Social Work Spotlight - Episode 19: James

Episode Date: December 11, 2020

In this episode, James and I discuss his work in the Aged Care team at St George Hospital, involving discharge planning, support coordination and bereavement counselling. James has also worked within the Social Programs team at the City of Sydney, supporting the development, implementation and evaluation of various social inclusion and community development programs. With a strong passion for empowering others, James constantly strives to facilitate opportunities for capacity building and professional development in supporting vulnerable communities.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:· James’ LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-bajjada-32a315189/· What's On (City of Sydney Events Board) - https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hzqxS5VB8ORs1SgrqtJ5LTZjiHkR4LFH/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, Yasmin McKee Wright, and today's guest is James. James recently completed his social work honours degree at UNSW and is currently working at focus home care and disability services. Throughout his studies and professional practice, James has developed core social work skills that he has applied in a multitude of settings. James has worked in the aged care team at St George Hospital, focusing on discharge planning, support coordination and bereavement counselling. He also has experience working within the social programs team at City of Sydney, where he supported the development, implementation and evaluation of various social inclusion

and community development programs. With a strong passion for empowering others, James constantly strives to facilitate opportunities for capacity building and professional development in supporting vulnerable communities. Thanks so much, James, for coming on to the podcast. I'm very much looking forward to having to chat with you about your experience in social work so far. Likewise. Thank you for having me. How long have you been a social worker and what brought you to the profession in the first place? So I guess I've been a social worker for just shy of a year now since I graduated 10 months ago. What brought me to social work in the beginning? Unlike most of my peers, I found that I had an idea of what I wanted to do career-wise,

early on. When I was in year eight, I had the idea that I was very passionate about human interaction and I wanted to work in a space that allowed me to work closely with people. So I knew that I wanted to do something along the lines of either teaching or being a psychologist. And I had no idea that the social work profession even existed pretty much up until the point that it came to enroll in university degrees. So even starting my degree, I didn't really have an idea of what social work was. So it's been a journey of trying to find a journey. out, you know, this newly frowned profession that I feel like a lot of people are still very unfamiliar with, like, during my, both of my placements and, like, continuously have

to explain, like, what is social work? And, yeah, I feel like it's a question that gets asked a lot. And I don't think anyone has the perfect answer to it. But that's pretty much how I came to social work. Like I said, I knew that I wanted to do something related to psychology. And then once I realized that I didn't, wasn't as passionate in terms of having the social work, I was, the scientific background that is needed for psychology and lent more towards humanities. That's why I felt like social work was perfect for me, so I'm very happy that I found it eventually. Did you start off studying social work, or did you start in psychology and then transfer?

No, I started, I started off in social work. I didn't want to be too ambitious and go into psychology because, like I said, I didn't choose to study any science subjects in school or anything. I knew that that wasn't where my strengths lie. and it sort of gave me the concrete piece of mind when we had to do a couple of psychology units starting off in first year and I was very happy with my decision to choose social work. Yeah, normally people get to statistics in third year and go, yeah, this is it for me. Yeah, pretty much.

Was there a point in your study that it sort of became really concrete that you'd made the right decision? Yeah, and I guess like the whole time compared to some of my friends that chose either to study law or business, I honestly never felt like I was studying in a way, like in the sense that like everything came really naturally to me. So I knew that it was something that I was very passionate about and I knew that I was in the right place. Obviously, I'm learning new concepts and theories and things like that. But in terms of learning about principles of social justice and things like that, they were all just things that were already concrete, like part of me as a person.

So I never, I knew I was in the right place. And did that sense of justice that's always been ingrained in you and something that drove you to that purpose, is that something that you think has come from your family or from your social interactions to date? Yeah, good question. I definitely from my upbringing, I feel, and also probably my schooling as well. Like I did a lot of volunteer work while I was in school as well that sort of led me towards thinking, oh wow, like this is amazing. getting to work with vulnerable communities and it's a great sense of sort of accomplishment that you've been able to make an impact no matter how small it is on someone's life. So I guess that like going off that feeling that social work is just like, oh, well, I can do this for a living. It's just an extension of that. Yeah, exactly. What were the volunteer opportunities?

