Social Work Spotlight - Episode 18: Michelle

Episode Date: November 27, 2020

In this episode, Michelle and I discuss her extensive experience in the adult and youth homelessness services, family and domestic violence services, asylum seeker service and NSW Health. Michelle has provided care coordination and counselling with people experiencing substance use disorders, mental health, physical health and trauma histories. She uses a trauma-informed framework, strengths-based approach and anti-oppressive practice principles when working with clients.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:· Blue Knot - an organisation that provides supports individuals, provides training and guidelines for professionals working with people with complex trauma - https://www.blueknot.org.au/· Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) was developed by Marsha Linehan for people with emotional dysregulation - https://behavioraltech.org/· Motivational Interviewing as developed by clinical psychologists Miller and Rollnick to elicit change with clients in counselling - https://motivationalinterviewing.org/understanding-motivational-interviewing· Strengths-Based Practice  - https://www.iriss.org.uk/resources/insights/strengths-based-approaches-working-individuals· Yfoundations, NSW Peak Body representing young people at risk and experiencing homelessness - http://yfoundations.org.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HrpfeQW9xhff1ValbDVj9JpbopY-0Nwe/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, Yasmeen McKee Wright, and today's guest is Michelle. Michelle has worked with people in non-government and government organizations for the past 17 years, completing her social work training in 2010. She has worked in the Adult and Youth Homelessness Services, Family and Domestic Violence Services, asylum seeker service, and for New South Wales Health. She has extensive experience providing care quarters, nation and counseling with people experiencing substance use disorders, mental health, physical

health and trauma histories. Michelle uses a trauma-informed framework, strengths-based approach, and anti-oppressive practice principles when working with clients. Thank you so much, Michelle, for coming on to the podcast. It's wonderful having you here, and can you tell me about when you started working as a social worker and what interested you in this profession? I've been qualified now for about 10 years as a social worker, but previous to that, I had done a diploma of community welfare. So I've been working in the community welfare sector for about 17 years, but as the social worker for the last 10 years. And I suppose I was inspired to study social work and to go into social work after going to TAFE and doing that course. But before that, like I knew a lot of people that were youth workers.

I knew a couple of social workers. I enjoyed, you know, listening to them and like, you know, like was interested in assisting, helping people, you know. And I'm a people person before doing social work. I worked in hospitality for a very long time. So I worked in cafes and bars. So I brought from one kind of like, you know, industry that works with people to another one. So, yeah.

And what has led you to this point in your career where you're working now? walk me through the steps. Because it's been quite a very interesting, sort of eclectic mix of different roles from what I can tell. Yeah, it is quite eclectic and it's been quite organic. But I suppose like when I was thinking about going off and doing that TAFE course, I was really interested in working with youth. So that was before I studied.

And then I went off to TAFE and I did do a placement at a youth drop-in service. But then what happened was that I went into the adult homelessness space. after TAFE and then while I was studying I, yeah, I ended up working in single women's DV refuge, women's homeless service. I worked on referral lines and then through my social work placements, I ended up working in the asylum seeker sector. So I did my final placement at Red Cross and worked with Asylum Seekers and then worked with Red Cross for about a year post finishing my degree. And then I went into the youth sector. sector working for a interagency that assisted youth homeless services in western Sydney.

So I probably burnt out while I was studying. I was working two or three jobs and studying. And so I took, I think, about a year to two years off my degree. And I worked at Y Foundations. And so they're the peak body for youth homelessness in New South Wales. And yeah, so after Red Cross, so I left Y foundations to go and complete degree, I did my final placement, ended up working with asylum seekers, then went back into the youth sector as a sector development role, so it wasn't a direct role. I was working more with

the workers rather than with the young people. Occasionally, when there was campaigns about raising awareness, about youth homelessness, I would have interactions with young people, but mainly it was with other service providers and more of an advocacy policy role. And then I kind of like, realized that I really like working directly with people and helping people to change their lives and to hopefully kind of be able to navigate the systems. And I ended up going into a drug and alcohol counseling role at Southwest Sydney. And I've never done counseling before. So I had actually done a placement while I was at TAFE at a residential drug and alcohol treatment program. So I had had some, I had had some experience working with people with substance use issues. So I used

