Social Work Spotlight - Episode 28: Alys

Episode Date: April 16, 2021

In this episode I speak with Alys, an experienced Trauma Specific Therapist and Social Worker specialising in children, young people and families who have experienced trauma, abuse, out of home care and the child protection system.  Alys is also a yoga teacher trainer, combining yogic healing modalities with trauma counselling to provide holistic healing and self care opportunities, that increase resilience and supports people to access their internal resources to use in their unique recovery journeys.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Lanktree & Briere, Treating Complex Trauma in Children and Their Families - https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/treating-complex-trauma-in-children-and-their-families/book240702Briere & Scott, Principles of Trauma Therapy - https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/principles-of-trauma-therapy/book242990Briere & Lanktree, Treating Complex Trauma in Adolescents and Young Adults - https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/treating-complex-trauma-in-adolescents-and-young-adults/book234528Briere’s Child Abuse Trauma - https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/child-abuse-trauma/book3308Pat Ogden and the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute - https://sensorimotorpsychotherapy.org/Dan Hughes and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy - http://www.danielhughes.org/Help for the Helper: The Psychophysiology of Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma by Babette Rothschild - http://www.somatictraumatherapy.com/help-for-the-helperIntegrating attachment theory and yoga with traumatic treatment (Diedre Fay) - https://dfay.com/Yoga for emotional balance (Bo Forbes) - https://boforbes.com/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/19mr0SxKQ9O13__lwELkGQmVSs5PQfaSaOE1o_OmfgpU/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 in each episode. I'm your host, Yasmin McKeigh-Rite, and today's guest is Elise. Elise McLennan is an experienced trauma-specific therapist and social worker, specialising in children, young people and families who have experienced trauma, abuse, out-of-home care, and the child protection system. Elise holds a Masters of Social Work qualifying, a Master's in Social Health and Counseling, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology.

Elise has also completed her 350-hour yoga teacher training and is currently enrolled in the graduate certificate in yoga therapy. Elise combines yoga-kealing modalities with trauma counselling to provide holistic healing and self-care opportunities that increase resilience and supports people to access their internal resources to use in their unique recovery journeys. Thank you so much, Elise, for coming on to the podcast. I'm really glad that you could take the time to be with me today

and talk about what you do and what drives you to do what you do. Thanks so much for having me. Can I ask firstly when you started as a social worker and why you chose this profession? Yeah, certainly. So I started back in, I guess, 2013 was my first true frontline job in the work in out-of-home care, so providing support to foster carers and foster children. in placements either crisis, short-term, long-term and respite.

Before that, I did work in the hospitals, but I was a counsellor back then, and I was sort of in adjunct roles, so more sort of 2013 onwards. And from there, I moved into private counselling, practice, social work support. And most recently, I've created my own business also in private counselling and body-based therapies. And what has led you to this point then? You mentioned the hospital work and the crisis work and counselling. I understand in addition to the social work degree, you've got a master's in social health and counselling. How has that sort of developed into what your interests are now and what your specialty is? Yeah. So I guess the first masters that you mentioned, the counselling one,

It really gave you some beautiful techniques to use and implement. And so you can do those in those adjunct roles as well, thread those in with how you speak to either your workers or the clients or other parties around the hospital and really use those regulation, co-regulation skills, the rapport building, the reflection side of things. But when I moved sort of more into the social work masters, It was more around the ethics that social work provides and holds. That was the real difference, I think, is between psychology, counselling and social work,

because they hold that at the forefront. And I think that's really important for any of us to hold when we're working with vulnerable communities. And that real critical eye, that critical reflection that social workers draw upon so that actually we can provide that client-centered approach, so that we can always be going, is this the right thing for this unique person and their unique healing journey? And also to extend that to the greater community and create community resilience and community change as well around that advocacy side of social work that it holds so beautifully as well. So it really just developed on the counselling. And for me, I guess what led me to this

particular moment in time was when I was in that private counselling role, I was also the frontline officer for that particular organisation. And when the pandemic hit, I really saw an escalation in the type of violence, the type of atrocities, the oppression placed upon vulnerable persons, children and women quite exceptionally in that respect. And what I had noticed was not only the stories were more frequent, but they were actually more exaggerated in the violence. And I also noticed that the workers in the community, the carers for children, their level of distress had escalated as well. So not only have you got that escalation in violence and, you know, those really significant stories were just coming about, coming about, coming about, you also had the

level of distress from the people surrounding and supporting the survivors of these experiences more and more escalated. And so for me, it was that really turning point of actually we need to hold this space of community resilience. And the way that I could give back and be in service to all of these people were to actually provide more of a holistic healing opportunity. And so that's why I created my acacia healing so that you could do the therapy, but also you could actually hold that space for the recovery and resilience in the actual physiological responses that everyone was experiencing. So, yeah, it was sort of that change and that escalation from the pandemic really brought me to where I am today. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's really interesting.

