Social Work Spotlight - Episode 29: Lucia

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

In this episode I speak with Lucia, a social worker and rehab case manager, specialising in acquired brain injury, spinal cord injury, and mental health. Lucia worked for many years in the disability and social services in England and Spain before arriving in Australia in 2012 and commencing work as a Case Manager. She provides a person-centred approach to assist individuals to achieve their goals, and enable them to live independently in the community whilst adjusting to their new circumstances.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:ARBIAS - https://www.arbias.org.au/index.phpInspire Rehab & Psychology - http://inspirerehabandpsychology.com.au/The Business of Social Work Australia Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1919283988289631International Network of Social Work Acquired Brain Injury - https://www.inswabi.org/grahame-simpsonAustralian Association of Social Workers National Practice Groups - https://www.aasw.asn.au/practitioner-resources/practice-groupsSynapse, Australia's Brain Injury Organisation - https://synapse.org.au/NSW Spinal Outreach Service (Royal Rehab) - https://royalrehab.com.au/rehab-services/spinal-injury-services/nsw-spinal-outreach-service/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AkxHx1il6f_sm3eKPg-JMVikLic9vbMNFAHTM7Wmvds/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 at the profession each episode. I'm your host, Yasmin McKee Wright, and today's guest is Lithia. Lithia is a social worker and rehab case manager, specialising in acquired brain injury, spinal cord injury and mental health. She worked for many years in the disability and social services in England and Spain before arriving in Australia in 2012 and started work as a case manager. She completed her Social Work Master's degree in 2012. 2018 and provides a person-centered approach to assist individuals to achieve their goals and enable them to live independently in the community whilst adjusting to their new circumstances. Thank you so much, Lithia, for coming on to the podcast.

It's wonderful having you here to talk about your experience. When did you start as a social worker and what drew you to this profession? When I finished my school in Spain, I kind of come from a family with two doctors. my parents are both doctors. So I initially wanted to study medicine, but I was not that good in my studies at school. So I was not able to access the university, the public university. So I was kind of wondering what other options to access medical degree. And it would be starting through social work could be an option. And I started social work in 2001, I believe. And I did my first year and I loved it. And I thought, well, no, me to study medicine. anymore. I'll just continue with my social work degree, which I really enjoyed, and it was

really good. So then I finished in 2004 and decided that Spain was not the best place to start working, as it was not a very recognized profession. So I decided to move to England, to London, and start kind of exploring what kind of ways to start gaining my first experience as a social worker. And yeah, I started from there and kept on going until now. So it's been a bunch of years now. Yeah. And given that it's not, as you said, a profession that's highly recognized or understood, how did you come up with social work? Did your parents have access to social workers? Had they worked with people before? Did you know someone? One of my aunt is a social worker. She works for Red Cross in Madrid. She works with family,

immigration, really interesting programs. So I kind of liked it a lot and I thought, well, that's, that's the way to maybe go. And social work in Spain is a three-year degree. So initially I thought it was a good kind of bridge point to go into medicine. So kind of thought it was reasonable. But to be honest, I've liked it so much that, yeah, even after the first year, I thought, no way, I would like to finish it and continue. And then I've continued with all kind of ongoing studies and degrees and diplomas in additional counseling and family therapy. Just focusing in the areas that you like more. And social work is so wide.

There's so many work options, really, and so many areas of work that you can specialize very easily. That's right. And what sort of skills or experience have you developed? You said you've worked and lived overseas. What's that been like? So when I first moved to London, I was about 21. I needed to register as a social worker there to be able to work.

So in the meantime, I really was able to work as a support worker. And that was my first job as working with people with disability, severe epilepsy and challenging behavior. And I was there nearly for a year while I was doing all my registration as a social work and sorting out all the paperwork and bureaucracy involved in the long process. And it was great because it kind of allowed me to work around with people with disability. And then once I got registered, I was able to find my first job as a case manager for social services in Desington and Chelsea Borough in London. So that was for six months and then I jumped into social work.

So I think the case manager role at the time, if I can remember, it was like low cases to ensure more about, like I think it was low complex cases and that it was done by a case manager. and then once you went into more complex, your job title was social worker. So there was more mental health. So I was in the team for older people over 65. So there was a lot of mental health, care needs assessment, trying to assess people in the community, ensuring they had the services to be able to remain in the community, living independently.