that experience, I suppose, for like, you know, getting that role. But then I kind of learned on the job how to do counselling and therapy. I worked there for three and a half years. And then, I suppose, you know, from youth to adult drug and alcohol, it seems like, oh, that's a big step. But really, when you think about what happens for young people that might experience trauma, dysfunction in their family, might end up homeless, what happens for people might be that they use substances and then they end up as an adult still experiencing homelessness, still experiencing trauma, still using substances to, you know, self-medicate. So there are some similarities. And so I have done, I've probably had a career of working with

marginalized, disadvantaged and traumatized people. And, you know, at times some people have kind of said to me, oh, you know, you really choose the hard, the hard gigs. you know, it can be hard, but it can be very rewarding, working with people. I suppose I'm really interested in assisting people in working through navigating systems that aren't set up to assist people. So particularly young people, you know, so young people might experience, you know, like abuse, neglect, trauma, having to deal with, like, you know, the child protection system or the youth homeless system, you know, even schools.

and then people that come from, you know, like a refugee or asylum seeker background, they come to Australia and they can experience, you know, they can be retramatized by our processes, you know, how to deal with like, you know, just integrating into a different society. People that are, you know, long-term homeless, they may not be in a space where they can navigate even the most kind of like general things like going to Centrelink and maintaining that payment. So my career's being based around wanting to assist people in changing their lives. And I suppose at the moment I've just actually gotten a new job as a senior social worker with the youth health services.

And that role's very much gone back into a therapy counselling role. So I'm doing, you know, one-to-one kind of therapy with young people. And then I'll also be doing some clinical support of other clinicians in that role. And how does this role differ from the one that you were in? just previously. I'm interested in terms of the size of the organisation, the team that you were part of, the ethos of the organisation. How does that differ between the two roles? So in my previous role, I worked at an opioid agonist treatment program and that was part of another health service, but it was, I suppose, it was an affiliated service to New South Wales

and it was like, in my team there was about like, I think eight of us on that team and most of them were nurses, but there were also like addiction specialists, and then there was a broader alcohol and drug service. So there was then other services on site, and then we were part of a bigger kind of organization that had mental health services and homeless health. And then I had also worked for the homeless health service in that. So I think what is different is the location of the services. So previously I was in the inner city of Sydney. And so the demographic was a little bit different than working in southwest Sydney where it's much more multicultural and obviously like working from adults to young people. So my focus is not just about like so yeah for the last

six to seven years my focus has been working with people with substance use issues and then now I'm now working with young people that might experience substance use issues sometimes but that's not the focus. So I think the different ethos is that I'm not working with people just with an opiate dependency. And I think it's also an opportunity to like be a little bit more of an early intervention approach rather than you know a lot of the people that I'd been working with previously are adults and some of them were even in their 50s 60s and 70s so they were quite they'd had quite a long history of like substance use and other psychosocial issues that may have impacted on their ability to even engage in assistance or support and you're probably seeing them at much more of a crisis point

Yes. In my previous role, a lot of my work was about crisis intervention with people, but also like working with very complex people that may have needed assistance with NDIS applications, housing applications, advocacy around getting DSPs or getting access to supports. You know, yeah, people that were like silent seekers that were on visas that may have allowed them to be able to work and have Medicare rights, but they weren't able to work. so they were on no income and then advocating, giving clinical support to non-social workers on how to do care coordination. So I may not have seen people face to face in those roles in my previous organisation, because I had two roles. One was at the opioid agonist treatment program and the other one was in a homeless health, a study of outreach service where we were actually going out and meeting rough sleepers in the inner city that were disengaged from mainstream health services and assisting them to engage in like health.

and then like transitioning them to mainstream services. So I think it was a lot of like maybe people that weren't at first willing to engage with you. So it could be quite a difficult space, like a lot of kind of sometimes a lot of people telling you to go away in not so friendly terms. But also being kind of like consistent with like offering support and people would come and see you when they were in crisis. Or some people would come and see me on a regular. basis to work on those things like wanting to get a disability support pension or wanting to, you know, get income support or wanting to get, you know, housing or wanting even, you know, in that role, I did offer people counseling. I did work with a psychologist who did that mainly

as her role or that was her role, but I also could offer that because I had those skills. But what I noticed was a lot of people were not actually in the space to actually like kind of engage in counseling or therapy. I mean, mainly. what they needed was their late basic needs met on the day. What I've noticed the difference is, is that a lot of the younger people, because it's much more of a counselling-focused role, some of them are really willing to engage, but there's still some that are like coerced into coming to the service to gain counselling. That might be through their parents, through schools, through justice, through, you know, a whole range of other kind of influences. So I think

