Social Work Spotlight - Episode 23: Vanessa

Episode Date: February 5, 2021

In this episode I speak with Vanessa, who works for The Blue Knot Foundation’s National Counselling & Referral Service supporting The Disability Royal Commission & COVID19 Disability Information Support Line. Vanessa has practised as a social worker in the disability, employment, aged care and organisational psychology fields, as well as for Centrelink offices in Darwin and Alice Springs, which serve a largely Indigenous population. 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.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KJ85IUELJByGVH3Y5NXnajkbvFsRWc0DdYDHfcmF2sE/edit?usp=sharingThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/19-p5FH_z91UoDm3_kVIe2B1aBKmdf4UDrbUsukplxZc/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, Yasamine McKee Wright, and today's guest is Vanessa. Vanessa works for the Blue Knot 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, aged care and organizational psychology fields, as well as for Centrelink officers in Darwin and Alice Springs, which serve a largely indigenous population. 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. Thank you, Vanessa, so much for coming on to the podcast. very, very happy that you could join me and very excited to hear about your experience to date. Yeah, thank you for having me. Can you tell me when you started as a social worker and what drew you to the profession? I think I started practicing 2012. So I took kind of a long route to social work. So out of school, I did a Bachelor of Media and then ended up working as a legal secretary for like 10 years.

between Sydney and London and ended up finding no work, new when the global financial crisis came. Right. And then I decided I want to study a new, something new, but a new profession. And I gave myself the choice of law or social work because I wanted to help people and I decided to go with social work and have a look back really. I wish I'd thought of it out of school, but never mind. And it's a bit like a theory of everything, I think. Social work. I like that.

It's kind of a mix of psychology, sociology, counseling, advocacy, politics. And there's a lot of different jobs you can do as well for social work degrees. Yeah, that's pretty consistent with, I guess, my experience and the experience of a lot of people that I've spoken with is they actually had no idea what social work was. They hadn't been exposed to the profession. and they just thought that sounds good, I guess.

I guess I'll do that. And, yeah, I mean, for most people, it ends up being exactly right for them. But do you feel as though there's any part of your media qualifications or your legal assistance that's come in handy? Yes, like certainly around understanding a bit about, you know, policy and the political side of things, talking to different people. and I guess the media side kind of ties in with the linguistics part of definitely been able to use.

That kind of idea of reappropriating identities and language and stuff like that as a social worker helped the kind of linguistic stuff. And of course, with report writing and things like that, I think it's maybe you've made it a bit easier. Yeah, I guess you'd learn to be really concise having the legal background. I have to work when I think being concise. I could be a bit flowery in my writing, so I have to, yeah. I think it's a social work skill, isn't it?

Like actually being able to summarize things in a concise way, but still capture the whole. Yes, I still working on that. But sorry. And I guess also tailoring whatever you're writing to the audience, which I would assume a lot of other professors. wouldn't take into account. Yeah, I think with report writing, I was always taught probably like a lot of social workers,

write as if the client's going to read what you've written. But also make sure it's, you know, meeting professional standards, organizational, standards and policy and stuff, because particularly having work for government before, you never know. Some Senate committee may get their hands on your report

and you want it to represent not just the organisation, but your profession well. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. And how did you end up in the UK? Tell me about that story. Yes, I did an immediate degree and then ended up doing this legal secretary staff and then realised that could, you know, pay quite well for a working holiday in London.

So I did that, but ended up being kind of 10 years back and forward. because I really loved it over there. Yeah. And then ended up going back and after I had my social work degree and getting, you know, registered as a social worker, which takes a long time. So I know a lot of people in Australia are quite passionate about getting social workers a registered profession and there's, you know, ethical reasons.

But in terms of the bureaucratic side, it's expensive and laborious. all those things. But yes, I worked with older people in London who were like vulnerable adults who'd been in hospital and were at risk of re-hospitalisation. So helping them with this like free six-week rehab. So, you know, doing a needs assessment and then coming back seeing how people were doing and then seeing if they would be handed over to a community team. That was interesting.

