Social Work Spotlight - Episode 22: Ashton

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

In this episode I speak with Ashton, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker, Supervisor, Trainer, Consultant and Private Practice Owner, having completed both a Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Criminology and Criminal Justice degrees. She has many years of experience working with children and families and is passionate about working with people who have experienced trauma, collaborating with each client to create a safe and positive therapeutic experience. Ashton is also a clinical supervisor and leadership coach who uses a trauma-informed approach to support supervisees and leaders in their roles as well as helping them to achieve their career goals.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Becoming an AMHSW Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/582802892350542/Willowtree Wellbeing - https://willowtreewellbeing.com/Ashton Hayes Consulting - https://ashtonhayesconsulting.com.au/An introduction to trauma-informed care (NSW Health) - https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/mentalhealth/psychosocial/principles/Pages/trauma-informed.aspxDr Brené Brown - https://brenebrown.com/Dr Bruce Perry - https://www.bdperry.com/Dr Janina Fisher - https://janinafisher.com/Dr Dan Hughes - http://www.danielhughes.org/Dr Dan Siegel - https://www.m.drdansiegel.com/home/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/10e8ctHGgYelxspjxXQPSUyVaYHj0VIUhjxtshQhyr4w/edit?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, Jasmine McKee Wright, and today's guest is Ashton. Ashton is an accredited mental health social worker, supervisor, trainer, consultant, and private practice owner, having completed both a Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Criminology and Criminal Justice degrees. She has many years of experience working with children and families and is passionate about working with children who have experienced trauma, collaborating with each client to create a safe and positive therapeutic experience. Ashton is also a clinical supervisor and leadership coach

who uses a trauma-informed approach to support supervisors and leaders in their roles, as well as helping them to achieve their career goals. Thank you so much, Ashton, for coming on to the podcast, and I'm very much looking forward to having a chat with you about your experience so far. Thanks for having me. Can you tell me about your beginnings in social work? When did you start and why did you choose this profession? Yes, well, I came to social work a little bit later.

So I came as a mature age student. Previously, I had been studying law and I was working as a paralegal and studying law part-time. And I started to see some things in the cases that were coming through that kind of felt a little bit unjust. where people were being treated more sort of like files and numbers rather than actual people. And it certainly came too ahead when I started to see some of the really unfair ways that children were being treated and their voices weren't being heard.

So I decided I was going to represent people who didn't have a voice and be a legal aid lawyer. and then circumstances changed and I just felt that I would have a broader reach if I did social work so I took some time off and had a family and did all that kind of stuff and then I went back and qualified as a social worker. I think I did always want to do something in a helping space. I wasn't planning to be the senior lawyer at a great big commercial law firm. The plan was always to work in legal aid because that felt like I was doing more helping work. But I think most family members that I have have done some sort of helping work. So my grandparents were psych nurses. We've had proteas. We've had disability support workers. I was thinking before I started talking to you and I thought

there's just so many of us in my family who have done some sort of face-to-face helping work. So I think it's something that's always been around me. And I feel very strongly that sometimes people don't have the same start as other people and maybe they need a bit of extra support. You've completed postgraduate qualifications in criminology. Can you talk me through what that involved and how that might have influenced the direction you took? I was very interested in criminology when I was at university and of course I had started in law. So that was an area that was of some interest to me because I was interested to see how people were led to a space of committing crimes and the sorts of systems that sat around people who had committed

crimes, victims of crime, and the trauma that sat amongst that as well that began to become prevalent. It wasn't as I guess black and white as the law would have been. So in criminology, we're looking at the sociology of crime. And I felt that that fit quite well with the work that I was doing at that time, which was child protection work. And your work involves quite a lot of counselling and you're an accredited mental health social worker. Are you able to explain the process of becoming an accredited mental health social worker

and what that means for you personally? Sure. So to become accredited, you need to have at least two years post-qualification experience in a mental health setting. And so it's not an accreditation that you can apply for straight out of university. It's something that you actually need to work on and have experience in. And so a few years into my career, I decided that the mental health aspect was something that I really wanted to concentrate on. And so I sought a role in forensic counseling. And I used that as well as doing some outside private practice work and then I applied for my accreditation.