Both of my high schools were Catholic schools. So we did like catacus teaching, scripture teaching, at a disadvantaged school that was down in Woola, Maloo, and then also volunteering at like homelessness, shelters, just helping out in kitchens and things like that. Like in terms of gaining like work experience or just, there are things that you, a lot of people shunned to the side or they wouldn't really think anything of it. But I don't know. For me, I just,

I love getting involved in being able to help out and, you know, even just, you know, serving someone lunch and making their day, like little things like that. Like you said, just an extension of pretty much what we do in all settings of social work, like that sense of being able to help people. So, yeah. That would have been a really interesting introduction because I know places like Matthew Talbot and Edward Eagle Lodge in the inner city, they have such a diverse population of really disadvantaged people.

And most of them are men. But I think their ethos is so positive in the sense that if people need to stick around during the day because they've got extra needs, that's okay. Whereas some places will say, no, we've got to shut out during a particular time. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I think they're probably more geared to, well, and you've got the Wayside Chapel as well. Like there are so many interesting foundations and organizations that are doing great work and just have, despite all the restrictions and I guess the funding would always be limited. They've got the heart in the right place and they're really doing what they can for disadvantaged population. So, yeah, that would have been a really, really interesting upbringing and just, you know, most people are so focused on just getting through high school.

I guess you kind of just thought, you know, I've got this extra energy and extra will to give to the community. So, yeah, it's amazing that you had that opportunity. Yeah, it sounds really cliche, but my dad always gave me the analogy of viewing myself in terms of my learning and taking opportunities as a sponge and to soak up as much as I can. So from school, into university, placement and me now going to professional social work, it's always been the same, you know, just to really seize every opportunity that comes

up because, you know, you just get the most amazing, rewarding experiences out of things and you don't ever want to feel regret for holding yourself back and thinking, oh, gee, I wish I did that, or I wish I did more or things like that. So what led you from university to your first job out and then where you are now? So my first placement was in aged care as a clinical social worker. I honestly went into both of my placements, not really knowing what I wanted to do. in terms of social work practice. When I chose to study social work, I always felt like I really want to work in the child protection space.

In fact, I was set on that. It was something that just like gave my interest for no like real concrete reason in the sense that like I hadn't had any previous experience with it, but it just, it really appealed to me. But I was also at the same time very open in terms of where I went for my placement. So I was open to, you know, going into aged care, not knowing what to expect, not having any experience. experience and I absolutely loved it.

And it was a similar type of approach with my second placement to the city of Sydney in the social programs team doing community development work. And honestly, never thought that I would be interested in community development during university. I always thought that I wanted to be very involved in sort of a direct clinical practice. But from my second placement, I also absolutely love my experience there. And that led me to my first job out of uni in the same role. I was as a student. There was a position that came up and I was lucky enough to be successful in getting that position. So I continued there for eight months and yeah. So it's pretty much

an extension of my placements that I had a really, really good experience with, I guess. And you're just about to start a new role. Can you tell me about the new job and what you're most looking forward to? I am nervous but really excited for it. So I'm going to work at Focus Care as a social worker, which is a 50-50 role of doing NDIS support coordination, which is, I guess, similar to the type of work that I would have done as a clinical social worker in aged care, doing the psychosocial assessments with patients and, you know, making sure their care needs are taking care of and all that service coordination, things like that. And then the other half also speaks to my second placement of supporting the delivery of