So I was there for nearly three years. And then in 2007, I think seven. I decided to return to Spain. I had met my partner in England at the time, so decided three years apart was more than enough and kind of decided to go back to Spain and it was very difficult to find a job there. Social work had not developed at all by then.

It was extremely challenging for the profession to be recognized. And even the jobs available were more kind of government-based, a lot of bureaucracy, paperwork, nothing to do with the social work I was used to in England. But I managed to get a job as a care coordinator. So I was doing some care coordination services as well in one of the areas for about a year. And then I jumped to a government job again in social services, doing a lot of care needs assessment.

And that way I kind of assessed everybody from kids to adults, disability, mental health. It gave me a very good understanding of kind of the broad. picture of all the areas of need in the social work area. And it was an interesting job. But I got really bored. There was so much paperwork involved and so little intervention, to be honest, with the families. Right. That I kind of decided to, I said, no, I'm missing kind of the intervention, the social work intervention that I was doing in England. So, again, my partner and I had to kind of think about what to do with the future. And we just, talked about what options do we have? And I said, well, if I have to go to a place where my

careers developed, that would be England, Canada, or Australia. And we decided Australia. So we came with a student visa in 2012 and we started from scratch and it went really good. To be honest, it's been a great experience work-wise since I've arrived here, very well supported. It was difficult initially to kind of get a job because I was so limited by my visa, by my student visa, only entitled to work 20 hours. But then I did find an organization which allowed me to do that who was able to do that part-time contract as a case manager. So I started working as a case manager for a buyers, which is a specialized service for people with brain injury. Started working there for 20 hours and then I kind of increased my hours progressively with a sponsorship

visa. And then I was there. Well, I was there for a while. I was there for a while. I was, um, I think I started in 2013 and then finished in 2016. So I was nearly there for three years. And that allowed me to get my permanent residency. So my difficulty in Australia was that when I applied here for my social work registration, they did not feel that my Spanish degree or my courses in England or in Spain were sufficient to be, recognized as a social work in Australia. So they gave me two options.

So complete the bachelor for four years or do the master's. So I did and went to do the masters. So I did, I thought, well, I need to work for my permanent residency. And once I have that, I'll apply for the master, which I did. I wanted to do it full time. I couldn't think about four times studying part time. So I decided to do that for two years. And the only way to be able to combine full-time study

and work was to be able to kind of work privately, to be honest. So I had the luck of working very close with Sam Grant, which is psychologist in Inspire, Hephaven Psychology, who's created this wonderful multidisciplinary group of people who work together with people with brain injury. And she said, hey, come and join. You can provide your case management services as you do while your study. So I started being self-employed in April 2016. I started uni in February 2016, so that all happened altogether.

And since then, that had that flexibility of studying, working. It was very too crazy years of, I think 60 hours a week of studying and working, but all very very worth it. And yeah, and I finished in December 2018. And then I got registered as a social worker and now I do both the kids. case management and the social work, mainly for people with brain injuries, spinal cord injuries after motor vehicle accidents. Okay.

So the work that you had done both in Spain and the UK would have been completely instrumental in terms of those assessments and dealing with people with behavioral difficulties and working with those family dynamics and the care needs assessments. So it sounds as though it was a perfect match in terms of your skills and experience in leading to the role that you're currently in. But how did you find going back to uni, having already completed all of those subjects, really, just the different equivalent

and having already had experience in the field? Did you find that that was enriching or was it just frustrating? Some days a bit of a waste of time. Some days, to be honest, I got to meet a lot of very interesting people, teachers which were great, supervisors, which were such a great knowledge of understanding of social work, other different perspectives.

Education in Australia is very different to the one that I have in Spain. And there's also like a 15-year gap. So I think things have progressed as well. There's more understanding of social work internationally as well and what other countries are doing. But I think what I mostly gained from my master's was my experience in my placement. So I did placement in maternity in Liverpool Hospital. And that was a great experience for me to understand the Australian system and how to navigate it.

And then it also gave me a very good understanding around our original and Torres Stadeano culture and kind of the struggles and challenges they've gone through. So in a way, it's a combination, things that were repeating itself because there was basic of social work, which I had already done. and I was already working as a case manager with a lot of social work input. I think case management and social work overlap at times, and I would, as a case manager, would bring in my social work skills. That's inevitable. So I think that I was able to apply all my work experience to my master's degree, and that made it a bit easy, I would say,

because some of my colleagues would have never worked. They would have jumped from maybe a bachelor in psychology or bachelor in social work and do the master's directly when I had all the kind of experience and the practical stuff already. So it made it a bit easier. Okay. I would say. What is your current role and what might a typical day look like for you?