And what counts as a mental health setting? You say you need two years in order to apply for the accreditation, but social work is so broad that you might not be working in a mental health setting. How do you apply those skills? How do you demonstrate that you've still got the capacity? That's such an excellent question because it's a really big thing that's being debated among social workers at the moment what constitutes a mental health setting because arguably all social workers engage in mental health support. So the AAASW require social workers to be doing

the majority of their work needs to be mental health intervention. So whilst you might work as a caseworker and of course when you're working in casework you're doing that sort of ongoing mental health support, you may not be engaging in direction. You may not be engaging in direct. intervention, you may be making those referrals out. And so that would not be considered enough to be able to apply for your accreditation. You need to be able to say you're sitting down engaging in mental health interventions and delivering focus psychological strategies, which is the requirement of the Medicare benefit scheme that we can show that we do that. Okay, but it sounds like there are people out there. There are networks that you can tap into

if you're unsure about whether you meet the criteria? Oh, absolutely. There are lots of places that you can speak to people. The AAASW has a lot of information on their website. I have a Facebook page that supports people that are applying for their accreditation. And that's called becoming a mental health social worker. So anybody can join in with that. I think one of the interesting things that I found is that a lot of roles these days have the word

therapeutic in them. And when you're applying for your accreditation, if you aren't able to say, yes, I was sitting down engaging in CBT or motivational interviewing or I was doing psychoed, which arguably again, social workers are doing psychoeducation all the time, then it is going to be difficult to get your accreditation. So that's really an area that I think people need to concentrate on when they're thinking of applying it. Your career planning really needs to be directly around delivering and type services. And is it a requirement of maintaining that accreditation that you have appropriate therapeutic support and supervision? Because I assume once you're in those roles and you're taking on a little bit more responsibility, I feel like

you need that extra level of support and hopefully what the accreditation does is safeguard you and help you to, or at least prompt you to think maybe I need to be investing a little bit more in this supervision or this professional support. Oh, absolutely. Yes, you're required to have 10 hours a year and 30 hours of DPD. It's recently changed. So it may be 20 hours. I'm sorry, I always stick to the full 50. So I do lots of training every year. I also do peer supervision and I have my own supervisor, and we must meet those requirements in order to remain accredited, and that all has to be documented and submitted on a yearly basis. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's fantastic, because a lot of what I'm hearing from other social workers is that there needs to be a more robust system for registration across the board. But it sounds like in the mental health setting, at least, they've made it a little bit more structured and a little bit easier for you to guide your career, in that sense. So you've got a little bit more backing and a little bit more integrity around the work that you're doing and it can be recognised as such. Yes, and it is a really specialised area and it does take its toll. A lot of the time social workers who become accredited mental health social workers go into private practice and a lot of the time you're on your own in that

practice setting. So sometimes you might join a multidisciplinary clinic and you've got lots of other people there. But if you're seeing five, six, five, six, seven clients a day, it's actually quite taxing work, particularly if, like me, you specialising trauma, then you're working in a level of vigilance the entire time you're wanting to keep your client safe, but it's critical that you also keep yourself safe. So like I said, for me personally, I have peer supervision on a fortnightly basis, and I also have monthly supervision. And I also provide supervision to social workers and I think that that is an area that we really need to concentrate on more is really valuing how important social work supervision is to everybody really from

fourth year placement right through to fully experience long-term social workers need to provision. Yeah, I've read some of your work on self-care and I like how you put it in that a lot of times people can get more stressed or find that self-care creates more work for them. And what you've proposed instead is that we reformulate the idea of it and say we're allowing kindness. I think that's really important because a lot of organizing the time or the space or the effort or even financially, it's really difficult to make that space. I think even also if there's something that you need to do on a personal level or a professional

level that is harder or you might say it's more in terms of work. It takes more resources, finding room for mindfulness. So completing those tasks and doing that work, but finding meaning within that work and trying to see that there is value or purpose to doing it. And it doesn't have to be on a professional level. It can be social or just going for a walk. But while you're completing that activity, just finding that room to be mindful. How does that work for? How does that work for you then professionally in terms of allowing kindness? Well, I think one of the things that can happen for us, if you're a mental health social worker or any kind of social worker, really,

is that we tend to get caught up in the helpiness of our profession. And sometimes when clients come back to us and say, gosh, you really helped me or thank you for that, we can, sometimes we don't pause. and when you pause in that moment and accept that kindness that another person is showing you, allowing that in, I think it can help feel you back up again. So again, it's not about trying to kind of add self-care to your list. It's about, okay, those small moments that sit throughout the day are really important to fill you back up again. So when a client says thank you, and I know I've done it myself and really wanted to it,

