Social Work Spotlight - Episode 31: Felicity

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

In this episode I speak with Felicity, who in addition to social work, has trained in art therapy and education, psychotherapy and corrective services. She worked in the prison system for 18 years supporting inmates and running groups and workshops. She now works as a teacher of Community Services, Ageing & Disability & Community Arts & Cultural Development at TAFE, supporting a combination of high school students and adults, providing training for those wanting to work in community settings, or looking for a pathway to university studies.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Milk Crate Theatre - https://www.milkcratetheatre.com/TAFE NSW Community Services courses - https://www.tafensw.edu.au/courses/community-services-coursesSt Vincent de Paul Society article (Ability Links celebrates cultural diversity) - https://www.vinnies.org.au/page/News/NSW/Media_Releases/Media_Releases_Archive/Media_Releases_2016/Ability_Links_celebrates_cultural_diversity/Hilary Cottam and Radical Help - https://www.hilarycottam.com/radical-help/Hilary Cottam’s TED Talk - https://www.ted.com/talks/hilary_cottam_social_services_are_broken_how_we_can_fix_them?language=enSydney Alliance - https://www.sydneyalliance.org.au/The Five Minute Advocate podcast - https://omny.fm/shows/the-five-minute-advocate/playlists/podcast40 Critical Thinkers in Community Development (book) - https://practicalactionpublishing.com/book/2486/40-critical-thinkers-in-community-developmentTyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk - https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talkThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HrzedQ0NV_2MYBuZxMOG_HtWmJlaYdFDXKHBVTySgyQ/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 Felicity. In addition to social work, Felicity is trained in art, therapy and education, psychotherapy and corrective services. She worked in the prison system for 18 years, supporting inmates and running groups and workshops. She now works as a teacher of community services, aging and disability, and community arts and cultural development, at TAFE, supporting a combination of high school students and adults, providing training for those wanting to work in community settings, or looking for a pathway to university studies.

Thank you so much, Felicity, for coming on to the podcast. I'm really glad to speak with you about your work. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. The first question I always ask is, when did you start in social work and why did you choose this type of work? Well, with your question and I was thinking about it, and it actually goes back to as a teenager, and I remember reading this book about Odyssey House in New York or somewhere and all the work that they did with people, and it just blew my little mind. And I thought, wow, I want to do something like that

that really makes a difference, you know, to people's lives, and it was so powerful. But of course I got completely distracted over the following years lived and traveled overseas and did all sorts of other things. But in my late 20s, I just thought this call to come back to doing that sort of heart work. Yeah. Yeah, and I actually, an astrologer did my chart and said, you're a mixture between an artist and a therapist, like a psychologist.

So I thought, hmm, art therapy, psychology, yes. You know, so then I went and studied psychotherapy. And then that led me to working in the prison system. So it was interesting how that evolved because I never ever thought I would end up working in prison. Yeah. So you completed a certificate for in corrective services practice and you worked, I believe, providing advocacy for women leaving custody. But can you tell me what that was like and what your role included? Oh, well, that was after I stopped working in prison.

prisons, but I worked in the prisons for about 18 years all up, so in a variety of roles, alcohol not a drug worker. And then I sort of went into group work because I realized in a prison system to one-on-one was really setting them up to be preyed upon because to open up, you know, and be vulnerable in a prison system is dangerous because it's like a bit of a jungle and, you know, you send them back out and they get preyed upon. So I started. started doing group work and working, you know, with all teaching and doing sorts of groups and loved it. And that was far more appropriate in that setting. And I really enjoyed the dynamic of working in a group, more than one on one. And yeah, I did a variety of different roles in the prison and worked

in self-harm unit for six years, psychiatric prison hospital for seven or eight years, Hep C. HIV unit, violence prevention unit, sex offenders unit. So a variety of jails in a variety of positions, doing a lot of group work and also as an artist and teaching art and doing murals and all sorts of different roles. So it was great. Once you're in the system, you can move around and especially through the 90s, it was a real bit of a golden age. We kind of reminisce because we were allowed to just experiment, do all these really fabulous, innovative, you know, experiential, experimental programs in the prison. And it was fantastic. So some really amazing work got done through that time. And then, of course, in the 2000s, they all started to cut down on all of that and take away

a lot of those fabulous programs. So that was a real shame. In the 90s, was that in context of all of the investigations? and reforms into prison systems? Is that why there was such flexibility? Yeah, well, that had started in the 80s with Tony Vincent. And then it had sort of opened up. And we had HIV and a whole lot of different things that were happening and impacting in the prison. So they were putting in place all these different programs to address these things. And it was fantastic. And I think it was just the time as well, you know. And obviously they funded it. there was a lot of money put into these different programs with recognition that it does make a

difference. But, yep, that it all changed. And then I bumped into my friend today and she said it's even worse than when I left. It was bad then and it's just got worse. So it's a real shame. You also did work for a theatre, milk crate theatre. They support projects with particular populations or social issues. How did you make an impact in that space?