I think my average client was about 80. And they were, yeah, they were really spirited, interesting, like, very sort of kind-hearted and fun client group. Yeah, sounds like you got a lot out of that. Yeah, it was interesting and I enjoyed it, although it was very kind of much more kind of statutory social work, not quite as therapeutic in some ways than a lot of Australian social work. So I found that interesting, but I think I'm. prefer a more therapeutic kind of practice generally. Yeah. It sounds very similar to our transitional age care program,

except ours is a 12-week program for people coming out of hospital that might have had a fall or an illness. And it's really, as you said, designed to reduce the likelihood of readmission, but help them to be a bit more connected with other services in the community. So maybe that's a testament to our system that we give them a little bit longer. Yeah. It's a pretty hard system and you can come up with different outcomes. It sounds terrible, but if you use the right words, if you know what is available and can be accessed and a lot of people play down, don't they, their needs. But in that aged care system and NDIS, that can work

against you, I think. I guess that's a really concrete example of how obvious it is. that if people aren't familiar with the systems or aren't confident or don't have that agency to manage things by themselves that they really get stuck. And if a social worker is having difficulty with it, then, you know, how is anyone else supposed to without an advocate? Yeah, absolutely. There's some really hard systems to manoeuvre out there. And I think age care in Australia is definitely one.

and the money side as well, I guess, because in England, well, everyone has a right to social needs assessment, essentially, not necessarily a service, but many do get it. Reasonable portion can get it for free, and the service offer is bigger, I think, than what we have here, like in Australia. In terms of the range of services? Yeah, what they can provide in terms of. aids and equipment, changes to the home. Yeah, all sorts, I guess, is far and above, like, what we have here. Yeah, well, that was my experience. Yeah, and what is your current role? What are

you doing at the moment? And what would a typical day working for Blue Knot be like for you? I've been working, like, as a trauma counselor, supporting people involved with the Disability Royal Commission into violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation of people. with disability and also people with disabilities who've been views generally and also people with disability who've been particularly affected by COVID. Providing that kind of stage one complex trauma counselling help, there's stuff around safety and stabilisation. So helping people in that area. and then if people are interested referring them for ongoing counselling, like in their communities or perhaps for advocacy help or legal help

if they want to make a submission to the Royal Commission. We don't have sort of appointments. The service I work for provides up to an hour of counselling a week, whether that's one, one-hour call or three, 20-minute calls. and it's a call-in service weekdays and weekends and yeah kind of going with what people bring us, I guess, yeah. Yeah, is that a state-based service or is it nationwide? Yeah, it's nationwide. So if people want ongoing counselling, that's generally offered, you know, you have to find what's being offered in which state kind of to refer on and same with advocacy and that kind of stuff.

But, yeah, our service is national. Okay. And for people who aren't familiar with it, are you able to explain very briefly the background to the Disability Royal Commission, like at scope and aims and findings? Yeah. So the Disability Royal Commission's been going for about a year now. I think it's supposed to go for another two years,

but they've just had the first interim report come out. and I believe they're asking for even another two years because the commissioners are realizing there is a lot of abuse, neglect and exploitation happening to disabled people in many different sectors, walks of life and so I think the aim of the Royal Commission is to get an understanding from people with disabilities who've been abused to find out where that's happening,

what's happening, trying to positively change that based on the UN has a declaration. The declaration on the rights of people with disabilities. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, so following the principles in that, trying to make sure Australia and Australian services are in line. With that, so there's a lot of stories coming forward from people. There's the definition of disability for the Royal Commission

is it's not very prescriptive, which I think is a good thing. So if you identify as disabled, sometimes they put out white papers to get information on certain things. For instance, people with disabilities experience of COVID, and they put out some findings on that to the extent that it's seen that the government really hadn't done a lot of planning for people with disabilities in particular when dealing with COVID and restrictions and things like that. It's certainly something I've found quite confronting and distressing to hear people have been going without services,

sometimes going without food for, you know, seven, eight, nine days because the NDIS service provider or the person who turns up at their home, their carer isn't coming, and they had no way to, you know, access food and things like that. It's been not something I expected when I sort of started this work. And having to sort of routinely ask that question, you know, do you have access to food? Shouldn't be something you have to ask.