I imagine in case management world and social work, there's just really no typical day. But let's say from start to finish, what might you come across? And that's something that I really enjoy my job. There's no day that isn't the same. I've got my day, it's booked with normally at least an appointment a day of seeing clients face to face or having meetings with the rehab teams or interviews or an assessment. There's always kind of face-to-face happening with clients. And then there's a lot of phone calls, many, many hours of talking to everyone,

leasing, coordinating, picking everybody's brain. I like to work in kind of a coordinated rehab team. they're kind of my biggest support while working with a client. So there's no, there's no day, there's no similar day, I would say. With COVID, things did change. It was a bit of a struggle having to do the Zoom or video link interaction. And my clients, to be honest, they did not like it. They really struggled.

And so the first moment that we were able to go out, I just said, look, let's do it. let's go out to a park let's meet whenever wherever we can but they really benefit from that face to face particularly with with the brain injury participants is just too difficult for them just sitting up the computer and having a conversation and be able to focus just in the computer and at the same time answer all your questions too much so COVID was a bit of a strange times we live in Australia so we're very lucky and things went back to normal pretty soon and so I've been back, to be honest, since June, out in the community again, during my normal work, meetings in hospitals as well and everything. So kind of my role, I like to combine case management cases

and social work. I think that the combination, it's a nice, nice combination. The case management provides that ongoing meeting with the client and monitoring. The social worker, social working role is more kind of adjustment with the family. It's a different role and it doesn't involve that bigger coordination. So it just, it works for me. And I imagine as a social worker, you would have shorter interventions, whereas case management, you'd have someone for a much longer period of time and get to know them a lot more and help them with a more diversified field of issues. Some of my clients for case management, I've been having them for a long time. So they all, like, long-term relationships. I've been able to build those working trusting relationships with them

and they feel comfortable. I feel comfortable. And it makes kind of, I think, being able to manage and coordinate the rehab very kind of easier. There's always challenges. And with the type of clients who work, there's always things coming unexpectedly and you know how to kind of work around those some challenging times. And I think the more you know the client and the better relationship you have with them, you're able to kind of work around better and resolve the problem. With social work, I find that there's kind of two types of referrals, the one which is more like admin, oh, I need a referral for NDIS and DSP and all the pay-pousing or kind of the more bureaucracy part of the role. And then you've got the other kind of, hey, I've got family

intervention, adjustment, all the working with the team. So there's more needing the that kind of different support. And are there any cases that you have as a case manager where you might need to outsource to a different social worker if there are some really big social work issues, or do you take that on as well? I like to separate. However, I find that there are some cases that I do case management that they benefit from my social work background. And I think that's because it depends on the family, I think, and on the client's needs. So I, I, I, I would just say I'm the case manager, but I'm putting in some social work skills, which, look, for me, I don't, there's no issue there. But if there's some social work specifics that I feel it just overloads my case management, then I think it's better that somebody else does it.

Yeah. But I try to kind of, if I can do everything, I try to do it. It's just, it's much easier for the client, introducing so many people. They, normally my clients have this big rehab teams, which I think sometimes they're completely overwhelmed. and they feel the life is all about appointments and having so many people that they need to meet and liaise, they find it extremely overwhelming. So if I can reduce that feeling of overwhelm and I can do things without having to introduce another person, I'm happy to. Yeah. Whatever works for the client, to be honest. Yeah. And what would you suggest then is the value out of having a case manager

who is a social worker as opposed to a psychologist or any of the other people that you work with? Look, I think so a case manager with a social worker broker for all the cases, that there is an adjustment problem and family and there's kids involved and sisters. I think the social world is needed. It's just because it helps understanding family dynamics. It helps getting the right supports in place. It's the same as a case manager with an OTE background. I think sometimes for spinal they're just ideal because it just makes it more easy for

there's a good understanding of the needs. think they're much better qualified to provide that service that I would, for example. But if from what I'm seeing lately over the past year, most of my referrals for social work and the case management that I'm also kind of getting referred and choosing, there's a lot of family dynamics involved. So working with the family as a whole and it's important. And my case is most of them are, luckily enough, clients are well supported by the family. But there's a difficulty of understanding brain injury, adjusting to the limitations. The kids, I think nowadays, what I'm getting is a lot of kids really struggling to a father

or a mother who has a brain injury, but physically no limitations. So for them, mom and dad are exactly the same, but unfortunately, they've got a brain injury. So they've got this invisible disability, which they struggle to understand. Yeah. And I feel that they, sometimes they, we haven't found the right supporters yet. We're missing something and I'm not sure what it is. It varies so much because we're different cultures, expectations, family, grandparents involved. Like, it's also complicated how we can best support these kids adjusting to a different mom or dad.