Well, it's mainly with people, homeless people or people at risk of homelessness. I'd sort of been involved, I was known about them for a long time. But when I was at Vinnie's, I collaborated with the CEO, and we did a number of different projects, and I brought in some of their artists to train my linkers. And then they became involved. Yeah, we sort of did some exchange with learning, etc. she gave me a job as a social worker there for a while, social support really.

But yeah, it's just being involved at all these wonderful things that they do, theatre and workshops and voice and music and all sorts of different expression and they put on a wonderful production. So, you know, everything from calling them up to see they're okay to standing in, you know, in the play. I was the policeman at one point. you know, acting out, you know, in the play and the performance. So, yeah, it was great. And I love that.

So, you know, arts is a passion, community development, those things and how they come together is a passion of mine anyway. So it was wonderful to be involved. Yeah. As you said, you've completed diplomas in psychotherapy and art therapy. How do you use that experience and those teachings in the work that you do now? Well, I think basically I'm a creative person and I'm just naturally creative and I like to, you know, that challenge of, okay, we've got this situation. What can we do here?

Bringing in whatever I have in my sort of magic bag of tricks that I have used over the years and just applying them in the situation. So because I've done so many different jobs and different experience and now teaching, so I'm used to, sort of pulling things out and just adapting and engaging, trying to make it engaging and interesting for people. Because not everybody's into arts and things like that, but there's always to put it into any kind of activity, it just can ignite people or engage them in ways that you just can't do through other methods. And it just engages different parts of them as well. And you get a deeper response, I think, or a deeper thinking that comes through that. Yeah. No, it's just really interesting that I'm speaking with you now when the most recent

episode, so that just before this one, I was speaking with someone who's done a PhD in art therapy for preschool children and developed a new model. And I think it's a really good sort of segue towards this conversation where that is such an important way of engaging with someone or providing someone with the opportunity to develop in different ways and provide structure, but also allow that freedom of expression. So I think it's such an incredible way of tying in different elements to the work that we do because that's not something we learn in social work at university. It's completely different. No, that's right. That's right. And that's a great shame. And I feel privileged to be in a situation now to be teaching, you know, at a bachelor's and a

diploma at different levels all the way down to cert to with high school students. So I have a group of high school students who are doing their T-VET in community services. So it's lovely to be able to inspire and kind of challenge and engage people, students in learning in all sorts of different ways. And they love it. We play games at the beginning of every class, you know, of all ages. and do all sorts of activities. And the activities is sort of what kind of switches them on.

Because I think these days what you're battling is screens in the classroom as well, you know, like a lot of them just sit behind their screens and they say they're taking notes, I don't know. You know, and the phone is just like glued to their hand, especially the teenagers. Always sort of taking it away and putting it so, hello. What are we talking about? Let's talk. And I say to them, the greatest gift you can give someone is your presence. And when half of you is in your screen, you're not present. And you're telling the person you're with that the person on the screen is much more important than them. So hello,

this is social work, it's relational. It's not like a one-way street. You know, I'm not just talking to you and you can just do whatever you like. it's an exchange. And the more you are there with me, the more you get the most out of me. So anyway, I try. Given that that was such a big challenge pre-COVID, how have you found it during lockdowns, during periods where people have no choice but to be on their computers and phones all the time? Well, it's interesting because we had to learn all these new platforms and all of a sudden put everything online.

There's a lot of anxiety, and, you know, a student's amazing. I don't have a microphone. Well, can you just get by a microphone? I can't afford a microphone, you know, just simple things that you take for granted. So there was a lot of students, especially through TAFE, who couldn't do it or it was just too challenging for them. And a lot of the ones who were fine with it, they would start off, you know, showing their face, but in the end it was just all these dots on the screen.

They just kind of were able to hide and do whatever they liked and just sort of expected you to keep talking to this blank screen. So it was challenging for everyone. And then coming back into the classroom, you know, especially the first class where everyone arrived back, all of a sudden seeing each other the real person, not seeing the whole body and the whole person, some of them were like, oh, it's a bit intimidating, you know,

like I was kind of used to hiding, you know, like now I'm exposed. Some of them actually said that and you could see a lot of them felt that. So that was hard for them all of a sudden to be in a classroom and but then now we've been there for a couple of months and they're just like so into each other and they all go off together and they're all loving being together. So it's so important. Yeah. So important.