knowledge to the client, the extraordinary work that they've done. And then when they come back to me and say, well, you've really helped me in that. You know, sometimes it can be difficult to say, oh, well, you're welcome. You sort of go, oh, no, no, it wasn't me. It was you. Yeah, yeah. Or it's my job. That's what I do. Yeah. I think we minimize the impact that we have. Yeah, exactly. So, and I think, you know, I practice what I preach. So there will be, when I'll be working with clients about breathing and I do that as well. I will stop and take a breath in between clients and, you know, even if it's five minutes, it's so important to do.

Yeah. And it sounds as though your workload is quite diverse. You've kind of got your fingers in many pies, but what would you say your current role looks like, your current work, and what would a typical day look like? Yeah, a typical day. I think most social workers would say typical day. So I guess, yeah, my practice is spread across seeing counselling clients as well as supporting other professionals.

So I would go into my clinic and I would see, I usually see about six clients a day. And part of my allowing kindness to myself is to be very clear about. my breaks. So I do 50-minute sessions. I don't do back-to-back every hour. I have those 50 minutes, 10 minutes for notes and a breath. And so each day I will go in and I make sure that I prepare. So I go through the notes and I have my files available. And then I sit with my clients. And so some days it can be harder because people go into crisis. And during COVID, the lockdown was quite difficult because all of my sessions were conducted on Zoom and children do not respond well to therapy on Zoom and so I had to be very creative as well as being able to watch for any shifts

and nuances in people's movements which is as everybody who has now gone through lockdown knows that that can be quite difficult so now that I'm back in the clinic my days involve support people through COVID, everybody mentions COVID, as well as supporting people in whatever's going on for them at the moment. And do you find that people are still adjusting to the idea of face-to-face? Are they still uncomfortable with that? Or do you find some people are really wanting that social contact and are really jumping at the opportunity to come in person? Or are some still happy with the virtual therapy? I think for me, most of my clients have preferred to be able to come in face to face.

Having said that, though, there are some of my clients who have found it incredibly helpful to be able to work online. And so if they have small children who may be at home for whatever reason, or perhaps they don't feel that they can bring themselves to come into the clinic, People are really struggling. Instead of missing out on their appointment, we can do it via Zoom and they still get to have that contact even though it may not be in person. And I really think that that's an important service that we need to be able to offer

moving void. If somebody is very stuck in their anxiety or their depression, it can be just extraordinarily difficult to leave the house. But this gives people the option to still engage therapeutic. And I think that that's really important. Was that a service that you did offer before COVID? Or is it something that everyone's just kind of gotten used to because of necessity? Sure.

It actually wasn't a service I offered. And there's a couple of reasons for that. One, because it didn't occur to me to offer it. And two, because I'm not in a rural and remote area. So as an accredited mental health social worker, I am part of the Medicare Benefits scheme. and my clients close by and did not fall into the criteria of being able to get a rebate under Medicare. So most people being able to access mental health services, they really, it's important to them to be able to access the rebate. And so we weren't allowed to do that, but that changed under COVID and it's a really positive and important change.

So I imagine there are a lot of people who are getting support under a mental health plan through their GP. but are you supporting people who have, say, NDIS funding or given that you work with younger people predominantly, probably not workers insurance, but other sorts of disability support agencies? At the moment, I occasionally see people with an NDIS plan and I'm able to do that. I also see people under EAP plans and I was seeing victim services as well. but at the moment, I think pretty much like every other mental health clinician in the country, my books are really full. And so I try and balance out where I take my referrals from just to be able to reach as many people as possible

because it's awful to have a situation where someone says, well, I need support that I can't get in until February. So I try and be as flexible as I can. And I'm lucky to have clinicians that I know around the place that we're. we can do cross referrals, which I think is really positive. Do you have much of an opportunity to work with other disciplines, people from other practice backgrounds? Oh, absolutely.