Yeah, in sort of, you know, a nationwide Australian counselling support line. Yeah, it's been quite concerning. And it is hard to deal with people's, you know, safety needs when you know their physiological needs might not be getting met. They've put out one paper, I think, of findings, but it's quite a lot going on. They've found that people's intellectual disabilities have a really hard time in primary health, like in hospitals and things like that, in getting good communication around their needs and not only hospitals, but I guess generally they've found that and, you know,

abuse in healthcare and hoop homes, things like that. but also significant issues around the use of chemical restraint for people with mental health as, you know, their primary disability. That's kind of a big one. If there are people that have been abused, how do you find out about that other than you might have a whistleblower or you might have a family member or the person themselves might come to you and say, this has happened to me, what do I do? How else might you find out about something if it's not firsthand? And people come to us either directly because they've heard about us or they might have been referred by their disability royal commission, you know, the hotline there or something, being identified as people who might need some, you know, emotional support, counseling, support. But often people self-identifying, they've been abused or perhaps they're a worker in the industry who have been whistleblowers or wish to report things they've seen and be involved. in the Royal Commission.

Or in family members, of course. Yeah, sometimes make contact because they're making a submission or supporting someone with the submission or have been traumatised as well by things they've seen. And do they have access as family members to some of that support? Yeah, so people with disabilities themselves

and also family members and, you know, people who work in the industry also can access at this kind of supportive counselling. And sometimes we get advocates and people like that who are probably doing quite similar work to social workers in the disability field, but don't necessarily get professional supervision. So they're kind of looking for that,

a bit of debrief and support around the work that they do, which is really important that advocacy work. And do you have other disciplines working in your team, or is it mainly social workers? Yeah, we have psychologists and counsellors. Yeah, so we've got the three. Yeah, and all with very different backgrounds and levels of experience, I imagine. Yeah, it's an interesting and collaborative team.

And, yeah, I do value that people bring different experiences. Like everyone's worked with trauma before, but maybe not necessarily with people with disabilities. or, you know, bring maybe experience from working with, you know, with refugees or with people with disabilities or maybe supporting people with, you know, affected by domestic and family violence, that kind of trauma. Yeah, so it's interesting mix. Yeah, but the skills are obviously transferable across the different areas. Yeah, and my workplace, like, focuses on helping people.

who've experienced complex trauma, not necessarily PTSD, but more like C-P-T-SD, which is, I think it's going to get in the DSM soon. Complex trauma or many kind of traumas that can give you post-traumatic stress have a, you know, cumulative effect and to create complex PTSD. But also if they're starting in childhood, then there's that kind of developmental trauma side. you can work across different kinds of trauma. Yeah. And you mentioned that there is weekend access to the support as well.

Does that mean you have to work weekends or after hours? Yeah. So most people in the team might work, say, one or two weekend days a month. And, you know, I quite like working weekends. So I suppose I didn't think that I would. But yeah, and it's good because, a lot of other services aren't available then unless they're the 24-hour ones. So it can be, you know, give people a chance to reach out when maybe they can't

midweek or in those nine to six kind of span of hours in the week. And given that the work that you do and the stories and experiences of abuse that you're hearing are often quite confronting, how do you hold that and process that? What does your self-care look like, especially if you're working on a weekend where you might not have as much or immediate access to support within your team? Yeah, even working from home, we do have a good sort of system of supporting each other as colleagues, you know, in the first instance, like checking in with each other and being available for a bit of a debrief if any of us need it. And then we have formal individual supervision. And we also have group supervision once a month as well. So that's probably the first place I've actually had that reliably, you know, every month.