And sometimes they will come back and say, yeah, well, I don't want any help. I don't have the problem. They are the ones having the problem. What do I need to see a psychologist or get any help? And I guess then that highlights the importance of working together as a team, as a system looking at the family and trying to build that trust and understanding if the person themselves doesn't understand the benefit to having that support. And when the kids, they have this injuries and they're still kids and then they grow up and

they're still grieving, they're still grieving. and they come to this teenage difficult face. And it's all messy. It can get very messy. And then it's the relationship between the siblings and when there's a sibling with a brain injury and their ongoing comparison and jealousy and feeling that everybody,

the sister's giving up everything because my sister has a brain injury and nobody takes me in consideration and I'm no longer a priority. So yeah. So I think with all the different dynamics that happen in each house and in each family is just trying to work out what works best for bed. Because clearly every family and every client is unique and is working around identifying

what works for the family, what works for the client and getting the right support in place. Yeah. And it sounds as though in contrast to Spain, or at least your experience of Spain and social work, there is a really good understanding and respect for the social work role. And that means that you're getting referrals where people identify that there's a role for social work within the case management function. So that's really good to hear. In Spain, like it's still not even recognized. I would say that people, I still say people, I'm a social worker and they go, what is that? What do you mean? Like, what is a social worker? So there's still, there's a lack of understanding of the profession. They would think a social worker is, oh, the person who will remove the kids and

or the foster system. So there's more kind of children and family-oriented. They don't understand the role outside, I think, that area of disability, elderly, mental health. And I think that's because still the family is kind of the main. They provide that support. So it's not the government funding. Like, very rarely, there's not that much, I think,

services offered by the government in Spain. That's interesting. So there's a cultural barrier perhaps to the advance middle of, social work. Oh, yeah, definitely. What would you say you love most about the work you're doing at the moment? I enjoy working with each of my clients. I enjoy working with like all the rehab team. And I think kind of the best moment is when you see after a few years, it's like you see that client being able to go back to some level of independence of living independently or going back to work or doing something that the client was really wanting to do, returning to drive,

or just seeing him succeed to some of the biggest goals that they've been having through all that rehab phase. So I think it's, I think that's the most satisfaction you can see a client happy, being able to achieve the goals, I think. Yeah. And what would you say is the most challenging thing for you personally? I think the struggles that you, the struggles that clients face day to day. day and being able to, although I like to kind of put everything in place just to prevent any

kind of possible breakdown, things happen. And I think my frustration comes as well, I couldn't see this coming. Oh, I couldn't, I couldn't plan this. And things happen. Clients make decisions and you can't control everything. And I think that's something that we need to be aware that each family make their own choices and the clients do as well. And we need to respect them and and although then maybe not the best choices and lead to consequences that can impact really badly the rehab and their recovery, you need to work around that and the decision-making. And that sometimes means that you need to make decisions for them or with them like financial

applications that you don't want to do, but it's just for their own safety. And making them understand that you've done it because you're concerned and you're wanting for them for the future to be able to be independent. It's a bit down, but tricky. Yeah. Do you have a system then where there's someone on call over the weekend or overnight in case there are crises? So we're not an emergency service.

My clients, they will text or email if things come up during the weekend. They know that I don't have the obligation to answer. To be honest, I'm quite easy. If there's a text coming saying, look, this is happening, I would just maybe reply, look, I would suggest you do this and this. Let's talk on Monday. Yeah. And there's always, I'm not a doctor.

So if there's an emergency, call the ambulance. That's the way to go. And normally, most of my clients have complex care needs. So there's care that care is involved. So having a good care agency providing support to the clients that kind of helps a lot. Yeah, and having good emergency plans, I think it's knowing exactly what everybody has to do. Something happens over the weekend. And there's things that some clients with a brain injury, they have extremely impulsive and they've won't an answer straight away.