You say that in context of the most recent episode that will have come out two weeks ago with John, who's the CEO of Wayside Chapel. Yeah. He was talking about their mission and values and ethos of being meeting someone where they're at instead of trying to cater to what maybe the local community or a funding body expects you to be providing to a specific person. So what I'm seeing from you as well is that opportunity to really adapt and grow based on what you're seeing on the ground and be able to provide.

a service that's it's unique potentially in the way that it's delivered, but also in the sense that it's responding to something that's real and that people are coming to you with in crisis. So it's amazing your ability to adapt in that way and I guess thinking outside the box in where you can provide that support. That must have been pretty daunting though, kind of stepping out on your own and creating something new. Absolutely. Especially in the element of the pandemic in that it was right at the beginning of it. So it was only a couple months in. And what I had noticed around my direct community was how many businesses were actually closing their doors. And, you know, there was a lot of pain, a lot of disconnection within my direct community even. And so

starting a business on your own is this daunting at the best of times. But then to add actually, I'm doing this in the climate of a pandemic. when things are on the downturn and there wasn't that knowing of, you know, we can get support from the government. And so being a new business, I wouldn't have been eligible for that anyway. So it was that moment of, do you know what, I actually do need to follow my gut feeling in that I want to be of service to people in this respect and try and promote the healing rather than sit solely in that pain and the disconnection. So I took that leap and here I am nearly a year on still going. Yeah. And what would you say your current work looks like? Because you have multiple roles.

It's not just the myacosha. It's all the other stuff you do. So what does that involve for you? Yeah. So I guess my working week as such is broken into a couple of different roles. So I do work for the Australian Childhood Foundation as well. So I am a trauma therapist and also a therapeutic specialist in that space and I do that three days a week. So in that respect, it is, you know, supporting, again, the caseworkers to conceptualise really complex out-of-home care cases and promote that community resilience building as well and also do some of that healing therapeutic work. And so that sits really nice, beside my acacia healing, but obviously with my acotia, it's a little bit more different because my day-to-day is so different there. I could be teaching a general yoga class. I could be

providing that trauma-specific therapy. I could be doing the body-based work, meditation, retreats, clinical supervision. So it's, yeah, it's really diverse. So I guess my working week is always creative, which I really love. That's one of my favorite things about being in this field. You're often, I'm sure that you would hear as well. We often hear, oh, I could never work in the work that you do because people assume that you sit with that really difficult discourse all the time and the pain and the difficulty.

But I see that a part of my job is actually opening those doors to healing through creativity, through creating beauty and nurturing, you know, fun experiences where people get to master things and develop their self-esteem in those safe relationships in whatever modality we choose to use. So yeah, I guess for me, it's my week. I would, in a word, I would capture it as creative. Yeah. How do you then work together with other disciplines in this work? So you would I imagine work with family law professionals, psychologists definitely, other yoga instructors maybe. How does your practice fit within the practices of those other disciplines? Yeah.

So I'm a strong believer in creating that community resilience. So that's a port network for people to heal within. because when oppression and abuse and violence occur, it's from a person to a person. So actually we need to create that support network where people can actually heal through relationship as well and develop more positive attachments and not only to others but to themselves

because we can often reflect back to them the wellness that they already hold within. And so for me, I think it is really important that we work with other professionals and that we have those respectful conversations around actually what is needed for this person, what is this person's understanding and what do they actually desire and how are they unique in this experience? How do we walk along beside of them rather than force them through this particular door? And so I think having voice in a choice is really important for our clients and also, yeah, that holistic network around them.

So I think that working alongside of professionals is a really important component of this work that we do. And how does your specific practice then, given that it is so creative and eclectic, fit with social work, therapeutic approaches and philosophies? Yeah, so it's actually all based in the neurobiology of trauma and recovery. So whether that be using those body-based, yogic techniques or the trauma therapy, they actually coexist. They intertwine.