So that's been really good. And in terms of self-care, I like just going away on like little trips to the country or find someone on the map about two-hour drive away. and go and have a little sort of weekend away and read my book and, you know, talk to the cows or listen to the cows and, you know, go and sort of be in nature for a bit. So that's probably one of my main kind of self-care things. That's amazing. Yeah. I think a lot of cows are quite mindful.

If you think about how they're eating, they're just so methodical and just taking their time. Yeah. There's this place I go to in Sutton Forest, and it used to be like the old governor's residence or something. It was on this kind of big farmland, these beautiful trees and lovely view, and you get your little cottage, and it's like, you know, Victorian kind of style, and you go outside. And if it's midweek and there's no one else there, you cannot hear anything. And it's like, oh, this is like heaven.

Like it's just kind of a buzz of nature, but yeah, I like it's just kind of a buzz of nature. But yeah, I like that. You can't even hear cars or anything and it's good. Yeah. So the cows, like you can hear them sometimes at night and so often. It's like, oh, it's a cow. But, yeah, very different for the life in Sydney. Very different pace.

Yeah, yeah. It's weird like I go around and there's this beautiful gardens new there in Sutton Forest. There's like red cow farm and these two guys in their seven. And he's created it over the last 25 years and it's just magical and every time you go it looks different. And they're still working on it. So, yeah, I guess little retreats. Can't recommend it enough.

It sounds perfect. Although now you've told everyone about it, you'll never be able to get in. Yeah, well, I think they're probably almost sick of me visiting so often, but become a bit of the furniture. But that's okay. We'll have to give you a commission. Yeah, Hillview Heritage Hotel, you know, just give them a... It's a little plug. Yeah, it's beautiful.

So, yeah, so self-care and... Yeah, I like being out in nature, like going for a walk in the National Parks, stuff like that, taking photos and little things like that. It is important to keep up the self-care. And I think to talk things through, whether that's a debrief, yeah, whether with... you know, your peers or my work's pretty good. You can contact one of the senior counsellors and ask for a bit of a debrief, you know, something's particularly kind of concerning you or sitting with you and plenty of supervision, which I think is healthy, this kind of work.

Yeah, yeah. So if you're working, I can imagine working over the phone with someone would be quite challenging. if you've got someone who's quite distressed or quite at risk and you're trying to safeguard them to the best of your ability, that would be quite challenging if you're not there face to face with them. It'd be harder to make plans and just check that they're going to be safe and do little risk assessments. But do you have some sort of a system? You said you can reach out to your peers or your team leaders, but I know other organizations have things like a blue card system where you can kind of flag

that you're having a difficult conversation with someone and you might need someone to look up notes or do something else for you while that's all happening. Is that something that's available to you? Yeah, we have like, well, since we've been working from home, we've probably been using Microsoft teams a lot more. So you can pretty much contact, yeah, the whole team, everyone working the same shift or you can contact individuals on there while you're on a call. I've been doing phone counselling over five years now and you'd be surprised if you're probably done more face-to-face. You can actually get quite a lot on the phone and I think unlike a kind of booked face-to-face appointment, you can really get with these sort of incoming phone lines. Contact with a person at their point of crisis. In that,

moment in time when they really need help and people will discuss their suicidal thoughts and things like that and you can risk assess you know as you normally would and if there's plans and stuff you can reach out to you know emergency services as appropriate yeah not in this workplace but in the previous workplace had someone yeah who told me they had a rope and were just waiting to find a good tree and yeah I contacted police they got there and the guy had the rope in his hands and yeah so he was several hours away physically because that was a national phone line as well I find the hard part sometimes can be kind of wrangling the emergency services to to get there and kind of it's that rude to say take it seriously sometimes but yeah sometimes they're kind of

yeah I don't know if they always pick it seriously straight away but maybe they get a lot of calls I mean, I don't know what their work is like. But, yeah, I think it is effective, the phone, and you can still intervene and, yeah, help save someone's life. What would you say is the thing you love most about the work that you're doing, other than the fact that you get to save people's lives? That's pretty phenomenal. Oh, yeah, I guess it's that kind of what counseling is it based,

like getting to help people feel emotionally better in, in some way. So, yeah, people who've been traumatised and abused and things like that can be very distressed. So if you're able to help them with that safety and stabilization work to become less kind of distressed or dysregulated or maybe a bit more hopeful about the possibility of recovery when they've experienced trauma or abuse, yeah, that's a real. rewarding, I think. Yeah, and I suppose it's all social work, all counselling, the right word at the right time. Yeah, you can, I guess, brighten someone's day or, yeah, turn things around.