So he's working with them around, well, we need to wait until Monday. day we're able to talk to with you and understand what's happening here, what we can do. And normally, so far so good. It sounds as though there could be quite a lot of anxiety and stress around, you know, you leave on a Friday afternoon and you know something might happen on a weekend. How do you detach from all of that? How do you look after yourself in that space? Well, I only work part-time.

So my caseload is quite manageable and I need to be realistic of what can I provide and can't. And that's why sometimes says, like, you have to say, say no to referrals. So my clients, I think they understand that I'm available for three days to do the visits. And the other days, I'm over the phone, by email. And I think providing that understanding to the clients, know what is your availability from the beginning. That's kind of good.

And I think I just, I've got my family, so I'm easily kind of easily disconnect when you have a kid around jumping. So, and I think family time is important for me. so I just am able to disconnect. My partner would say otherwise that I'm always thinking about work and I'm sending emails at night and sometimes catching up with reports, but I think it's just a way of balancing everything. And I like to avoid any delays with reports.

I like to do things on time and that sometimes means that I need to work a bit overnight. But that's fine. So spending an extra 20, 30 minutes to do that at the end of the day or on a weekend means so much less stress for you. overall. That's it. Yeah. And sometimes at night I just go, before going to bed, just review my emails, checking that everything's under control for the following day. So it's not a crazy day. More of you know that you're going to be on the road up and down. So yeah. So I think it's about trying to balance, I think, with a manageable case load. That's that I would say my suggestion to make it work. And also be surrounded by a good therapy team. I find that my main support, each therapy team that work with all of my different. different clients. It's like I speak to them on a weekly basis, having a good communication, knowing where things are at. It's like you've got everything very planned, very discussed, in coordination with what the client wants. So it's kind of nicely working together towards

that client's goals. It's good. I'm just thinking it's an interesting way of working at the moment where you obviously work quite isolated at sometimes, but you work as part of a team. And COVID would have made that so much more heightened. But it's good that you've got these other ways of connecting to your team and reaching out if you do need something. Yeah. And I'm in the phone most of the day. Like I'm talking all the time and people ask me,

oh, you work from home and you've got your private and how do you get your kind of supervision? And it's like, well, I go to my monthly supervision with another social worker and discuss my cases and showing that I'm doing the right thing and just making sure that I'm able to talk about my case. I think that's really important and useful. I also have the team from Inspire, which is several psychologists, another case manager, which we work very closely together, and we would just call each other for advice and say, hey, I got stuck here, what do you think?

And we even share a lot of clients. So they know my case load. I know there, so we can easily discuss and brainstorm together. But I think it's more kind of the day-to-day talking to the team, like with other case managers, OTs, psychologists and the physios, everybody, working together saying, hey, what do you think we should do this, we should do that, let's propose this. And you end up talking so much over the phone that I've never felt lonely over the past years working from home, to be honest.

That's really good to hear. What do you think might be then a typical career path for you? Where do you see your current work heading? Obviously, you've landed in a really good role that's a good fit for you. and of specific interest. But what do you see the next progression being for you? So I'm in a very comfortable place at the moment, and I really enjoy what I'm doing.

I think my family is growing, so I think I need to be, and I think that's why I kind of stepped back over the last two years regarding my ongoing learning. I think that's been put on hold, because unfortunately you can't have everything. You can't be working, studying, and having the family. It's just been impossible.

So I feel that over the past years, my professional development has been put on hold. And I think I'm pregnant again, so that will happen over the next two years. So I think that will allow me to take a bit of maternity leave, take a bit of a break, come back to work and see what would I like to do. I definitely have identified that over the past years that there's more work to be done with the families, especially around the kids with the adjustment around brain injuries. So working around what services could we provide for these kids, maybe like group, work together with the kids similar ages

who share a sibling or a family member with a brain injury, like canteen has with cancer, just working around what options do we have for kids and supporting families with people with brain injury because there's a lack of understanding and accessing the community is just so difficult for that. Because everything is an embarrassment and everything.

Always incidents happen and at the end of the day, the families are just saying, well, we're not going out anymore. So it's how we can help these families be able to have a normal day-to-day outing as a family. What services do we need to, what supports can we put in place? So I think there's a lot of work there and there's a bit of a gap in services at the moment there. So I think that's something, an area that I would like to focus.