community programs and research and things like that. So I'm very happy because it seems like a very good marriage of both of my previous experiences. And is it in a similar geographic area to your previous work? I believe so because, you know, Strathfield is similar to working in the CBD in the centre. It's a very multicultural area. All of my experiences, even at St. George Hospital and Cogre, they're all very diverse communities, you know, where culturally vulnerable communities tend to deal with similar issues in the sense of like social isolation being the biggest one that we always work towards. So yeah, I guess a lot of that learning experience is transferable. And as you said, a lot of the skills and the assessment and carry over and making recommendations,

that'll be a big part of it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So your previous role at City of Sydney Council, is Susanna Ing still there? Yeah, she was actually my supervisor. Ah, what a small world. Yeah. She's an amazing hero. and she's so gorgeous. So when I worked in community, I was part of a number of migrant interagencies, and that's where we work together. Awesome. Yeah, I remember City of Sydney Council being so incredibly supportive of community-based programs and initiatives and not just providing funding, but providing backing in terms of advertising and promotion

and just really, I guess because she's a social worker, it definitely helps. But just being able to put good word out, they're about and also provide information to assist with funding applications and just saying this is our demographic and this is what they need. So there is a lot of research in that. Yeah, for sure. Because I work so closely with Susanna, primarily most of my work was working in the international student space. And once again, that was something that I had no idea of the adversities that like international students would face. And it was such an eye-opening and really rewarding experience, you know, to be able to work so closely with all these

individuals and, you know, facilitate their own capacity building on such a large scale, which I think is why I tend to thrive in working for larger organisations. But it was absolutely fantastic. We had our 26 program volunteers or international students and, you know, working collaboratively with them to be able to organize community programs that would then serve 300 other international students that would attend. It was like, it was absolutely fantastic. They're also passionate about what they do and hardworking and driven and yeah, really inspiring to work with such a great community. What would you say is your favourite project or the one that stood out

most for you? My favourite was probably the employment panel that we did. So there are three or four major events that we ran every year in a similar fashion. We'd always review them after the evaluation and, you know, see how we could tweak them to make them more engaging. You know, people wanted something that was more interactive, but they always tend to run along serving the same because we obviously have our own, like the city's targets that we wanted to meet. So it was absolutely fantastic, you know, to have a panel of a different array of people that were at different points in their careers. So in a room full of 300 international students that are obviously just on the verge of, you know, starting their professional career once they complete their studies,

is having a panel of current international students, previous international students who are a part of the program, local students and uni lecturers, things like that, and just being able to bounce ideas off each other and be able to break down certain stereotypes and hardships that people that are culturally diverse face in even just applying for jobs and navigating university and things like that, to be able to help them have concrete skills

in their own employability. I think was something that was a big sense of relief for those who attended. So I don't know, I really saw the value in that for them. Yeah, and I guess you can see that from assistance perspective as well if that very basic sense of, you know, they've got their identity and what they want to do as a career and then they've got the next step of bridging that confidence gap of, I can do this and I am employable and then being able to provide for their families

and, you know, if you think of Maslow for a very basic, you know, I'm kind of ruining it. But you kind of think that's really fundamental. And you've been part of a program that's being able to shape the future of whatever industry they're in by giving them that confidence and helping them to see that they do have a number of skills that they can control. Yeah. And also the byproduct of just all of these major events was definitely the networking aspect, you know, like I said, the main target of working in that space was combating the social isolation that a lot of international students have to face. You know, it's very daunting and obviously not an experience I can imagine relating to having to move to another country where I know absolutely nobody.

It might not be my first language and, you know, going to a university, echoing all of that sense of loneliness or the things being vague or the, the, the, fear of uncertainty and things like that. So just the networking aspect of them being able to come to an event, leave with a sense of, oh, that's fantastic. I've been able to hear about all of these things that might help me, you know, find a job or navigate different services in university, but then also leave making new friends that they might bump into someone that they go to uni with or things like that or that might come back to another event as a, with a group, instead of coming alone, they've come with another group of their friends and it's absolutely fantastic.