it's about meeting with whether it's the adult or the young person and kind of working with them about what is their goals and what can I offer them, you know, and it may not be that they come and see me for like, you know, a long time or that. It's just that they know that service is available if they need it. Yeah. I feel like you would have to develop quite specialised knowledge working in an area like opioid agonists and especially it's an interesting team makeup, what you were saying, where it's predominantly nurses. But I feel like also you would be quasi-doctor or quasi-nurse, and you kind of have a specialist knowledge about the medications and what it can do to you, and you probably feel like sometimes you're providing

information that might otherwise be provided by someone else, but you're the one available. You're the one there at the forefront for the most part. I think it does develop your skills in terms of, in the two roles that I have in the previous organisation, working a multidisciplinary team and sometimes working with people that had complex health, mental health or substance use issues, is that my knowledge and my skills were definitely increased around being able to offer people's psychoeducation around, yes, like what are the different opioid agnes treatments, what are the effects of those treatments, what are the options for treatment, what if people don't comply with treatment or like, you know,

engage in treatment? Or if people don't take certain medications, then what are the risks to them? what are the benefits of them taking medication? So, I mean, obviously, like, as a social worker, you're not a medical professional. So you're, like, kind of giving them the psychoeducation, and then it's about then liaising with either the nurse or the doctor or the psychiatrist around, like, you know, this is what you're observing with that client and maybe the concerns you might have around, like, what the current treatment is, and so that they can be reviewed. And sometimes advocating about what their client would like, you know,

because they may not be that great about. vocalising and advocating for themselves because they might just think, oh, why bother? Or, you know, do it in a way that won't get their needs met. Yeah, I think it might be a little bit different than like, you know, maybe the traditional kind of role or social worker might have, yeah. You mentioned before needing to work with their motivation and their purpose for coming to the service. And I know you've done training in motivational interviewing. Are you able to explain what that is for people who haven't done that training and maybe the application of that to social work?

Yeah, I think motivational interviewing and social work fit quite well. It's very client-centered. It's very like working out. So, you know, it's based on, you know, finding out where people are in terms of their readiness for change. And so using the model, the stages of change. And then the way that you're, you know, using open-ended questions, using like questioning around like what would be their motivation for either continuing the behavior or their substance use or like whatever like it is what would

motivate them to change and then I suppose like not it's you then like saying like setting goals with them around what they would like some people for example might come along and have other people in their lives wanting them to kind of see substance use or reduce substance use and then when you speak with the person they're actually I'm quite happy with my substance use, you know. And so it's, it's not like trying to convince them, like, to, you know, reduce or cease their substance use, but it's about, like, then, like, using, well, okay, what is it that you like about substance use? What does that give you then? And then exploring that with them and then maybe saying, but, you know, are there any negatives about your,

you know, your substance use and, and then, like, giving them, I suppose, like, the ability you make informed choices, which I think is very much like fits with social ethics and values and principles around like client-centered anti-oppressive practice. I think, you know, my experience of working in the drug and alcohol space is that there are a lot of external providers that will refer people to drug and alcohol services with the aim of them, a, not using substances or being on a certain treatment so that, A, they can keep their children or they keeps them out of custody or, you know, then having to then negotiate with those services about what you can offer the client and how you will work with the client that the client is a voluntary service as far as you're concerned

coming to the service and it might be that that service has a statutory power in terms of saying to somebody you need to go off to counseling or you need to do this treatment to be able to like you know maintain custody of your children or to regain custody of your children but you know it's like i suppose then like setting boundaries with that service provider and saying will actually if the person comes along, we'll do an assessment, we'll offer them treatment where you can feedback to you about what that treatment is, but realistically it's about the person's own choice about whether they come and engage with us or come and engage with me. So I think even that, in terms of my experience is that I've worked with a lot of people that, like, coerced clients

is the kind of buzzword, I suppose, or, you know, like people that, like may not want to come and see you. And it's about, like, being transparent with that person. and offering them maybe what the benefits would be of coming and seeing you. And that's, I suppose, that is also part of the motivational interviewing is, I suppose, rolling with people's resistance. So I've seen people in, like, they've ended up, like, agreeing to come and see me for counseling because it might meet the need of, like, community corrections not, like, breaching their parole or, you know, and that was their pure goal at the start of coming

and see me. And then that changes while they come and see me. And sometimes they came and saw me a couple of times and then they left and I never saw them again. And then other times they would come back and say, oh, actually, I really liked your approach that you were not, that you were saying like, you know, this is voluntary and that I didn't have to come and see you. And I walked away and I thought about that. And I've come back and I do want to actually work on this issue and would like some help with that. So, yeah. I guess that's consistent with any training or behavioral change.