Have you seen many changes in the work? social work, at least in the Australian context over the time that you've been working here, any developments, anything that you've found really positive? I feel social work has been always very well developed in Australia. There's a recognition for the profession. I think we're very valued. From my experience, even from England and Spain, I feel that here there's a, we're a recognized profession inside the rehab world, at least.

And even when we do meetings in the hospital, even the I, feel that there's a good understanding of what we do and the importance of a role. And I think it develops ongoingly. Social work kind of adjust to whatever needs comes up. And with COVID, I think a lot of the service had to kind of be reinvented just to provide the services. So I think there's wonderful social workers out there that are able to identify new needs and set up services, new policies that are able to adjust to what the population needs.

Yeah. And I guess that points to what you were saying. before about the contrast between what's happening here and the bureaucracy and the paperwork and everything that was a barrier in Spain and having more flexibility here, more hands-on, better capacity to respond to things as they come up. So hopefully that creates a better opportunity for social work to develop further in the future because we've got a good starting point and we can kind of see from there what could be done even better.

Yeah, definitely. And there's so many resources. And I think there's a lot of people who love the profession and are willing to kind of continue the investigations and the ongoing development of the profession, which I think it's essential. Yeah. And in the university, and I think that was something that I could see in university, that all the professors, and they're completely invested in the profession. So I think it's wonderful. That's something that's really wonderful to see here. given that your experience to date has been mostly in the area of brain injury and adjustment and holistically support for families are there any other types of social work that interest you

anything else that you've wanted to pursue or thought that sounds interesting i'd like to dip my foot in that so i've i've also done a lot of disability and a lot of challenging behavior and i find that sometimes, yeah, a lot of kind of mental health, challenging behavior, drug and alcohol. And I think I found that a bit challenging at times. And I think that's why I kind of refocus my work more into family. In the future, to be honest, I'm open to whatever comes up. I think that I'm guided to whatever challenge my clients bring up with them. Happy to kind of be guided by them.

When I get referred clients, it's, you think. this is what is going to be and then it's nothing. It's like, well, this referral has nothing to do. You go, you do your assessment. It's like, no, you send me to do this, but this is, I'm picking up here more things. And I think that's kind of the wonderful part of our role as well, that you go in and you get referred for something, but then you get the chance to meet the family, meet the client, and then you say, well, wait a second, you've got here much more.

There's much more here than you think. That's such a great opportunity for learning as well and saying, yes, I might go in expecting that I will have the answers. But most of the time, you'll be thrown a curveball and you'll say, well, no, I need to go off and research. I need to read. Let me do my research. Let's see. What can we work around here? And I learn with each client. And I think that's, I know I'm open-minded. I learn from each therapist that I work with. to be honest, I think that my knowledge is thanks to all of them. And yeah, and I think that my intervention is mostly guided by them.

So I'm happy to be honest and say, look, never done this before. Let's sit down and let me do a bit of research. Let's see what I can do or if maybe we need to get another services involved and see how we can work this best. So, yeah, guided by whatever the client needs. So happy to, yeah, to work around that. outside of your regular work are there any projects or programs that you have time or interest in working on at the moment i read so much about things that people are doing and i'm like oh i would love to do this but i haven't got the time i have to be honest it's just been crazy two years

and balancing family life and work juggling both of them i'm still trying to master that being able to participate in those amazing projects that people are part of, I would love to, but I know realistically, the kids need to be older, I need to have more time and be able to say, look, this is one day just focusing on my professional development, participation in different projects, and at the moment I do not have that time. But I do read a lot and I've got all like, LinkedIn is a great source of information where you can see how many people are what they're doing. I know when we use Facebook for the social things,

it's more for work because there's some business of social work website where I get to see what all the people are doing around Australia. Like there's a good project in Queensland, South Australia. So you hear how all the other states are doing. And it's so interesting. And there's all this, even the fortnight meeting that the Social Work Brain Injury Association has organized. I couldn't even make it this month.