It's a good feeling. Yeah. I guess you would have then seen firsthand how COVID has affected international students. Yeah, that was really, it was really hard, but also enriching in a sense that it made me feel like my work was really valuable. So at the start, because as I mentioned before, all of our events will usually have anywhere between 200 and 300 participants. So not being able to gather in person in that capacity was obviously a very big challenge. And as I've mentioned also, one of the biggest issues for international students is that

social isolation. So having to suddenly be cooped up at home definitely just did sort of a 180 in terms of everything that we've been working towards. But at the same time, it was a different experience in a sense that we'd always want to try and facilitate an event online and I guess this sort of forced our hand into trying that out for the first time. And it was actually really successful in that we had the same flow of participants. Obviously, it might not have been as great as, you know, doing it in person in terms of networking, but, you know, just got to work with what we had to do. But aside from that,

a lot of the work was definitely advocacy and where I spent a lot of time helping compile a massive spreadsheet of services and trying to find out what international students were eligible for because it really wasn't a hell of a lot and it yeah it was really challenging. What would you say makes that job a social work job? What is it about your learning that you think you translated well to that? I guess it was a sense of advocacy and striving to maintain people's quality of life which I mean for both of my experiences I definitely see. whether I'm in a... Susanna was really great in teaching me

that all of my learning is transferable in the sense that whether I was a clinical social worker working in age care and working to, like I said, try and maintain people's quality of life. I realize it's no different to working in a community development capacity where I would be doing the same thing.

You know, with all of the events we organized contributing to the professional development of all of these individuals reducing social isolation and doing that advocacy work and compiling the same. spreadsheets, you know, it's things like trying to find university services, whether it's, you know, counselling or financial hardship support or any homelessness shelters, like food vans,

things like that. Like it just, I realize that, oh, wow, like, it's the work that we do is so important. I was talking to someone the other day and they were saying that a lot of the time people would come to her for problem solving because, you know, someone else in the team didn't know the answer to something and she'd say, well, let's just Google it. You know, there's, there's a lot to be said for just saying, I hear you. I get that that's what you need at the moment. Let's work out together how we can solve that problem. Yeah, that was something that was definitely felt by me as well, especially as a new grad where it's like, okay, I'm happy to help. You know, I've got a very clear

idea of in principle what needs to be done, but in terms of practice, like let me just do some research and get back to you and, you know, it wasn't something that I just felt alone, you know, sort of like, like you said, you know, the whole team is sort of like, this is nothing that we've dealt with before. So we're all sort of in this, we're all in this together being flexible with our practice, which is something that I feel like all social workers are tested by. Yeah. And other than the obvious issues with COVID and what you've discussed, what would you say is the most challenging thing about that role? Good question. I try not to be clear.

say like I can't say anything bad about that job because I honestly absolutely loved it. I honestly don't know. I really tried to think about it in the sense that I find it, if you'd ask me that question in terms of my first placement in a hospital, I feel like I would be able to speak to the time constraints from like discharge pressures where, you know, you feel like you don't necessarily get to spend the amount of time you want like in terms of the social work intervention sometimes. But in terms of the community development capacity, at city of Sydney, it was honestly fantastic. Okay, if I had to pick one thing, I guess I would say it was only because of everything going on

at the moment in the sense of, I did feel a sense of helplessness, you know, because as I said before, pretty much it felt like every single service that we came across that international students weren't eligible for. And, you know, whether it was a state government, local government, it just felt like we were being met on deaf ears and like the international student community just wasn't getting the support that they needed. And I guess that was really frustrating because, you know, it spent the last year and a half working with these absolutely amazing people and knowing that they, like everyone else, were struggling. I don't know. I guess that was frustrating. But in terms of the actual job,

I honestly loved every second of it. Yeah. I don't try and be cliche, but I honestly don't know how to answer that question. That's incredible. That's great that you have that experience. I think that speaks to the different pace of the different types of roles. So community development, yes, you've got a lot of pressures in terms of milestones that need to be met and expectations of other departments that you might need to work alongside. But in a hospital setting, in age care specifically, you've got that limitation of the clinical role in terms of the timeframes you were mentioning. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And also you've only got so many resources in a hospital setting and in aged care.