And we are often borrowing some of the yogic healing modalities in the social work, in the counseling, in the psychology, like mindfulness, like meditation, like grounding. We often use that, the polyvagal theory as well. And actually all of those modalities sit within that yogic healing philosophy. So there is overlap. I guess I just allow the person the choice of how much of each component they would like to draw upon based on where they're at. So it creates safety. I think that's really important with trauma survivors because if we go back to Brieer's window of tolerance,

we can actually see, do you know what you can fall into that dissociation? We often do get clients there. So it's how do we use the mind and the body which are connected to, you know, know, upregulate them and vice versa you can get those who are hypervigilant and outside of their window of tolerance. And so we need to downregulate them and how do we actually use those grounding, mindful, meditative states to support that. So that's one respect. But I would always check in with a client what they're interested in because they might not be interested in talk therapy. They might not be interested in actually connecting to their body. So it's about

readiness and supporting them in whichever, yeah, a journey they want to take because it is unique to each person. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. As you're talking, I'm thinking, wow, you're doing this group work and you're running yoga therapy groups for teenage girls. And I'm thinking, how do you ensure safety within that environment where inevitably connecting to the body and?

creating space for mindfulness can increase trauma or bring something up that perhaps someone wasn't expecting, but you've also got to look after the interests of the group at the same time. How do you balance that when something occurs like that? Yeah. In a general yoga class, I wouldn't necessarily have another co-facilitator with me, but I would always implement the trauma-informed care principles around safety, around choice, all of those human rights modalities actually linked in there. So I think that's really important.

When you're talking about specifically the trauma therapy groups, whether it be for young women or families as a whole, depending on the size and the reason that people are presenting for those particular programs, I might invite a co-facilator in with me so that if something does happen, then someone is always present to the rest of the group. And I guess the most important foundational principle is safety.

And so it is actually, how do we connect in a safe way? How do we promote that sense of safety in choice? They don't have to do every activity. They don't have to do it in that prescriptive manner, I guess. So it is around, again, human rights and choice. And it is around, okay, how can we safely connect in our body, but also trust that everyone else is going to be safe. So actually we need to be really transparent in how we're going to do that,

why we're going to do that. And I actually haven't had, you know, we've had moments where people have been triggered and have had a cry, but actually, again, because we've created that space of safety and connection, then there's that network of support that I was talking about. So we actually have that community resilience within that space. And so it's actually using everyone to promote that safe space, to promote that connection and that healing moment. And it's very powerful, very powerful when that happens.

Yeah. And it sounds as though you're promoting a sense of leadership as well, that someone's building or recognizing the skills they already have and then able to translate that into their other lives as well. or other interactions, other relationships. Yeah. And they might not even realize they had that quality. And so then there's another healing moment in itself

because you can actually draw upon that. Wow, I really notice that you were so kind in that moment. And so reflecting, remember I was talking about in that community network, we actually need to reflect back those qualities that each individual already hold. That's not only the trauma-informed care lens, but that's also that yogic healing philosophy in that wellness is already within us. We just need to figure out how to tap into that and how to draw that out. Because trauma and abuse, violence and oppression, it acts as a blanket.

And we sometimes feel like those qualities that we hold distant or non-existent, access to that blanket to dampen that space. And so it's about taking that blanket off and actually reconnecting back to those human qualities that everyone holds. Yeah. How do you then ensure a sense of safety for yourself? You've talked about patterns in escalation of violence, the workers and the carers of children in the community,

having an increase in their distress levels. How do you personally find balance between the types of work that you do and having time away from that? So I think this is the part that the social work community really struggles with generally, is that self-care component because saying no is often difficult when you are a natural nurturer, a healer, a people person, a helper.

They're often the types of personalities that are drawn to this work. And so I think that learning how to care for yourself from moment to moment, as well as each day, as well as long term on all the different levels. So mind, body, spirit. We need levels of well-being, and we actually sometimes need to learn to say, do you know what, I actually need to pause here because sometimes saying no is actually saying yes to yourself. And so those self-care components, you actually need to interweave them into your everyday life for your own internal well-being and resilience, but also having those special things to look forward to as well.