So it's like, oh my God. And it's such a shame because I love to hear what other people are doing. And it's just a great opportunity to catch up with other social workers in the area who have these amazing ideas and projects, which, yeah. But let's be honest, it's not my time. Maybe in a few years, I will be able to kind of see what's out there, what is the need and work around together with some of the projects. And even my professional development, who knows,

Maybe I would like to do more family therapy intervention than anything else, more than social work. But I definitely like my case management on social work combination at the moment and I'm really enjoying it. Yeah, but I can see how it would be hard to plan for much else in the future given, you know, you've got a bub on the way. And it was really interesting for me to get a different perspective. And anyone who has parented is probably very aware of this. but I think the greater population has become more aware of the fact that during COVID shutdowns and everything that's been happening in the world, we're expected to work as though we don't have children and parent as though we don't have work.

So it's probably very obvious to you that balance and that need to really be careful about how much you take on, whereas I think people who haven't had that parenting experience while juggling work, they haven't had that experience. they haven't had to consider that. Yeah, and to be honest, before I had my kids, it was all about work. I would work so much hours. I didn't, I was not even aware until, until you just realized how much work I was doing before that. And it's just because it's true that with private practice, you work from home and you can

pick up, you have so much flexibility and you're able to manage it, to be honest, really well. And you get a lot of things done. I find working from home is extremely productive for me. So I was doing a lot of hours at the end of the week before hiring my kid. And now it's more about I've got these hours just to work. The rest has to be family time. I think it's prioritizing both things and allowing the time for both. Yeah.

So do you are able to offer a good quality of service to the clients? Yeah. Where would you then, given that it seems you read widely and you keep abreast of what's happening as much as you can, where would you direct people if they wanted to know more about social work in this area? I think access to all the new information. So LinkedIn would be one of the best place. Business of Social Work, Facebook page. People ask a lot of questions and just reading the answers.

I get a lot of ideas of what's out there and what people are doing. Sign up for brain injury. I find they've got excellent resources. And they've even sent through an information-pack book. Really wonderful for the families. There's also Professor Graham created a group with a bunch of social workers for brain injury and he sends through lots of very interesting stuff and reading and resources and even people ask questions and it's an international group so it's a good opportunity to see what other

people from other countries are doing which is really good and then the Australian Association of social workers they've got all these different groups happening and meetings happening with disability. So I do with disability, the brain injury and some of the trainings and meetings that they've been having over the past years. Things have gone down at the moment with COVID, but there were a lot of meetings happening in the past, and it was a great opportunity and trainings happening. I would normally train those trainings as a part of my progress development. I found them really interesting. And now with NDIS, that's another world. So it's just keeping updated with NDIAS, I think it's important as well. I think at the end of the day, you need to have the time

to sit down and read everything, and it's not always possible. Yeah. It's a bit difficult. But yeah, the information is out there, and there's so many people doing investigations and the resources are available, and it's great. It sounds like a good place to start then would be based on someone's individual interests. So if they're interested in brain injury or spinal cord injury or burns or blindness or amputation, they could say, look, up those agencies like sign apps is a great resource and use of those spinal cord injury services but reach out to people as you said LinkedIn is a great resource and and the Facebook businesses are a good resource and just reach out to people and say hey I'm interested in learning

more about this or even if there are students who want to do a placement just see what those opportunities are like because social work as you said is so much more diverse than just child protection or hospital work there's so much more that can be done and so many great areas where we can put ourselves that contribute to someone's recovery and their rehabilitation journey. And people were saying the other day there was a lot of private social workers that they were saying they were getting requests for student placements and how to manage those student placements. And that could be something that I could be interested in doing in a few years time, just becoming part of that, the university and building up the skills for new social

workers out in the community. When I finished university at the beginning, I thought, wow, that could be a great idea also because with brain injury and spinal cord, there's very little few of us. There's not that many in the community and there's a lack of understanding of brain injury in particular. You never know where the world it will take you. But yeah, definitely I think, and now with LinkedIn, you're able to kind of look at everybody's profile and see, oh, look, she's got experience or he's got experience in this. I will send him an

email and people will respond. They communicate so well by messaging and so good. Yeah. It's easy this day. I think I used to have the impression that a student placement had to be full time or nothing. And I'm learning more recently that there is flexibility. So you can have a part-time student placement. Yeah. So if you only have capacity to supervise a student part-time, it's still a great opportunity for them. They might need to be working around other employment responsibilities. So yeah. To be honest, I found it very hard to be able to balance or juggle between working and doing the 500 hours placement each year. I couldn't do it in three months. I said I need to break it down to six months. It's the only way that this is going to work for me. And the students for social