But you would have probably learned quite a lot about the different legislation and different types of services. So it's all about just kind of honing your skills in whatever area you're in at the moment. Yeah, exactly. And you don't need to know it all. It's stuff that you pick up as you go. Yeah, yeah, just pick it up along the way, exactly. How have you, when it was really hard and feeling like you didn't have the answers that

you wanted to give to people, how did you look after yourself, professionally what was self-care like for you i guess especially like my time you know being a new grad that i was very closely supervised in the sense that i always felt very comfortable that if i ever wanted to talk about something that i had people like a good support network that i could speak to but also my team would always reach out to me and check that i'm okay very very incredible supportive team making sure that like we're all in this together everyone's okay but in terms of once i put my laptop down working from home you know just trying to make time to look after myself physically because i guess that when i'm i guess stress is something that puts a lot of pressure on our

well-being and you know feeling time poor and physically exhausted so you know just little things like just going for a walk enjoying being outside listening to music hanging out with friends just making sure that i'm not alone definitely helped me a lot and the first four weeks of working from home was actually very difficult for me. After that, sort of got used to the idea of, you know, this is what is normal now. But like I said, the first month was extremely difficult. I was myself feeling very isolated and it was sort of ironic in a way that like my job is to contribute towards reducing social isolation. But now I suddenly have to figure out how to help myself with the same issue. Yeah. It was hard at first. That's really tough, especially when you then need to

bring your best self to your work. Yeah, exactly. You want to come to work every day, open my laptop or walk into an office with all of the energy that I can possibly contribute towards whatever needs to be done that day. But then, yeah, like I said, sometimes, you know, you forget to keep some of that energy for yourself and you lead you towards, you know, feeling, like you definitely feel burnt out a bit sometimes. But also as a new grad too i feel like it's okay to not know how to look after your sense and in a way that i feel like my colleagues obviously being more experienced than myself had already established their coping mechanisms and things like that so it took me a while to figure out okay like what do

i need to do to de-stress like what really helps me the most so even that was a learning journey in itself too yeah but it sounds as though scheduling was a big thing for you so just having clear boundaries and being able to figure out that, well, no, no, this is the way things are now and, you know, we need to put a little bit more effort into the back end so that we can be really present forward. Yeah, exactly, because you don't want to turn up and have nothing to contribute, yeah. Yeah. What aspect of your degree do you think helped most in your preparation for becoming a social worker? Good question. I really found that the two sole client subjects that we did, which is where we do mock psychosocial assessments or counselling sort of role play things were.

I really saw the value in those. I really enjoyed them. Even though, you know, once hypothetical in reality, you know, you might not have 40 minutes to sit down and try out all of these different intervention strategies with the client. Definitely gave me an idea of, wow, I can finally put like the theory into some sort of practice, even though it was a hypothetical situation. but if I didn't have the placements that I did, I don't know how I would feel about social work as a whole.

I'm very happy and privileged that both of my experiences I absolutely loved and that made my passion for social work very concrete for me. I definitely enjoyed having the theory, but in terms of a degree structure, I feel like the need for social work students to go on placement is absolutely crucial. because at the end of the day, what we do is not the easiest career choice in terms of being mentally and emotionally present all the time. So it definitely gave me a concrete idea of what I was getting myself into. I think that sense of anxiety never really goes away, that idea of I have to

go in and see a client or a patient and I'm not really sure how this is all going to go. And I'm not really sure that I think you're always, especially as a student, you're always really, really conscious of this person might not engage at all. And what if things go really poorly? What if they shut down? What if I can't, what if I've prepared only so much? And none of that gets used because it goes in a completely different direction. But I think more and more as you gain experience and as you have the opportunity to speak to other people and get a sense of what they would do in that scenario, you're able to pull out resources more readily. So you've got your big filing cabinet of internal resources and skills and knowledge