So I guess a couple of ways that I like to do it for others is to provide either the well-being urban retreats where they just get a little bit of time out and I get to nurture them and create a beautiful space or doing training on self-care as well. But for me, I actually integrate it into my everyday life. So I make sure that I have something that I can find beautiful, find joy in, find connection in and actually find a little bit of time out for myself. and also my everyday work, like I said, it's so diverse, it's so creative, it's so different, that I actually find those moments during my work as well. So I think one of the difficulties in our sector is that we often don't have resources, we don't have time, it's like we don't have space for our being within this space. And so it's actually how do I integrate when I find joy, when I find a pause moment,

when I find my well-being moments in work. And then also how do I shut off for the day and actually enjoy my other space for me so that I can actually fill up my love cup and recharge? So then I have something to give back. Yeah. Because I imagine you would have gotten into yoga practice as a method of giving back to yourself and filling that cup.

But then when that becomes part of your work, I wonder if it becomes a little bit more challenging, to find other things that fill your cup and that give you that purpose and sense of stepping away from work, but it's kind of still work? So yes and no. So teaching yoga, a general class actually gives me repair so I can find that in that space. But also I have a little saying that anything that brings me joy, a feeling of love, feeling of hopefulness is my yoga.

So it might not be a practice per se. It actually might be, do you know what, let's be. play with my cats or let's water the garden or let's eat a piece of chocolate or, you know, all those big. So for me, my yoga practice is actually anything that creates that internal sense of resilience and hopefulness and that recharge that I can take forward. Yeah. So it's a perspective. It's a way of being rather than a specific way of practicing. Absolutely. It's that integrating it in. to your everyday life like I was talking about.

We can't see self-care as something we do. It's actually that way of life. It's something necessary to us so that we don't, you know, move into those spaces of compassion fatigue, of burnout of vicarious trauma. Because when we're in that space, we can't actually provide the holistic service, you know, co-regulation, all of those things

that are really necessary for us to be in service. with vulnerable communities. We actually need to have something for ourselves so that we have something else to give. Yeah, that's fantastic. What else would you say is a challenging part of the work that you do that someone might not expect? The systems that are supposed to protect our vulnerable communities,

but so often we're seeing that they fail. Yeah, it's probably one of the most distressing components of the work because when we're trying to create that holistic sense of safety and say you are a really, really worthy person, how do we do that when the system actually allows perpetrators to perpetrate and allows our survivors to become redramatized or have that sense of hope taken away from them? You know, we often see that children are not protected. They're often given weekend visits and whatnot with perpetrators of sexual violence, of domestic violence.

We often see that court proceedings in themselves hold this discourse of women that they've got significant mental health concerns when actually it's a product of the year's worth of violence that has been perpetrated against them. that's created this state of actually I'm in my survival mode. You know, while there has been progress in the field of trauma, you know, over the last 20, 30 years, I actually think that the systems themselves too often recreate trauma and recreate victimization and recreate perpetration.

So we actually need some real change to make. And again, how do we invite them into that space of being a part of the community resilience healing factor when actually they're working against that in so many ways often. Yeah. What would you say then is it sounds as though there are so many things, but what would you say is the thing you love most about your work? Gosh, how do you pick?

I do find a lot of joy when you see those moments of that spark turn on and that realization of I'm actually worthwhile person. I am a meaningful person. I have something to give back and I am healing in my own way. I find that really beautiful. And I guess a part of why I can keep going through this journey is because we do get to thread the creativity, the beauty, the joy, the hope in along that journey. Yeah, I think that's a really special thing is healing. can be hopeful and joyful.

Yeah. You also provide supervision and training for professionals on compassion fatigue, which you spoke about a bit earlier, which examines the impact of working with trauma, abuse and violence. In the opportunity to supervise and train, do you develop new perspectives? How do you find time to develop your own practice while you're doing so many other things and what does professional development look like for you? Yes, so I am registered with the AASW and with Yoga Australia.

So there are actually criterion you have to meet to continue to be registered. And a part of that is your own professional development. I actually think it's really important that we do that regardless of registration because our field is so, it's so movable, it's so diverse. There's so much to learn out there. And like I said, everyone is so unique that one size doesn't fit all. So we actually need to continually be developing that range of tools. It also, you know, sparks your interest.

It allows you that moment of reflection of, oh, actually, could I be doing this in a different and more helpful way? Or actually, does this consolidate? Do you know what I feel like I'm on the right track? So I think that's really important, again, to draw upon that critically reflective eye in whichever forum we're in. And yeah, I guess for me, the way that I do that, I'm actually enrolled in the yoga therapy course. So that's a two-year course.