I mean, in my own clinic, I have some people from counselling backgrounds that do some work a couple of days a week, and I have psychiatrists and psychologists that I work with. I really like to have a team-based approach, and so some people will come to me for the first, six appointments and that's the work that they want to do. They've got a plan. They've got a goal in mind and that's fantastic. And then other people will come to me and they notice that they

move into a crisis space, which was probably going to happen anyway. And then I call on a team. So it might be psychiatrists. It might be a clean psych around. It just depends. The most important thing is to be able to support the client and sometimes that can't be done by a single practitioner, that irrespective of what your background is. It's great that you don't have to work in silo, though. You can draw on different experience and people with different perspectives. So it's nice that you've got that opportunity. Yeah, absolutely.

I really like to be able to do that. And I think it best serves our clients if we're able to offer a team response. And like I said, it's not always something that a client is after, but I'm very open to collaborative work and cross-referral. And that's, yeah, that's a really important way of practicing for me. That makes sense. Other than the impact of COVID and having to adapt, what would you say is the most challenging aspect of the work you do?

I think the most challenging aspect for any private practitioner is going to be the fact that you work on your own. So there may be days when I can't access my peer group in the moment. I can actually access them. We've set it up so we can access each other, you know, every day if we need to. But in that moment where you may walk to the kitchen and get a coffee, my kitchen is just my kitchen. So there's no one else around. So that can be a bit of a challenge.

But the work that I actually do, I love it. I am so, so grateful that I get to engage in this mental health work. And I guess I also like the fact that I do other work besides direct counselling work, which kind of gives me a really broad range of interesting and diverse clients to work with. But being in private practice, the other really major challenge is adding. Yeah. I think that's the case most places. And I think for any social worker ever,

notes are, you know, everybody always finds that a little bit of a challenge. So, yeah. But I guess having a legal background, you would appreciate probably more than most the importance of keeping good notes and the importance of making sure that everything's documented and that, I mean, have there been cases where you've been subpoenaed or people have had to come back and you've really had to rely on those good notes that you've taken? Yes, I think the notes is an interesting one. I think you need to take notes that I don't think you need to write a novel. And from a legal background, you do write novels. And so I really needed to adjust that because, yes, I have been subpoenaed lots of times.

And unless in counselling, I really am very clear about whether or not I will release my notes. Most of the time, the subpoenas will accept a report, but the notes are very important to keep in terms of what the client's diagnosis is, what you're working on, what the goals are. But you don't need to write sessions down verbatim because in any kind of situation, stuff that's written down can be taken out of context. and we want to make sure that our clients feel safe. The counselling space needs to be safe. Obviously, I always set up limits to confidentiality.

But it's the same in the supervision space. People need to be safe. And so if you're taking so many notes that, you know, it's pages and pages and pages, that can sometimes feel unsafe people. Also, I think if you're taking that many notes in a session, it's more challenging to engage. Oh, absolutely. you're just not picking up on the cues as your eyes are kind of going up and down.

So, yeah, it's finding that balance, I think. And with experience, I imagine that's come a little bit more easily to you. Oh, absolutely. And that's exactly what it is. It's about experience. So, you know, I've worked with various supervisors over the years, and not one of them has said, keep more notes. Therefore, it's been very supportive and diplomatic in the ways in which I can

concise notes that show and support the client's goals and the treatment plan, but don't kind of turn into a novella. Yeah, I think we always want to record more just because we capture so much information in what we do and what we say, and we often think personally that that's really important and really interesting. But again, fit for purpose. So what are you writing this report about? What's the purpose?

Who's the audience? just kind of fighting that battle and figuring out what's the most appropriate thing. Are you talking to a doctor who wants half a sentence and that's all they've got time for? So, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And certainly as part of, you know, when you're part of the Medicare benefits scheme, you do need to write back to the doctors. They are not going to read a two-page report.

They just don't have time to do it. That's right. And what would you say you love most about the work that you do? Oh, the clients. They have been extraordinarily gifted to be given these amazing gifts to walk alongside clients throughout their recovery, to be trusted by people who are feeling very vulnerable, who will come and sit by me and allow me to be part of that with them. The stories that I have heard, and I consider myself privileged to have heard those stories,

have just been so extraordinary. And I have deep gratitude for every person who trusts me enough to help them because I feel really strongly about being able to provide mental health support. I think that mental health support really needs to continue to be destigmatized. I think through COVID there's a lot less stigma. But just being able to sit amongst clients from all kinds of different experiences and backgrounds and support them through whatever they're going through. I'm incredibly grateful I can't state that strongly enough.