work that go to do the master's, they're mature students which also have families. They work. So I think the university there needs to kind of be more flexible with the part-time training, like the practical side of things. Just to make it work. It's important. Flexibility is what we do. Yeah. And look, with that, with COVID and having these meetings online and you don't need to be in an office

for things that happen. It brings flexibility. And I think placements are the best place where our social work student is going to understand the profession. because reading is very important having the knowledge as well but at the end of the day, the day-to-day habits at a placement and the reality and getting to understand the client

and hearing the clients out, the story and what they're going through, you won't get it from a book. You need to hear it from them. And even just working as a team, you don't get that from group projects at uni. No, no, you need to sitting down on a table surrounded by your team

and discussing and brainstorming. That's how you come up with. the best treatment plan and yeah. Definitely placements I would highly recommend. So that's why I thought private practice, it's a bit of a tricky for a placement to happen. Because I did, it was wonderful to do the hospital placement because you get to see how a hospital works,

all the different areas of social work in a hospital, how busy you can get. Having to write the report and getting the work done and finding the right support for the people before the discharge. So I think you get a lot of action, of social work action from a placement. So that's why I think with private practices can be,

it depends. It's not that intensive, I would say. Then you get students that they just want to do research, which I hate research. Not my cup of tea, definitely. Even though it's so much of what you do. That's it, yeah. Like it's like, some of my colleagues were like,

oh no, I want to do research and write policy. like, excellent. That's perfect. I'm more face-to-face. I will do the intervention. So there's all these different kind of social workers and they've got the preference and I think that's what makes it work for everyone. That's right. The important is you to enjoy your job and like what you do. But I think that diversity is why we've been able to insert ourselves as a profession in so many different areas because we do have that diverse skill set and we can just work to what our interest is. Definitely. And the flexibility at the end. You just work around things for them to happen.

Yeah. Is there anything before we finish up, anything else that you wanted to let people know about about your work or about just what you do? I think that social work is a great profession. It's so wide. It varies so much. I would definitely invite a lot of students who don't know what to do just to give it a try because, yeah, it will be surprised.

Mm-hmm. And to reach out because. while we're very busy, we're also a very generous bunch and we want to contribute. Definitely. I get a lot of sometimes text messages or messages from people from the Spanish community who've studied social work in Spain, who are here in Australia and they're like, oh, so how did you manage to work and register? And I'm like, yeah, it's a long process, but you can get it.

Like if I've been able to manage to work, you can as well. There's a bit of sacrifice and the hard work, but at the end of the day, it is possible. What a lovely opportunity for you to provide a bit of mentorship as well. Yeah, so it's like sometimes people are saying, oh, this is too much. And I said, look, guys, if you really want to do this, there's options. And maybe social work, you don't have to do social work. There's all these different professions, case management or family support worker. It's the same field at the end of the day providing different support.

So maybe that's a way to start. Because when I first came to Australia, before I was doing all my paperwork, I started again as a support worker. So for me going back to support worker, after being doing the social work, it was like, oh, that's a step backwards. And I said, well, no, it gives me the opportunity to know services, get to know how the system works, what is Australia doing? And so it's great.

It's a step sideways. That's it, yeah. So it's all a learning curve. Yeah. Well, I've really enjoyed hearing about your experience. It's been wonderful learning more about the diversity and the quality of service you provide and especially the way that you've positively represented social work in the case management field. And you're obviously very passionate for advancing the rights and access for people

with a disability following motor vehicle accidents specifically. But yeah, it's just been wonderful hearing about all of that and what you're contributing. And I hope that people will want to reach out and get to know a little bit more and see how they could do something similar or just at least learn a bit more about this field because it is a very, very interesting field. It's always changing. There's always something we need to learn and different ways that we can be providing supports to people and their families and also supports to teams that assist other people. So we've got a large role to play there. But yeah, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. It's being a wonderful experience for me as well to hear about it. Thank you so much. My pleasure.

Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Lithia, 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 Sheary, a clinical social worker and art therapist. She has spent over 25 years working with children and adults who have experienced trauma and mental health professionals who work with them. Her work spans private practice, public facilitation and research. Throughout her work, Sheri has found that art is a wonderful tool in which children and adults can communicate a vast variety of feelings in a non-threatening way. in addition to individual therapy and running therapeutic groups for children and women. Shiri has spent the last few years refining a model for preschools using creative groups.

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.