So I actually do it alongside of all of my work. And then as a part of my workspace at Australian Childhood Foundation as well, they do have really a lot of supportive opportunities for you. So actually, I can say, do you know what, this is a really important training seminar for me. me to do, is that something that we can integrate into your PRD, PDR, whichever way they say it. And so there are those opportunities. So in the right workplace, you're actually supported to further your practice and develop your skills, which I think is really important part of any workspace.

You mentioned there has been some progress in the field of trauma, but there's still quite a lot of work that needs to be done. Have you seen any other changes in this field over time and where do you see social work making an impact in the future? Great question. So for me, because I've mainly been in that field of out-of-home care, child protection space, I definitely have seen this expanding understanding that the neurobiology of trauma is a real thing, that it does impact not only a person who has survived the incident, but also the people caring for them and the workers who do have to listen and sharing the pathway

forward. So for me, I've definitely seen us embrace it a little bit more, I think. And you can hear that in some of the linguistics that are used. You know, you often hear, oh, this is triggering or whatever the case may be. I think one of the difficulties with that, though, is that sometimes by integrating generalised linguistics, we lose the integrity of the true meaning of it. So I think we always need to be going back and reflecting on, okay, what does that actually mean? What does this mean for this person and how do we actually buffer that and heal from that? So in that respect, I think we have come miles from where we used to be, but we actually need to continue to look at how we use the knowledge and the language and the interventions so that it can be the safe healing space.

Yeah. Do you know whether there are going to be any moves towards improving the responsiveness of funding bodies or providing more rebates for people in crisis? Because you mentioned when COVID was really just beginning to be a big issue and things were shutting down in Sydney, that there was no additional support. There was nothing out there. Is that changing? Is there development in that space? Yes, I believe it has. So the government has provided some funding to Black Dog Institute and stuff like that. There's a real conversation around mental health at the moment, which is really, really important. But again, I think we need to look at actually the domestic violence rates, the child abuse rates as well.

While there is some talk about domestic violence, we actually haven't seen that fully come into. it's own we haven't seen a look in for child protection really. And there is a movement at the moment around coercive control legislation. So there's definitely things on the horizon and there's definitely been some funding injected. But it's quite specific again. So it's actually about how do we as a whole unit because it is quite overwhelmed at the moment, the field of mental health. How do we broadly support and hold that space in a really helpful, meaningful and respectful way? And how do we keep people safe? And that's not an individual organisation's job.

This is actually a great community issue. It's a societal issue that Australia faces. And so I think it actually really needs to be consolidated. We need education on it. We need more transparent conversation. moving forward. Yeah. Because wouldn't it be great if they brought into general health care plans through a GP, not even having to have private health insurance, but being able to provide subsidies at least for programs such as yours where people who just don't have the means or capacity

to afford a regular therapeutic support program or even something that's really good for their body, they just don't have that capacity. So wouldn't it be great if the government were to invest? in something like that and see the benefit of that holistic intervention. I think we're so far off that. But I guess from their perspective, where do you start? There are so many problems. Yeah, there's so many problems. But I do think that it's started to open, I guess,

but we really still need to crack that shell much more and make meaningful changes for our vulnerable community. Are there any other areas of social work practice that interest you, any other skills or experience you'd like to develop? I love the field of trauma, trauma healing. So that has definitely been my main focus in all of this. I guess, if I were to make a shift, it would probably still be within that healing components still.

So maybe more of the domestic violence advocacy, sort of a branch. Yeah. So not too far of a shift. It's my passion. It's my mission. So it's hard to think of a life without it really. Yeah, you've learned your joy. You found the beauty in the world.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Which is I'm very privileged because I don't think that everyone can necessarily say that. So I'm very grateful for the space that I've come to. And also the support that you clearly have around you, people share the vision. They share, there's a, I guess, a common understanding that you're all working towards the same goal and just thinking creatively, thinking outside the box is the way that's going to make that difference to people. So you're not, you're not doing things that are necessarily easy to demonstrate. That's the thing. How do you demonstrate that small change that you've

made in that person's life that's actually going to carry through with them? Yeah. It's not something you can demonstrate, but I guess that's a lot of social work is it happens behind the scenes and it happens incrementally, but really powerfully. Yeah. And it's so different for every person. So when a lot of programs, especially if they're government funding, there has to be evidence based and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But at the same time, how do we, you know, measure the spark in someone's eye, the space in their heart that's open saying, I am a worthy person or I can love myself, even though these things have happened to me. Some precious items are non-measurable, you know.