and ways of responding to things and just feeling more confident at, you know, the drop of a hat being able to quickly change the conversation or change the focus of something. So I'm not trying to scare you in the sense of saying that never goes away, but I think it's a good thing because it forces us to be creative and to think, well, I'm never going to know everything going into it because you don't know how someone's going to respond. So yes, you might not have 40 minutes to really sit down and chat with someone, but at the same time you might have an hour and a half because it ends up going really well. Or you might just be sitting there for an hour, not talking to each other,

but sometimes that's the only interaction that person has had with anyone all week. And that might actually be what they need. So I guess that's what I love about social work is the lack of predictability. and just being able to sit with discomfort. Yeah, I guess it speaks to what we spoke about earlier in the sense that, you know, you're consistently having to be flexible in our practice. You don't always feel 100% certain in, okay, this is what I need to do. You never have a clear expectation of what your day is going to look like

because things come up. Consistently being flexible in practices by nature, social work practice, I feel. The placements really give you an eye. idea of what are boundaries that you're okay with managing in terms of some people are fine with managing a full caseload of crisis intervention work and other people are like, okay, maybe that's too much for me, but I can work as a social work in a different capacity, whether that's as a social researcher or maybe I'll go into policy or community development. Social work is so broad. I think NDIS work is, it's perfect for social work in so many ways. And it seems

like a really perfect amalgamation of all your experience to date. So you said you've got the service coordination part of it. You've got the community development part of it or the programs and bringing together policy and trying to create a bit of capital for people. But that's, it's a really interesting model in terms that it can focus on investment. And that's really refreshing, I guess, moving away from more traditional models of risk reward or funding output kind of things. So there's a lot that you could do in that space. And I think probably the main task will be just being able to figure out how to divide the time and the energy and what do I devote to what. Yeah, I'm really excited and looking forward to it. And I'll acknowledge too that

finding a full-time job wasn't easy. And, you know, there's a sense of burnout in that in itself, obviously with a current climate of the world, you know, very privileged to be able to successfully find a full-time job because it's not easy at the moment. But, you know, even that as a new grad, that was something that was hard for me as well. Yeah, I'm really excited and looking forward to it, be able to, you know, get into social work full-time in a space that I feel very passionately about. I guess that also points to the difficulty that a lot of the international students. Yeah, exactly. would have faced in terms of they're already behind the eight ball they've come in with

I guess less capital in terms of their language their experience locally and for someone like you who grew up doing social work effectively to to struggle to find full-time work it just speaks to how competitive it is at the moment yeah exactly so I felt like everything that I was feeling I realized that there are so many people that just gave me a sort of a privilege check in the sense so, oh, well, if I'm feeling like I cannot imagine how the people that I work with feel because I know that they have a lot harder than what I do. Yeah. Is there any other kind of social work that you've never had any interest in?

No, and you know what? Like I said, when I say that I've always been opened, it's sort of an ironic story in the sense that when I had my interview with my university in finding my first placement, and I sort of found myself, because they asked that question where are there any fields that don't interest you? and I just remember staring at the screen being like, well, I don't really know what I want, but for no reason whatsoever, I was like, well, I don't actually know if I want to work with elderly people, ended up leaving that question blank, but then found myself working in age care

and absolutely having like the most phenomenal experience ever. So after that, I just sort of realized, no, I'm just going to go with wherever the wind takes me and, no, I'm just very open to everything, I guess. Yeah, and it sounds like you're missing an aspect of that clinical work, that one-to-one. Just the experience of, you know, which is something that I'm also excited for working with people that, you know, live with a disability. It's something that my social work skills are definitely transferable, but the excitement of being able to learn about something completely new was just like so enriching and rewarding,

you know, not having any personal experience with age care, you know, like I'd never, at the time, I'd never had anyone that had gone through my age care or anything like that or had not been exposed to anyone in my family that was then living with dementia or anything like that. So everything that I learned every day was like totally eye-opening. So yeah, I go forward with the same complete openness and excitement for that. So yeah. Yeah. And when you were at uni, you were part of the student association.