Help people turn things around for themselves, I guess. Given that it's quite a unique area of work and you've developed quite a broad skill set, are there any other kinds of social work that you might want to go into in future based on what you've developed expertise in now? So for a couple of years, I was part of the National Social Policy Committee for the ASW, so reviewing and or writing policy statements from a social work perspective. So that was a voluntary position. I did it for a couple of years, but I really enjoyed that because it's that opportunity

to help people on a large scale, right? rather than kind of, you know, one by one, like you might have in more direct practice. So getting into kind of policy work again, I think I'd enjoy that. And I have used some of that experience from that ESW, like to kind of influence policy and politicians in a kind of practical way at time. So, yeah, I would like to do some more of that and use some more of my writing schools and maybe some of the experience I've gained, whether it's working with complete extraoma people with disabilities now or having worked previously with a large indigenous

population in Alice Springs like earlier in my career as a social worker for Centrelink kind of knowledge I gained from clients. Use that in a positive sense maybe towards like strategic policy kind of work. How long were you in Alice Springs for? I think it was a bit over a year And then I went up to Darwin for a few months and then ended up coming home and working on the national phone line, kind of outposted, like for family reasons from Darwin, but Sydney in Sydney. Yeah, so I learn a lot from the clients there. I mean, you can sort of never stop learning from our First Nations people, I think. Probably a lot of us have a lot to learn. Yeah, really, well, I learnt more than I learned in uni, I think, a year in Alice Springs.

I feel like the social work degree sets you up for just a very basic understanding of how things work and what you can contribute. And then you're just going to learn so much from getting out there. And that's probably why the placements that we complete at uni are so integral in terms of developing the skills and the confidence and actually translating these theoretical. underpinnings to a practical scenario. Yeah, I mean, definitely one thing. Like, I found it probably a little bit daunting on one side that, you know, you haven't finished your degree, but you're essentially working in the area. But on the other hand, you're like, actually, I know I can do this and I enjoy it

from being on a placement. Although you are a student and, you know, represent yourself as such, you know, you'll be working with someone. But I suppose the hard thing around that is often placements are unpaid, aren't they? So it's a real sort of access issue. Can people afford to do unpaid placements? So I remember my first placement, my first field placement I did at Centrelink as a student social worker. And I was on OSTADY and they cut off my OSTADY payments.

And I was in their office like working as a student social worker. And I was like, wow, I really understand where people get. get mad with this place. Yeah. So how did you coordinate that? Well, I had to sort of get on the phone in my breaks and, yeah, communicate on the phone with XYZ team. You know, actually I am studying and I'm, you know, doing a field placement in one

of your offices. Like, yeah, it was, it was funny. Hi, guys. I'm contributing to your workforce here. For free. And, you know, it would be good if I can get 180 bucks, you know. a week or whatever it was. That's the last thing you needed when you're already dressed about working full-time

and having to focus so much on your placement. Yeah. Well, yeah, I kind of studied full-time, so I was lucky in that way. But, yeah, I felt for people who were working full-time and, you know, studying full-time or close to it. Social workers are amazing because they still manage. I don't know how, but they do. I've had so many people.

say to me that they're interested in getting experience in indigenous communities and in regional areas. How did you end up in Alice Springs and Darwin? Yeah, so I did a field placement in Sydney and as a student. And I kind of thought, yep, that's where I want to work when I finished my degree. So I contacted my old social work area manager and she was like, yeah, great to have you, but we don't have jobs. I have jobs in northern Australia. Are you interested? And sort of went from there. It wasn't something I'd ever thought I would do.