It takes time. It takes consistency. and it takes work on everyone's part. It's not just a matter of a quick fix and someone goes to a service and gets it all sorted. So those expectations are interesting coming from an outside organization referring them into your service,

but do you find those expectations internally within the service or within a health service? Do you think there's a misconception of how you do what you do and what you have capability to do or do you think you're able to feed that back up the line and explain that this takes time and we're working on it and it's not about fixing things, it's about engaging?

People are always going to have expectations and want outcomes and want key indicators of, like, oh, this has happened from an engagement. And I think that's particularly with complex clients that have comorbid issues and that are like kind of, you know, maybe being in the system for a very long time, there are like sometimes expectations upon clinicians to actually, then go in and like, you know, have this magical kind of wand and like go, it's all kind of fixed. And, you know, it depends on the organisation.

I think the organisation that I worked for actually understood that space previously around like that, like success does not mean that, you know, people have their lives together in a very short period of time and that like, you know, particularly in the alcohol and drug space, like I think relapse is a part of people's experience. Like people just don't come and have treatment once and then get well and never need. interventions again. It is a like it is a condition that people do kind of like relapse and sometimes have periods of time where they go well and then periods of time that they don't. And it's about like I suppose like clinicians and service services being available for people when that when they're

needing that kind of intensive intervention or support to kind of get over that stuff. And I think as clinicians, what I've learned is not to expect too much. from people or from myself. Otherwise, that's when you really have that. You can burn out. You can get stressed. You can feel overwhelmed. You can feel like what's the point of me doing this?

Nothing is changing. You know, and I felt like that many times, but then when I actually look sometimes, it might be that, oh, the success was that that person when they saw me in the waiting room actually smiled and said hello. Instead of turning their head away or like, you know, getting like kind of like worried that I'd say. said hello to them. A lot of the clients that I worked with in my previous role, if I said

hello to them, they thought they were in trouble. The social worker is talking to me. Or I had a few clients say to me, oh, only the really troubled ones come to see you, like, you know, and I'd be like, well, no, that's probably the wrong way of looking at it. It's like, sometimes people with complex kind of problems or complex issues come to me because then I can try and help them navigate that and maybe change some of that. You know, so like reframing that thing. And I think there is some stigma with people around social workers, you know, that we have been in traditional roles that have removed children from people are part of those kind of child protection systems and maybe, you know, other systems where they feel like you're not there to help them. You're there to kind of like punish them for certain behaviours. So I think even developing a trusting kind of relationship with people that have trust issues with people has been a real challenge.

That's interesting. You talk about challenges. I was thinking before about bringing in outside issues to a counseling space or, you know, you might be having a bad day and you have to kind of put all that aside and try not to let it affect you. But you've also got those expectations on you as a professional, on you as a service that can be really challenging when you're kind of working from a place where you feel like you're already behind the eight ball. You're having to catch up to try to build the, someone's trust. What are some other challenges that you've faced in your role? What would you say the most challenging thing about your job is? Yeah, I think the most challenging, like what you've said, I think it's about like self-care. It's about looking after yourself first and having the ability to be able to kind of leave your own stuff at the door when you go to work and still be professional and open and available for people when they need it. Particularly in my last role, it was very much a space where, like, people weren't that great with boundaries.

And so when they wanted your support, they were really kind of, I want you now and you will do this for me now. And if maybe you didn't give them a response that they wanted, sometimes it could be quite a challenging space in terms of there was quite a lot of verbal aggression and even physical violence when people didn't get their ways in that space. And that was quite a challenging, how do you work with that? And I think it was about like being respectful, being able to kind say to people, look, I understand that you're distressed and that this is what, you know, that you're needing support right now, but I can't give you support if you're going to behave or

treat me that way. If you can calm down, if you can talk to me in a calm manner, then I'm happy to speak with you, but setting that boundary and then sometimes that would still maybe lead to people being even more aggressive towards you and not taking that personally. Maybe having an understanding that this is how that person has learned how to behave or they cannot actually regulate their emotions because of maybe past trauma, institutionalised kind of, you know, responses being non-judgmental. You know, it was hard to not kind of be like, you know, this is a really hard space and I may not want to engage with that person because they're like not being very nice right now, but you're actually like, you're the professional. I can imagine you get to know them very well as well. If you're working

