you're doing it with the practice experience.

Absolutely, yes. Yeah. You've mentioned some courses and training that I'd love to put in the show notes, including Got It and tuning into kids and Circle of Security. Is there anything else that people should go off and read up on or viewing, even listening, any resources you'd recommend? So lately, somebody that I guess has been really inspiring, especially because there's been quite a few concern in the community around children being diagnosed with ADHD

and we've seen a real big rise in that in the cohort that I see. But somebody who I actually went to his scene have read a lot of his books is Gabour Marte. I think he's a bit of an inspiration and aligns really well. As we know, he has ADHD as well. And I've been told by two psychs that I have symptoms and traits of ADHD. and so I find that he's been really, his books at least, have been really helpful in being able to understand it further and also in being able to shape my practice and how I view it and how I'm able to support parents as well. And just my approach to assessment, really getting in, asking all the questions about not just now,

but what was birth like? What was it like before birth for the mother and for the father? I think really having that holistic assessment, things that you don't usually get asked when you do go to the GP or some sort of specialist. They don't really ask you about historical things. And I think that's really important in understanding the family and understanding things like ADHD. Some other great resources for parents is raising children, network and emerging minds as well. They do great training courses and short courses and podcasts. They're great as well, especially for a lot of emerging social workers.

Yeah, wonderful. I'll find those resources and I'll pop them in the show notes. I'm curious also as to how your parents make sense of what you do, do you feel like, I don't know, back in their country of origin, social work as a profession, as a concept is a thing, or do they conceptualize it in a different way? Again, it really depends where the parents are coming from and what their experience has been thus far to the program,

we do always have an exploration of their family of origin to get that understanding about, yeah, what they think our role is, or what they think even the role of the school is, or what they understand from their children's behaviour or even the terms that we bring to the table. And again, a lot of the content is Circle of Security things and tuning into kids.

And so a lot of the times it may include clinicians having those debriefs of having those conversations with the parents and checking in, but a lot of reflective questions to the parents. So we're able to kind of grasp where the parent is at. And it might include a lot of coaching. So I can give you an example of a parent. You know, we talk about setting the expectation and giving the child time to, rectify that behavior and listen to the instruction that was given. So it could have been, you know, put your teddy be or your Pokemon cards away

because it's time to listen to, you know, the facilitator. And then the child might have grabbed the pen in a way of gaining some control back. And it's like, you know, as a parent who may have been brought up in an authoritarian or a, they may have been responding in a way that's disapproving of the emotion. they would go in for that second fight and go knowing they'll give me the pen, right? And it's about why we're there. We're coaching in there and we're going, don't worry about it. It's about picking your battles.

I was trying to draw you back in, but you've achieved the outcome you want. So we've used a lot of really hands-on coaching for those parents. Yeah. I feel like we could all use a bit of that, just someone in our ear just saying, hang on a minute, think about what you're doing or what you're feeling or what you're saying. Just reflect for a second before you react. And once parents feel comfortable and they're in and we've developed that rapport and that sense of safety within the group, parents are really open to talk about what their experiences

are within their cultures, what parenting was for them, how they were parented, and how it differs to them growing up and living in this intersectionality between I still want aspects of my culture in my upbringing and my parenting, but I understand there's, new strategies and new ways of looking at things and staying in a space of not judging your parents because they did the best that they could with the information that they had. I'm so glad that something like this exists. I think it's an incredible program. And I mean, I'm just thinking of people who live in regional areas.

And yes, there's probably funding to deliver the same program, but whether people can access it. And yeah, that's another story altogether. but in Sydney we're so blessed to have these opportunities around us and have resources. Absolutely. I wish the department took it on board as something in the curriculum. I mean, one of the things that I've been waiting to see for years and years of social workers in public schools. Mm-hmm. To have these programs to support that community.

Yes. Because I think the teaching role has become much more harder and teachers now don't just have to do the teaching. they have so many roles that they play throughout the day. And I think it's great that that is becoming more of a thing that we have social workers in schools. We have school support offices. That's a really good recognition of our expertise and what we can bring to education, to systems, to supporting people and not just the kids, but the parents as well. Yeah, absolutely.

I love it so much. Is there anything before we finish up, Carol, that you wished we'd talked about, anything that you feel like you wanted to say in terms of your experience or social work in general? No, I think I've sums up my journey quite nicely. I apologize if I've gone on different. Love it. Yep. Different journeys within the long conversation.

That's right. Yeah, I think I've mentioned everything. It's quite nice to reflect back on, you know, where you started to where you are now. and I think I'm excited for this next, I guess, chapter or the journey that continues, and it's nice to be able to reach out and speak to yourself, you know, another social worker and to hear the amazing work of so many other social workers out there. And just knowing that we all come from very different backgrounds with different reasons to get into social work, I'm sure your parents are just so proud of you, given their experiences and their focus on social justice

and that travel that you were able to do with a young person, just to be able to bring that all back into context. And I always say that no time spent in social work is wasted time. The work that you did in your first placement, you've developed, even if it's not specific to disability, it's specific to the skills that you needed to then transfer into your second placement, which you then translated into work,

even just the understanding of health concepts and things that might come up, or if you have an issue here, who would you refer to? So you've been able to build your networks. You've built your circle of support around who you would refer to for certain things. You get to know the parents. You get to know the kids. You get to understand their strengths and how to play to those and how to foster those further

and build their confidence through the early intervention. So I can see that logical journey in my head and it makes so much sense. And it's just going to set you up for greater things going forward. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I think we all carry that social work toolkit. and I think with the years you just build on that toolkit and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Yeah, which is nice, right?

There's so much need out there. So I think it's valuable and it's a profession that brings you a lot as a person as well. Yeah, for sure. Thank you for what you bring and what you continue to do. Thanks, Jasmine. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything either myself or Carol,

please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Dylan, who currently supervises a team of support coordinators

spanning across southeast Queensland. with experience in child safety, NDIS social work and pastoral ministry, Dylan takes a holistic approach to working with people, incorporating feminist theory and humanist theory in his work. 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.