Yeah. What did that involve and what was sort of your legacy there? So that was actually, we had the at first, the traditional, I guess, expectation that, you know, we're going to be like other university societies and, you know, hold events and engage with a student cohort and have fun and things like that. But that sort of was definitely not the top priority for us where we spent a lot of our time doing advocacy work for students. So they seem like menial things, but they were very important because it was at the time where our university was transitioning to trimesters. So a lot of students, including myself, struggled. You know, our personal well-being was declining a lot because the university was having to sort of test us, I guess, as the guinea pigs in adjusting the workload from being 13 or 14 weeks into 10 weeks, which wasn't an easy task.

But at the same time, it put a lot of pressure on us. So, you know, being able to collate the opinions and feelings of our cohort and then go and speak to our colleagues. course conveners and everything that we said was definitely heard by them, but, you know, being able to work collaboratively with them and being able to influence the future cohorts of social work students was very rewarding and where we found a lot of our work a lot of time. So yeah, it was a bit unconventional, but definitely very important. I'm glad to hear at least that feedback was taken on and the faculty could use that to make it easier for the future cohorts of students.

Yeah, and a lot of the time they approached us too because they understood that like it as it wasn't easy for them, it wasn't easy for us. And, you know, social work especially in fourth years, is actually a very demanding time. For me, going to UNSW, you know, having to write a thesis at the same time that you're on full-time placement and still trying to complete the university subjects. And for a lot of people then working on the side as well on the weekends or after placement, like it's very challenging and demanding. I remember feeling torn towards the end of it thinking I really feel like I'm ready to leave. I feel like I'm ready to graduate, but at the same time I don't want it to end because then it becomes real. Yeah, it was sort of a sense of that. Like I was obviously excited to finish, but then I would say at the start of my fourth year where I had the idea of,

okay, I definitely want to do my master's, you know, I may as well go straight away. And then by the end of it, I was like, no, let's come back to that another time. Do you think you'll come back to it? I definitely do. If I'm able to, I definitely know that I want to do more study one day. I'd like to do my master's in the new future. But whatever life holds for me, I don't know. So it might be later than I anticipate.

But I would like to go back one day. But I don't actually know what, yeah, I guess that I just wanted to, you know, live a bit, I guess, you know, even though I know what I'm passionate about, I want to build more experience before I, you know, go and do something like a master's degree just so I have some more concrete backing behind my studies, I guess. And I think going from part-time social work plus part-time work outside of that to full-time social work is going to take a bit of a load. So that's really sensible and just thinking, I'm going to focus on doing this really well and then see how much energy I have left over.

Yeah, exactly. But yeah, I definitely do want to go back something that excites me, I guess. I think it will depend also on what's happening for you work-life-wise. Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. If you are in a position or a role where it might be really helpful to go and do the Masters of counseling or any sort of coursework masters, that would probably be relevant to whatever job you're doing. But given that you've got a bit of a research background as well, it would be potentially good for you to then do a research master's or an honours or whatever you might want to do.

So I think it'll depend on what role you're in, what opportunities you have and what support you have at the time to really be able to knuckle down and dedicate the energy to it. Yeah, for sure, definitely. But it's worthwhile having in the back of your mind because there aren't a number of social workers doing post-grad. So I think it's great that you're at least interested. Yeah. Yeah. If people were interested, I know you're only just starting the new role with the NDIS coordination. But if people were interested in knowing a little bit more about that area or about the council work you've done, where would you direct them?