in a service for say two years and you've got regular clients, you would get to know them very well. They would get to know you and those boundaries could easily be blurred. Yeah, look, I think that's the other thing. I think like a lot of the spaces that I've worked in, particularly people with trauma. They can have, you know, personality vulnerabilities, and I don't know whether you've heard that term before, but they, you know, they can have sensitivities around like feelings of abandonment or, you know, like not have great, like interpersonal boundaries. So I think, you know, I've been trained in dialectical behavioural therapy as well. And I think that's, you know, having an understanding of how trauma can affect a person and how they interact with others is something that, like,

particularly in those spaces is a good thing to know because then like you can step away from the person's behaviour at the time and kind of look at it in in a broader context and say well this person may you know be behaving this way because ABC has happened at the moment they they don't have the skills to behave in a different way or to ask for things in a different way or so i think yeah having good having your own boundaries knowing when to say no knowing also when to be flexible you know, sometimes you do need to respond to somebody because they are in crisis and they will come back to you multiple times on the day. And I think I worked with somebody that was like that over the last two years. You know, some other people were like saying, oh, look, I think should you be like giving that person that much intensive support? And I was like, actually, there are no other services at the moment that can actually provide the support to this person. And, you know, so it was not just giving that person one to one time, but it was like then being able to like care coordinate. a response between multiple service providers. So I think that was also like what I found was important was that you needed to be able to then like go to your manager or whatever and say actually,

I need to reduce my caseload or I can't actually take on this other client because at the moment I've got this this caseload of complex clients that I don't have the space to be able to provide any more support. Sure. What would you say you love most about your job? What gives you energy? I think what gives me energy is when you see somebody's, you see those light bulbs start kind of flickering on with people, either that they have hope that things might be able to change or they actually get that, they recognize that they actually have the skills already, that they do have strengths. So I suppose like that's another like kind of like approach that I use very much is like a strength-based approach, you know, acknowledging people's resiliency,

you know, like saying to somebody that might, you know, like be, you know, using some maladaptive behaviours or, you know, whatever that. Like there is some strengths in there if you use that in another way, you know, and then people kind of look at you and go, oh, oh, you're giving me a conflict. So you're giving me positive feedback, you know, I'm not used to that. You know, because some people come along and they're like, oh, wait, you know, I want you to tell me what I'm doing wrong or, you know, sometimes it might be beneficial for somebody to kind of like give them feedback that.

Like, oh, what you're doing right now may not in the long term be beneficial for you. you know, particularly with substances, like I had a conversation with a young person the other day that they were like, you know, they were saying that they use alcohol and cannabis to kind of, you know, numb out and, you know, brush away the painful emotions. And alcohol and cannabis is great short term for doing that. And I, you know, and I acknowledged that. I said, well, you know, it is actually really good thing to numb out and kind of avoid your feelings at the time. But then what happens when you, when you kind of sober up or the cannabis wears off? And they were like, oh, actually it's all still there.

And I'm like, that's right. And then, like, long term, you have all these other negative effects from those things. If you actually, like, you know, use alcohol and cannabis. I suppose, you know, if you become physically dependent or you use a lot of it, you know, like whether it's like physical, mental interactions with lace or what, you know, whatever negative effect you might have from that. So that young person at the end of that, I said, look, maybe this is something for you to think about is what would you like to do about that?

because they actually were like acknowledging that they used other skills like, you know, listening to music or going for a walk or hanging out with friends. And there are the ways of like dealing with painful emotions. I think that's what I like about helping people get the skills to be able to like deal with their day-to-day life without having to kind of like go to those substance use or self-harm or I think that's something that's new in my new role. Not that it's new, but because I've worked with adults that have done self-harming behaviours, but there are a lot of young people that their go-to is like self-harming, so a lot of cutting.

And so, you know, not shaming somebody for doing that or saying that's wrong. Because I think then that would they come and talk to you honestly about like actually I'm doing this? Because then you can say, oh, actually, okay, I can get that that would actually be helpful for you at the time. But then what else, you know, exploring those other things. They might not have an opportunity to talk to anyone about their cutting behaviours or self-harm. And a lot of people would be telling them, like, you need to stop that.