Yeah. Have you seen many changes specifically with the accredited mental health social work program or how it's run or even just the work that you do? Have you seen any changes in this field over time? I think I have. I haven't seen as many changes as I would like. I think a lot of the time there's still a leaning towards the medical model. And I think we really need to approach people from the standpoint of what's happened to you,

not what's wrong with you. And, you know, I have a joke with more than one of my clients that we check the room for my magic wand, which, of course, does not exist. And, you know, and I say to people, you're not broken. it's not about you being broken so I can't fix you it's about you needing support that's all it is and so I think if we you know sometimes I sit with people and I'll do some psychoed and I'll talk to them about trauma and how trauma works and you see this relief come over their face like okay I'm not crazy which is a word that's bandied about you know way too much people feel real relief over that so I think

some of the changes have been around more of a shift to a trauma-informed model, which I think fits everybody everywhere. And I think with regard to the mental health social worker program, it has recently shifted again to have a more stringent process. This has not sat well with some social workers because it sort of seems a little bit that it sits outside what we do as social workers. and I certainly understand that an exam process can feel really difficult and stressful. However, becoming an accredited mental health social worker for the purposes of being able to meet the requirements of the Medicare benefit scheme means that we need to meet certain standards.

And so whilst you may be doing assessment and safety planning and support with clients, you also need to be able to speak to the language. that is used in the broader profession. And so that can be very difficult for a lot of social workers. And I completely understand it. I found it difficult myself. That's why I started a group to support people going through it because I will absolutely admit that I struggled. And I couldn't find any support, right?

And so it can be really tricky. But once you have your accreditation, then you know how to write what the doctors need. You know how to respond to a referral and you know how to meet the requirements. That might not be something that you have had experience with prior to going through that process. I think it's so important that you acknowledge that people are not broken, that it's really the system and the hoops that they've had to jump through just to get to that point. they've probably had 20 people tell them that there's something wrong with them.

And even if you're specifically supporting people who have a mental health diagnosis, it's really hard to do any early intervention stuff. You're already dealing with someone who's being diagnosed with a mental illness and trying to step back from that and rewind. It must be really challenging for some people because they're already quite entrenched in that system. Oh, absolutely. And then when you sit with a person and say, well, let's have a talk about what happened to you. Let's have a talk about, and you sit and acknowledge and say, gosh, that must be really difficult for you.

Rather than, oh, well, that means you meet the criteria for depression. So, you know, or explain that sometimes I think one of the things that comes up a lot is around perfectionism. and people not understanding, well, actually that sounds like it may come from anxiety. Or anxiety, what do you mean? And it can be a relief for people sometimes to just to talk about all of these things are really normal and in you, this is how they've manifested. So this is what we can do to maybe support you. And I really encourage people to tell me if I'm getting it wrong.

I consider myself a specialist in the area that I work in, but I'm not the expert. The client is the expert. You know, so I'll say, if I'm wrong, it's okay to tell me. I'm not going to argue with you. We'll find a way that works for you. You think I'm getting it wrong. You've already mentioned an area of the social work practice that doesn't interest you. What other types of social work practice have you considered?

and where could the work that you're doing now potentially take you in the future? The other area I'm really interested in is trauma-informed leadership. So I also run a leadership program, which is either one-to-one, which it has been at the moment because of COVID, it's been one-to-one and via Zoom, but there's also the capacity to run it in a group. And that comes at leadership from we use attachment, we look at what trauma is, we look at the ways in which people operate together in a space, and we look at how to be a leader without being a dictator for one of a better term.

And that's an area that really interests me because I think that if you're working in any kind of organisation, if you're trauma-informed, not only do you support all of your staff, but you're providing a better service. It actually doesn't matter what you do. It doesn't matter if you're in manufacturing and the service that you're providing is, you know, making things and sending them out. If you treat your stuff from a trauma-informed perspective,

then what you're actually doing is understanding that each person operates in the world in a very different way. So we have lots of perspectives that come together. And I think being trauma-informed in all, aspects of what we do promotes community and support. Yeah. Are there any particular projects or programs that you're working on at the moment that are either unique or interesting to you that you'd like to mention?