How do we measure someone spark amidst all that pneumatic material and exposure? Yeah. Yeah. Are there any other projects or programs that you've got in the wings, things that you're developing or working on at the moment? So I've just launched my urban retreats. So that will kick off in March with my first one for some workers in the education department.

And so they're two-hour getaways in the middle of the city, essentially. So at the yoga studio where it is about educating on self-care and the importance of that, connected with that yogic framework of healing sitting within. And so it's always available to you. And that community, holistic, resilience factor of you can do this in the team together and experience, you know, the relaxation response switching on rather than that stress response. So that's something that I'm really excited about.

And we're also, I'm about to commence a family group as well called branching connections. And it's for people who've experienced disruptions in family life and need to reconnect in that really cohesive, respectful, playful way. Yeah. It's nice to see government departments investing in their people and their teams. It's really refreshing. Yeah, I think it's really beneficial to them in the long run because if we can support our frontline workers, any of our workers really,

to be more present to the work, to be more relaxed and happy in that space, to feel more connected as a team, we actually can see the benefits on the ground in the everyday in the workplace. Yeah. Where can people go if they wanted to know more about any of those programs or just about social work in these areas in general? Is there any good reading or viewing things that they should check out? Yeah. So I guess some of my go-tos are Pat Ogden.

So she's the leader in sensory motor psychotherapy. And I draw on her work a lot of the time as well with the yoga, with the mindfulness, grounding type of things. Dan Hughes has beautiful attachment theories as well. His pace model, his DDP work, and it's really about respectful ways of reconnecting and healing after disconnection after abuse has occurred. Babette Rothschild, help for the helper, I think it's called, does talk about that neurobiological response we have to stress

and that actually we can reverse that and draw ourselves back away from that compassion fatigue. Yeah, so there's some of the leading ones there, and Briya's window of tolerance, of course. In the yoga space, I guess I like to read a bit of Didre Faye. She talks about yoga with attachment and both forms. So she talks about yoga and emotions and how we can actually use yoga to learn to regulate and co-regulate.

Yeah, they're sort of the main reading. to get everyone started if they're interested. Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. I think you're so courageous in creating something new in the climate of a pandemic in the first place, but also creating spaces and opportunities for people to consider creative ways of supporting other people.

I think that's being really important, and that's the thing that I can see that has stood you apart from other social workers. and I think just that importance of supporting people in developing an attachment to themselves and to other people and being able to demonstrate to people that they hold things within. So they have inherent strengths and worth and resilience and meaning in their lives. So obviously the blend of yoga and other aspects of mindfulness

and connecting to the body assists other people to connect to themselves into other people around them and I don't think that should be specific to yoga or social work but it's often something we forget and we get caught up in the pace of life and don't have the opportunity just to sit and be and walk alongside someone instead of run or jump. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for those very kind words. I really appreciate them. Yeah, if I can inspire someone to be creative and connect in different ways so that healing journeys

can be accessible and unique to individuals, then I've done my job. Yeah. Is there anything else you wanted to say about what you do or social work in general before we finish up? I guess if any people are thinking about moving into this field of work, don't be shy about it. Really embrace the philosophies, the ethics, the creativity and also inject yourself into it because I know that often we're told we need to be the professional but actually there's so much of us that we can give and that we can reflect to people that actually there is a world out there in social work where we can create resilience within and externally from ourselves so go for it but be courageous that's my word

Yeah, I think being able to bring yourself to everything you do, I guess demonstrates more integrity, but also just opens up the opportunities for people to be genuine with each other and transparent. Yeah, you need to be our authentic self. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So exactly what you're saying, just for everyone out there, just continue to thread the creativity, beauty and hope in everything that you do and be inspired by others who are doing incredibly amazing things. And thank you so much for taking the time to do this. And I'm really

looking forward to other people engaging with it and hopefully inspiring people to do something different with the skills and the capacity and the energy that they have because there are so many opportunities out there. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much as well for inviting me. It's been lovely chatting to you. Absolutely pleasure. Thank you, Elise. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Elise, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.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 Lucia, who has worked for me. many years in the disability and social services sector with elderly, mental health and disability clients. Since 2014, she has worked as an approved lifetime care and support case manager, providing services to individuals diagnosed with a brain injury and or a spinal cord injury,

including those with behavioural difficulties, mental health concerns and other complex needs. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notify when this next episode is available. See you next time. Thank you.