You know, and if you tell somebody to stop something that's actually helping them to deal with their emotions without giving them the skills to kind of manage those painful emotions, then you're taking away something that might actually be helping them to survive. So it's a steep learning curve, I think, because I did go into the space and think, oh, for young people, you know, I'm a bit like nervous about this because I've been working in the adult space for such. a long time and I think and it's no different it's just that like yes young people if they're under a certain age there is different things to think about like you know like that there will be parents involved or like it won't be the young person making a decision about what their treatment is if they're under 14 or or even under 16 depending on their capacity in making form decisions and stuff like that so how do you think the way social work is done or maybe even the understanding of the social work role in that space has changed over time

I'm a social worker, but really, I mean, I don't mind doing case management or care coordination, but I think the therapy and the counselling is what I actually really like doing. I have heard a few social workers saying, oh, well, social workers don't do counselling, but there are a lot of social workers that do counselling. Because I feel like there are so many more, there are more approaches coming out and more ways of doing things and such a greater crossover between the interdisciplinary roles. And I'm just wondering how, given that you've worked in spaces that might not traditionally be seen as social work spaces. How has the understanding of the social work

value ad developed over time? How have people started to understand the role of social work and its application in that area? I think it's slowly changing. I mean, I think in my last role, a lot of the, particularly the nurses, still would think of the psychologist first when it came to the counselling role. So I think me being there and saying, oh, actually, I have the, those skills as well. And I'm not just, a social worker is just not here to fill out the forms for housing or for Centrelink and that this is what we can be doing. I think is still in process. I think there's still a wrong way to go in terms of social work and the value that social work can add to like kind of, I suppose, multidisciplinary teams. In my current role, there is a mix of social work

and psychology and nurses and health education offices. And I really think it's beneficial for the young people to have people with different skills and different training because I might be like focusing mainly on counselling. But if somebody came to me and was, you know, saying that they were homeless or had some other stuff, then I may sit in the session and help them to fill out like housing forms or they'd like ring link to home or do the case management or the care coordination as well. Whereas like maybe somebody with another, like a psychologist, may not have as much experience in that. So they may not be as confident.

So I can also like give people like, you know, I suppose that clinical kind of support in doing that as well. That's the benefit of that you're training other people to be able to do that job as well. I mean, I used to say it's not rocket science. Some of the social work, you know, stuff. They'd be, oh, my God, that's so, oh, you're amazing. How did you know about that service? and, you know, like, sometimes I'd be like, I googled it. You know, like, I searched in a whatever, like, you know, like a search forum, I suppose that you

or search engine you might use. Like, I'd be like, you know, oh, community transport in blah, blah area and then it'd come up. But, like, you know, maybe it's because I've been working for 17 years in the field and working with people that need services and that has become my kind of bread and butter kind of knowledge, whereas if that wasn't your knowledge and you were trained in nursing and your focus was on people's physical health needs and their medications and, you know, and it wasn't about like finding out how they can get from A to B or what housing services are available out there. So I think that's kind of like, yeah, like developing other people's knowledge.

And then like, as you said earlier, I've learned around medications and around like physical health conditions and things I never thought I would even think about, you know. And you've taken responsibility for developing your own bank of knowledge. Yeah. And like you said earlier, navigating systems that aren't designed to help people. Yeah, it's always about that. I've been studying a new role and people like, oh, great, you know, this is great. You've got all this experience.

And I'm like, look, even if I don't know something, I'll try to find out for you or we'll try and find somebody else that knows about that. because I don't, you know, I have quite a broad knowledge base around homelessness, asylum seeker refugee space, alcohol and drugs, mental health. But it doesn't mean that I know everything about those things. I'm still learning every day. And even sometimes I think you think that you know something and then you might go off and do something.

Oh, actually, I didn't know that. Well, I've just learned something more about that that I didn't know. So, yeah. That makes it fun. Yes, yeah. Yeah, there are so many different areas that you've worked in, but is there any field of social work that you still want to try out? Yeah, look, I wouldn't mind doing, going into, like, either a remote community

and doing some community development work would be kind of interesting, and I would love to do that, whether it's in Australia or internationally. Like, I think that's a space. I have people that I've worked with that are doing, things like that that are very inspiring to be, you know. Yeah, like I just watched somebody on Instagram the other day that's working in Lebanon and I was kind of like, oh, this is just, you know, incredible that I've worked with this person and they're now like living in that country after what's just recently happened and they're like coordinating responses to assist

people to rebuild their houses and, you know, their lives and, and I don't know whether that's where I completely want to go. But like, I definitely like think I would like to, go and assist probably in Aboriginal communities in Australia, like go and like go and do some work. I think that would be very enriching for myself to learn more about our indigenous culture and to give back to those communities. And it would give back to me to learn more about their culture and to also like get to explore this wonderful country that we have. You know, yeah. Is there any kind of social work that hasn't interested in? you at all, something you're not attracted to? I probably wouldn't go and do a social work