But yeah, it was like an amazing experience to work up there. And I was working with a predominantly Aboriginal client base and you walk up the street in Alice and you hear all these different indigenous languages. And I had never heard someone speaking in language. you know, in Australia in that way before. So it was amazing and getting to work with, you know, Indigenous interpreters in face-to-faith, and people maybe from Arunda background

as kind of one of the main language or cultural groups up there near Alice. It was a privilege. There's lots of jobs up there for social workers. They tend to pay for relocation. They're certainly trying to track staff from all around the country and there's lots of work going and interesting work. It can be a challenging place to live because being a small town and also there's not always a big sort of boundary between your life and the office and outside on what's happening.

Yeah, there's not a big disconnect. So you've got to set those boundaries yourself. Yeah, a lot of people are actually from interstate. So it's wanting or needing to travel home and can be quite expensive. Yeah, employers do you look at that? Yeah, so there's a lot of government work up there and some with Aboriginal organisations as well. I'd say it's probably more intensive working with Indigenous populations.

Aller Springs than Darwin, unless you're going remote, remote, like out to remote communities in island land and people kind of fly. to get there and stuff like that. But I'd recommend it for anyone. If they're interested, it's definitely a good experience. Yeah, sounds like you just need to be able to or be willing to step out of your comfort zone and be willing to be somewhat remote or rural and just be open to the opportunities and experience that that would bring.

Sounds like it's been invaluable for you. Yeah, definitely. Even on the weekend we used to get out the map and me and my friend, we'd sort of look at a map and okay what's two hours out of hours drive and yeah because you sort of can't see the horizon anywhere in else because there's you know all these kind of mountain ranges and stuff yes that was fun like well there are plenty of cows around yeah probably some camel yeah yeah have the camel races it's quite funny oh brilliant that's pretty inspirational for anyone I'm wanting to give that a go because, yeah, it's just a matter of reaching out to someone and saying,

hey, I'm open to this experience. Yeah, there's some social work agencies that deal with that rural remote work. So it's out there and you can kind of get, even if you're living in the city, you can get recruited, you know, across the country kind of thing. Yeah. Brilliant. Are there any other projects or programs that you're working on at the moment? I kind of wish I was.

I usually like to be doing a few things at once. But given this year with COVID, I think we're all kind of carrying a extra level of stress. And while in some ways we might think we're doing less, particularly when we're in lockdown, I think there's still a mental load there. So I decided I was going to be trying to take advantage of this $1,000 uni courses the government was offering, like post-grad ones. Yeah. And, yeah, I dropped out, which I've never done before because it was just too much.

The idea for me of full-time study plus work and this year of all years. And, yeah, I just decided it wasn't a go for me. Although if they offer it again, it's pretty good to do post-grad courses instead of 15 grand. You pay like one grand, but I decided it was, yeah, I didn't want to burn out of social work trying to, yeah, take advantage. of a deal. So maybe next year. What was the course that you were wanting to do? There was a graduate certificate in mental health. So that can be good in terms of, you know, general learning,

but also I thought it would be good in terms of getting that mental health social worker accreditation, just make it a bit easier. So maybe I'll go back to it, but this year it just seemed to be overwhelming for Yeah, I think we're all carrying a little bit more than we're used to. So good self-care has just been able to acknowledge that and go, it doesn't mean that I'm doing less because I'm not doing more. It just means that I'm dealing with the uncertainty and we're in the middle of this and we don't know what it means and being able to really focus really well on this one thing,

which is your primary employment, which is carrying everyone else's burden, really. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, is it to be silly for me to think, okay, I'm going to study this, I'm going to do that, and then I'm going to this and have to burn out of my work. So it's an upsetting, strange, weird year. Yeah. If people want to know more about social work in this area, so that might be the Disability Royal Commission, it might be complex trauma counselling, where would you direct them? what would you recommend? Yeah. So if they want to know more about the Disability Royal Commission,

they've got a pretty good website there. You can Google it and your Disability Royal Commission and it will come up, including if people are interested in making a submission, there's info when they're on how to do that, and info on some of the submissions and interim reports, things like that. In terms of complex trauma, I guess we're a big fan of some of the sort of leading theorists in this area. So one is Babette Rothschild.