Wow. I just talked about my trauma-informed leadership. So I'm very passionate about that. And that's an area that I think is really important and can be really my goal would be to make every single organization trauma informed. And I think the other work that I'm really concentrating on at the moment is my supervision for social workers wanting to become accredited as mental health social workers. I find that social workers are just so keen to help and be out there and promote justice

and equality. And sometimes they get a little bit stuck when it comes to the approach. preditation process and that's something that I want to support people. How can people find out more about that? So there is my Facebook page, which is becoming an AMHSW. And they can contact me at Willow Tree Well-Being or at Ashton Hayes Consulting. And it sounds as though you've, in the course of your work, completed other training in, say, leadership or group work.

Is there anything specific that you would recommend to someone or anywhere they should go if they're wanting to know more about that? Yeah, absolutely. So in terms of leadership, I can't recommend Brené Brown highly enough. I mean, a lot of social workers already know about her because she too is a social worker. But she has a great podcast for unlocking us. And she has also just started a leadership podcast. So I highly, highly recommend that. If you're also wanting to know about creative leadership,

and I recommend the Apple TV show called Ted Lassau, apart from the fact that it's a fantastic and very amusing TV show, the main character in that has such lovely leadership qualities. I can highly recommend that. And I guess in terms of trauma, if you've seen that any trauma stuff, Bruce Perry, Janina Fisher, Dan Hughes, Dan Siegel is fantastic. He has a website where he's got a group together all over the world so you can join in this

group support that he's been doing through COVID and he's incredibly experienced and intelligent and very kind in the way that he works. So I highly recommend him as well. Wonderful. I'm glad you've also chosen some different types of media. So if someone's wanting to invest but not needing to read something, for instance, they can watch something or they can listen to something. So that's wonderful.

And I'll get some resources together and put them in the show notes so people can have them at their fingertips if they want to go and do a bit more reading or viewing or listening. Yeah, absolutely. I strongly recommend podcasts. Well, I'm slightly biased, but I think they could. And I listen to Bradne Brown's podcast as well. And yeah, there's quite a lot of good stuff out there. And I think you can combine mindfulness with,

education. You can go for a walk and you can be listening to something at the same time. So I think as social workers, we're probably maybe too much at the time we focus on multitasking. But I think that's one way that we can very easily multitask and still kind of take things in and practice a little bit of that allowing kindness that you've mentioned before. Yeah, absolutely. Is there anything else that you would like to say to people out there listening, whether it's about the work that you do or even the field of social work or things that they might like to develop further knowledge in if this is a type of work that they're wanting to progress into.

Yeah, sure. I just think that with social work, the beauty of it is that it's such a broad space to work in. So you can do policy work, you can do face-to-face work, you can be a mental health clinician like I am, there are so many career opportunities in that area and it's something that you can build upon. So if you're interested in a really diverse, often challenging but also often rewarding career, then social work is a really great place to start. And you may not always work in the field of social work, but it's such a great jumping off point, I think. Yeah. I think you've really found where you belong. It seems like a really good fit with your individual approach and your perspective

and even just saying things like your privilege to be part of someone's story and to hear their diverse experiences and supporting them where they're at with what they need and helping them guide your work that you do, I think is really empowering for them. And it must be something that you feel like, as you said, you're contributing. You're feeling like you're giving to someone, on a professional level, but social work is obviously one of those things where you feel like you can finish work at the end of the day and know that you've done good. Yeah, I think it's tough sometimes, but I think we've got a great community,

join any number of the social work pages out there. And you see a meme that's posted that is so 100% talking about how many tabs you have open at any one time or talking about, you know, can we get our notes done. I think it's great community. I'm drawn to community and I really feel like from the moment I started my social studies, I felt like I found my people. It's been so lovely chatting with you, Ashton. Thank you so much for your time.

I've loved meeting you, having that opportunity, but also being able to chat about your diverse experience and what makes you tick, what drives you and your work. And I'm sure other people will very much benefit from hearing about it as well. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a really great experience. Thank you for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Ashton,

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 Vanessa, who works in the Blue Not Foundation's National Counseling and Referral Service,

supporting the Disability Royal Commission and COVID-19 Disability Information Support Line. Vanessa has practiced as a social worker in the disability, employment, age care and organisational psychology fields, as well as for Centrelink officers in the Northern Territory. Due to her strong interest in policy practice, analysis, writing and research, she was also previously a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers' National Social Policy Committee and has more recently engaged in a number of advocacy activities in the sexual assault field. 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.