role in a like a medical ward in a hospital. I mean, even though I've worked in local health districts and I've worked attached to a hospital, I've always kind of been either in, yeah, like I've done the kind of like kind of out there kind of wild, you know, like homeless health, you know, the drug and alcohol space. Yeah, I don't think I would really like to be on a, on a medical ward in a hospital, just doing that kind of straight social. work kind of role, no. Mm-hmm. Do you think it's more sort of the short session, like single-session stuff that is not

as appealing to you? Yeah, I think I do like building a relationship with people and having some long-term engagement with people because I think there's a benefit in that short term and those social work roles have a place. But I think for me, I just, it's never appealed to me. I don't know why. because I do actually like kind of those short-term outcomes where you go, yes, I achieve something today.

But yet I'm attracted to the roles that tend not to have a lot of those short-term goals every day. But I enjoy the process of walking alongside somebody and seeing kind of change slowly happen. Even in terms of the counselling model of the mental health care plan of it being 12 sessions, I think sometimes is really unrealistic for some people. But some people it works and they only need a short-term intervention. But for people with complex trauma, 12 sessions probably is just the tip of the iceberg. Even for people to engage and trust you to say something can sometimes take two years. I did just move after being in a role for two years.

And I think a lot of the people when I was leaving probably felt like they just had started to trust me. And I felt like that. I just kind of scratched the service with people. Does that make it harder for you to leave that role then if you feel like you've just developed that trust? Sometimes, yes, sometimes it does. But sometimes things happen and you decide that it's time to move on or that you've done the work that you can do there and that actually it's this other work that I want to go and do. I suppose I was, you know, I've always been somebody that will give things a go. and sometimes I've tried things and they just haven't been the right fit for me long term.

I've learnt a lot from taking those risks or that, like going and doing that role, but then it's been like, actually, I don't actually want to work in this space because I'd rather be off and going and doing this. I think in the end, if I was to stay in a role because I thought, you know, people have just started to trust me, then I'm kind of, I'm not. You're potentially doing a disservice. Yes, I think so because I think that what I try to teach people or to model with people that I work with is that you can have people leave your life doesn't have to be a negative thing.

People do come and go from your life and you can have people in your life for periods of time that can have positive impacts and that it doesn't have to be a negative thing that they actually leave because I think a lot of people do have that fear of abandonment and they've had lots of loss in their life. And so they do kind of have that trust, those trust issues. And so they hold back. But I think hopefully I've had the ability to kind of, you know, be transparent with people and say actually like I may be here for X amount of time or I might be longer and we don't know that.

And we don't know how long you will actually access this service. But while we're here, we can work together well, hopefully to work towards your goals or, yeah. I know you're only new in your role, but are there any programs or projects that you're really interested in taking on anything you think needs a little bit more research or just a bit exposure to something? I think the service is in the midst of change, but I think for me I'm keen to kind of maybe like partner up and do some therapeutic groups. They have done that in the past, but at the moment, I suppose it's been impacted by COVID. So at the moment, a lot of their groups that the health education officers would be running have either stopped

or have moved online and then the opportunity to do face-to-face groups or activities or events are restricted at the moment. So I've even been thinking, how could we do a therapeutic group online? Maybe that's something to look into, yeah. And just the complexities of how people engage over an online platform and then, you know, keeping people safe in that space, following up with people if they did have stuff that came up through the group. There are probably people that are doing some kind of groups online. But yeah, that's something, depending on what is going to happen with COVID. I'm still seeing people face to face.

There is the option of telehealth and doing, you know, sessions over video or on the phone. My preference is face to face. And then also it's about physical distancing as well. Like if we can't have the 1.5 metres, we actually clinicians and the client need to wear masks. And for some people, that's really distressing. I mean, I don't like wearing a mask. I had to be in full PPE the other week. And I really appreciated the nurses that are doing that for 12-hour shifts or however long,

eight to 12-hour shifts or 10-hour shifts. I was for maybe three to four hours and then I'd have a break. But I was like really kind of overwhelmed with just how intensity is to have like that gear on for a whole day. Yeah, it's interesting because they've tried to make it as much as possible business as usual, but really everything's put on hold. They're just able to provide the most basic of services. And as you've said, you can't continue with any of the quality improvement stuff or any

of the groups that you have been interested in trying out. But there are also impacts of people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness or experiencing domestic and family violence, like what you've been dealing with who can't distance, who can't afford masks, who, you know, they can't adhere to any of those restrictions. So it's challenging. You know, I've been watching it from afar because I'm not in that space at the moment. But I think there's been a lot of good work done by services that work with, particularly in a city homelessness around responding to COVID. And also like that, there has been a response from New South Wales housing and facts around accommodating people in accommodation and then placing them in long-term housing out of COVID.