I guess that's interesting then from. a perspective of technology fatigue. They've had to adjust to that and then they've had to adjust to getting back together again and what does it mean to engage with people face to face? This is something we're not used to doing. But I guess that's interesting to reflect on and for them to take that into their practice and go, well, if this is what you're feeling, imagine what other people are feeling. Even when COVID is no longer a thing, how good is it to be able to stop and reflect on what's happening for that person because it may be a completely different experience to what's going on for you. Well, isolation is the thing that's killing us now and it's

a product of affluence, which is the crazy thing. And I say to them, it's worse for you than smoking and drinking and drugging and God knows what. Isolation will kill you. Yeah. It is the worst thing you can do. but helping others is actually you live longer, you're healthier, you're happier. Yeah. So this is what the research has shown. So it's interesting. But still people want to hide. It sounds as though you wear quite a few hats.

What is a typical day like for you? Well, yeah, I'm mostly teaching right now, Bachelor of Adult Ed International students on a Monday. So that's very different. So I've got mainly Nepali, Pakistani, Bengali, Nigerian-Kenyan mix, mainly. So the way they learn and engaging them is very different to a group of Anglos, which is mainly what I have in TAFE. It used to be a lot more mixed, but it is still mixed, but it's not like a pure kind of fresh migrant kind of.

group. So it's lectures, tutorials, I try and engage them, but it's more challenging. They're not used to discussion. They're not used to, you know, I ask a question, they all sit there. So there's a couple that will talk, but they're kind of a wannabe spoon fed. They're just not used to being challenged. Yeah, they just kind of expect it to be there. And they just want to get through. However, a lot of them aren't really invested. they just want to get a visa and stay. Sure. So I've given them a project to do,

they have to design a community development project, so I've given them a project where the international students are their target group and what are their issues, you know, what if you're going to develop a program for you guys, what will you do, and now they're engaged. So that's where you've got to be creative and go, okay, how can we adjust this so that they can relate? Yeah.

They just weren't relating before to the assessments. But now they are. So, yeah, I think if it's you, you can put the theory into practice. So that's the main thing and see how it can work for you. And that's all on a Monday. That's on a Monday. So on a Tuesday, Wednesday I have, I teach group work at the moment. I teach the T-Vet students, the teenagers who are gorgeous.

So they just did their role plays as a, an intake interview last week, so they were shaking and so nervous. The brassy ones were the most nervous, which was funny. Yeah, I teach different subjects at different times, so it just depends. But yeah, it's three-hour classes or four-hour classes, so it's intense. You know, you've got to be on for a long time and be prepared and, you know, manage a group of people in learning and make it fun and interesting, and they actually learn. So yeah, that's kind of mainly what I'm doing at the moment. Is there any capacity for your

students to gain recognition of prior learning in terms of them if they want to continue on to the social work bachelor and other sorts of studies? Yeah, yeah, that's all in place. That's all in the system. Diploma gives them the equivalent of first year and a bachelor's. We have that agreement with UNSW. With the T-VET, they do a CERT 2, but we've got a couple of units which will roll over into CERT 3. So yeah, it all helps them move through the system, which is what we want. You know, often I've been teaching in the community in different ways. And because I have that TAFE connection, I'll bring them into TAFE and introduce them and encourage them to study and a lot of them have and they've gone on to get

diplomas and get work. So it really is a very empowering pathway for people who, are kind of disconnected. Well, they've just had kids or they've been homeless or they've got out of jail. And, you know, we have lots of people who've really struggled or still are struggling in DV, etc. So they come into education. So we get all of that as well. That can be quite challenging.

Last year I had five deaf students and two partially blind students in one class. So I had two translators, one notekeeper. So, yeah, it's quite a different dynamic. So we have a real range of people, especially community services, attracts people who often have gone through the system themselves or, you know, have experienced lots of trauma or difficult situations. I can imagine there will be some people listening to this who might be tossing up. Do I want to study social work or do I want to study at TAFE?

Do I want to do the bachelor? Do I want to do a diploma, a certificate? Just in a nutshell, what's the main difference? And what do some of your students who have done the diploma then continue to do in terms of the work that they're getting? What's the difference employment-wise? Assert 3 will get you into a whole lot of work. But it's mainly like a support worker. It's just at a base level. But assert 3 will get you there.