The city of Sydney's website definitely has a lot because even within our small team social programs, there's such diverse work that goes on. So like as we spoke about before, I work closely with Susanna who works in the international student community. And then there are other colleagues that run programs for refugees and the elderly and other colleague works with LGBTIQ. communities and then there's also work that goes on with youth and justice work. The main demographics that are sort of covered when we learn about social work practice. The city of Sydney works with in all of those capacities. But on their website, I guess, the website, what's on is where they have whatever events are planned we post on there.

So if anyone is looking to attend any of them, they can definitely go there and check out if there's anything going on at the moment. or just going on the city of Sydney's website anyway, and they'll have information about the community programs and grant volunteering opportunities and things like that that they run on there. I think they do a very comprehensive job and are very responsive in terms of they've got emails

at the bottom of most pages anyway, so if you need to reach out for anything that might not be on the website, someone will get back to very quickly. So, yeah. Brilliant. And before we finish up, is there anything else that you wanted to, let people know about your experience or about the area of practice you've worked in specifically?

I guess that my main point was that I'm glad that I was very open with the experiences that I have. So if it's anyone that is currently studying social work or thinking of a career change, you know, if you enjoy working closely with people and thrive for that sense of enrichment from empowering people or building their capacity, then definitely look into social work. because, as I said at the start, even myself, I feel like we go under the radar a lot of the time. Like a lot of people might interact with a social worker but not actually know they're a social worker. Like just sort of viewer says like helpful people, but in terms of like having a professional identity, I still feel like it's building itself up.

But for me, in both of my experiences I found fantastic. It's interesting to hear from someone who's had both community development experience and clinical because usually people will have one or the other or they might kind of delve into policy work. Because you've kept your options open, especially towards the end of your university placements and the start of the career, I think you've allowed yourself to get a little bit of experience in everything, which will give you a good launch pad to go forward and to be able to, as you said, translate the knowledge and the skills into practice. So yeah, I think hopefully everyone else will benefit from hearing a little bit more about that and what kind of work.

Because you don't traditionally think of councils as having social work roles. Yeah, exactly. But as you said, we're kind of everywhere. We're just not as visible. And there is such a diversity of opportunity out there. So, yeah, I guess just encouraging people to think outside the box. Doesn't have to be clinical, doesn't have to be child protection. It can just be, what are my skills, what do I have to control?

to this space and just being creative and having fun with it. Yeah, and I think that was probably the most valuable thing that I learned from my university studies in the sense that like even though social work is so broad, all of our work is transferable, you know, so I think the reason why I was so opposed to doing indirect work was because I had that traditional understanding that social work was inherently just direct practice. I had the idea that, you know, you realize that even when you're looking for jobs that you don't just type in social worker and then all of those opportunities come up that we're all social workers but we go under different titles so that in itself just speaks to the fact of how

diverse and flexible we are as a profession and you know realizing that my skills from being a clinical social worker in a hospital also gives me fantastic backing to come into a community development space because it's inherently still social work. So it's not like you're studying something new or having to learn everything from scratch. You know, you still have the concrete understanding of how to navigate a system or the strength-based capacity, recovery model, everything like that. They're completely applicable to every single space that we work in. And one day you'll have a student and you can hopefully instill all of that enthusiasm to them.

Yeah. Yeah. I really look forward to hearing how you go in the new role. might have to get you back on the podcast to chat about and how you've gone with all that. But it's very exciting. It's an exciting time. There's a lot to look forward to. And especially now in the world, we need more social workers.

So it's fantastic that the next generation are so eager and willing to learn and just put themselves out there because that takes a lot of courage. So thank you for what you're doing. And thank you for being on the podcast. It's been wonderful chatting with you. Yeah, likewise. Thank you. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or James,

please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, and you can email SW Spotlightpodcast 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 Candice, who in addition to her social work degree has obtained a master's in public health and completed postgraduate studies in sexual health and reproduction, specifically psychosexual therapy or from Sydney University.

Candice is the professional leader of social work at Royal Rehab and their inaugural sexual services team leader. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you will notify when this next episode is available. See you next time.