It's been seen as, oh, it is actually possible to actually provide that and give people intensive support to get into a stable accommodation, I think. It's taken a pandemic for them to be creative. Yes. Yeah. But I mean, that's the positive out of the pandemic maybe. And hopefully it continues after COVID finishes because there just needs to be, you know, a few changes in terms of how we respond to some people that might need more intensive

support to maintain their tendency, like their housing. Because just giving a person a house is not going to. mean that everything's okay. I mean, there are approaches that have been called housing first, but when you look at the whole model, it's about the intensive support of that person while they're in that house as well. You've put one leg on the stool, it's still going to fall over. And it's not that that person then, it's like that intensive support does not mean if they don't engage in it that they don't get the housing. But it's for it to actually be successful, I think people need that intensive support. And if it doesn't get given, then people do end up, you know,

for whatever reason, back homeless. So, yeah. It's a holistic approach. And hopefully out of this comes, as you suggested, some more creative ways of thinking and working and collaborative work with other agencies and just pulling things together because it shouldn't be rocket science. But maybe it just takes someone knowing that it's okay to do that and reaching out to other services and you don't have to have all the answers internally.

You just kind of have to get permission to go, I'm going to contact that other agency and for that to become the norm instead of sitting there in a silo? Yeah, I think so. I think that is out of COVID what I've observed and what I've experienced is that there has been a lot of things that have done for the first time that people have been talking about for years and years that haven't happened for whatever reason and some of them are political or like then you think, well, why can this not happen when COVID's not happening? So it'll be interesting to see in different spaces whether things continue after COVID or whether they go back to business as usual.

Because I think even like in terms of the flexibility for clinicians to be able to work from home or to still continue to work with people even though there's been like kind of the difficulties around like the fact that I'm still seeing young people for counselling in a room and most of the time I don't have to wear a mask. But it is about like hygiene, saying to people don't come if you're sick, you know, like the world does not have to stop. And yeah, there are people out there that like don't have that choice around like whether they have a mask or whether they're like living in overcrowded situations or yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else before we wrap up that you wanted to talk about?

It could be to potential social workers, to people looking for a bit of a change, maybe interested in this area. What would you want to tell them? Be open about the kind of work that you're interested in doing and I think I did co-supervise a student a couple of years ago in a drug and alcohol service who came along to the interview and actually was like saying that they were quite fearful and scared about the clients that accessed the service that they were going to be aggressive and violent and that it was maybe an unsafe space to work in and and I would just encourage people to kind of like maybe challenge those stigmas or those kind of thoughts around that. I mean there is Sometimes, as I said, it can be a space where there can be lots of aggression and maybe

difficulties in terms of relationships with people, but there's such a rich amount of experience that you can get from working in, say, homelessness or in drug and alcohol or with young people. Like, I mean, in drug and alcohol, you can work with people with trauma, domestic violence, mental health, homelessness. And you may not get that if you're working in, like, a service that's specifically for one thing. And young people, like, I mean, they're just such an open kind of like book in terms of you've got an opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds and, you know, maybe if you're a social work student, maybe being creative about the kind of placements that you do, you know, that's something I suppose in my role. I do want to develop is

having more social work students. I haven't had an opportunity a lot of the times in the services that I've worked in to have social work students just because it may not have been appropriate because there wasn't enough space or, you know, or even that social work students, they didn't know that it was possible to do a placement in those services. So yeah, that's something that I want to do as well. That's a lot to look forward to. Yeah. Thank you so much, Michelle. I think it's been a great conversation. I've loved hearing about your experience and I think other people will too. But thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate you doing this. Oh, no, thanks, yes. Yeah, it's been great to talk about it.

Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Michelle, 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 James. James is a new graduate, currently working at Focus Home Care and Disability Services. James has also worked in age care at St George Hospital and in the social programs team at the City of Sydney, supporting the development, implementation and evaluation of various social inclusion and community development programs. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you are notified when this next episode is available. See you next. time.