So she's written a few books on the pathophysiology of trauma and how trauma can affect the body and the body can remember trauma and things like, you know, trauma triggers can be the somatic system from the body. It can come from there and affect people in all sorts of different ways and, you know, some strategies for, I guess, understanding and managing and seeking help with that. I guess Vessel van der Kolk is another one I'm a bit of a fan of.

He writes about polyvagal theory and complex trauma and how polyvagal theory can be used to help people manage complex trauma symptoms and things like that. And he also has done some interesting writing around how we're all in a pre-trauma phase with COVID and has some tips around. I think he's done a, yeah, on YouTube and different interviews he's done, talking about how things like scheduling your day and working on controlling the things you can control in this COVID times can be helpful, even like fairly dogged, diarising of, you know, your

calendar and stuff, give you a good sense of control. And the Dulwich Centre has put out some interesting things to do with managing COVID and trauma and I guess, In terms of social work, I'm a big fan of Jan Fook and her stuff on critical and radical social work. So I definitely recommend, yeah, reading anything that she's written. She's my hero, my social hero. Yeah. I think she's everyone's hero. I do you think so?

Yeah. That's wonderful. I'll put some links to all of those resources in the notes as well so that people can go off and read a little bit more. Yeah, cool. But yeah, those are some wonderfully varied examples of work that you're doing and how people can learn a bit more about it. I think it's so valuable for people to hear about your experience for many reasons. But I think that some of these issues and concerns are things that aren't talked about enough, especially when reporting abuse or neglect. And I was quite surprised to hear that in some ways, and particularly for you, telephone counseling, can be,

easier and can open more avenues and therapeutic opportunities. So I'm glad that that multimodal support is available to people when they need it, where they need it, and in a method that suits them. That's wonderful to hear. Yeah, I mean, one thing is some people with complex trauma or PTSD experience agoraphobia and the idea of getting out for counseling and things is or to any medical appointments or, you know, even to shop is really daunting. So being able to ring and get help straight away from a service supporting the Royal Commission that's not asking you to jump through hoops to, you know, meet eligibility. They really find that helpful and useful.

And especially with lockdown, of course, that's made. A lot of that face-to-face work inaccessible or inaccessible for a time or I guess house leaves is only on the phone. So, yeah, they don't really have a choice. But then you can get referred on for ongoing counselling elsewhere where it may be face-to-face or not. I guess you would screen for whether that was going to be the most appropriate service for them as you're talking to the person.

So if someone did have a significant phobia or it was going to be detritory, to them. It's obviously you would direct them in a different area where they could continue with that telephone support. Yeah, well, sometimes we get people who've never had counselling before or never even disclosed before their traumas and things like that. So it's an important kind of first step. But yeah, if someone's experienced complex trauma, we would usually be encouraging them for, you know, ongoing support. Yeah, I think that's just part of your duty of care. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, people aren't always ready for that, which is okay. Yeah. Again, thank you so much for your time and for being part of this discussion. I think it's such an interesting and unique area of work. And hopefully you've inspired a lot of other people to step outside of their comfort zones and to think about where else they can apply their skills and, knowledge and experience and just give something to an area where, as we know, people are only starting to come to terms with things that have happened to them in the past. And I think it's

great that we have that support available to them when they need it the most. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for your time and interest and everything else. Thank you. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion, or ask anything of either myself or Vanessa, 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 Lara, whose interest in social work began with volunteering

for the Dublin AIDS Helpline in 1990, working with non-government organisations in an administrative role, training in welfare in the late 90s and commencing as a case manager for a women's refuge. Lara completed her social work degree in 2010 while working as a housing support officer for ACON and is now the social work team leader for the Western Sydney Sexual Health Centre. 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.