If you haven't done education for a long time or haven't done much education, it's much better to go to TAFE. And even the head of social sciences at UNSW told me we love TAFE students because they get it. Because, you know, they do work placement. They've learnt so much by the time they get there. Whereas people who go straight into a bachelor's often have no idea about the system, how it works, about the clients, what they've experienced, you know, for all those different. things. So it is much better to go to TAFE and you get supported a lot more in TAFE.

Uni, it's just like you turn up, you do, thing has to be put in the machine. There is support, but it's nothing like TAFE does. So TAFE is very good like that. There's more flexibility and there's more support. So it's a really good standing. Diploma gets you to a slightly different level. But if you want to get to a more, you know, work your way up into being a social worker in a hospital or a institution, you do need a bachelor's. And I ended up going back and doing my master's, I think I finished in 2014 or 15, because I knew if I wanted to get to that next level, I needed that. And it was really interesting as well. But yeah, that degree did get me my job in Vinnie's. That was a bit of a dream job. Education does get

you there. And do you have a role in student placements as well? No, I don't do that. There's certain people that do that, yeah. I think it's just good for social workers listening to realize that there are actually really good placement opportunities for people doing TAFE courses. I personally have supervised students who are going through the TAFE system as well as university and they're keen as must end. They're just wanting to get out there and do things. So great opportunity for them as well as you in terms of learning. And they often get employment from it, which is really good. Do you have much of an opportunity to work with other disciplines then at the TAFE? Is there much crossover with anyone else? Well, I'm one of the few that does.

I've taught quite a bit in ageing and disability because the Vinnie's job was through the NDIS ability links. So I've taught a few subjects in ageing and disability. I also was teaching in the arts section at St George, Community Arts and Cultural Development. And that was great. I love teaching in that course. So I've done a bit of crossover, which is good. Yeah. What would you say you've loved most about the work that you're doing at the moment? I do love teaching. I get a lot out of, you know, seeing people grow and blossom and learn and change. Because they do. You know, you see them in the beginning and often their attitudes are quite, you know, difficult. And if they're challenged in the right way and supported, you can see their little brains

going, you know, like, oh my God, I never thought of it like that, or just completely opened and challenged for all their sort of long-held beliefs. Because it's really, I think, a lot of what we teach is about beliefs and attitudes. Because that's where people fall. It's something that's invisible and our privilege, we don't see it. So to somehow be open to recognizing that is a really big thing. And then you can start to empathize more and to learn to how to help people. Because everyone wants to help, it's actually really difficult to help people. Because helping people there's no straight line. It's so complex. And you don't know, sometimes by thinking you're doing good, you can actually do harm.

So how do we know the results of our work and what we do? And to do it in a positive way, you've really got to have a big picture thinking, I think. Be very aware and awake and present with people. It's not as easy as it sounds, you know. Yeah. I think being in a position where you have an opportunity to do group work is a privilege in itself.

And so many places that I've worked, in or I've heard about, they just don't prioritize it because they say we don't have the resources, we don't have the time, when really it's such an enriching part of the work that we can do and we have such a great contribution in that space. And I encourage anyone to look, there's a really great course through the Institute of Group Leaders, just do training, do anything else that gives you an opportunity or at least build confidence to run groups because it can enrich your practice and also the people that you're supporting. Yeah, look, I think it's so important and I think it's short-sighted and part of what's

happening in society generally that people are just becoming more and more individualistic and treating individuals without treating families and communities and groups. Because there's a lot, so much more valuable stuff that happens in a group that can never happen one-on-one. And it actually saves us. money in the long run. You know, you can work with a lot of people at once or you can work with a whole community at once. And, you know, you can bring everybody up at the same time. And it's not just you, but they're doing it for each other. And in the end, the ideal is that you do yourself out of a job

and they get upskilled to be able to do it for themselves. So it's actually a lot better in the long ones. And there is a lot of support for community development, but group work, I think people think that it's either therapy or it's like art and crafts or, you know, like, or it's NAA, you know, or NAA. You know, there's so many different things you can do and so many different programs that when you're working in a group, like the arts programs that I set up and other programs that so much has accomplished just by the people bonding and supporting each other and learning together. And I think that's such a precious thing. Yeah.

Do you think that's a challenge then of working in this area that you feel like you have to constantly explain how it's beneficial? Oh yeah. Look, even more than that, and I keep saying this, we know what's best practice. You know, we know what works in prisons. We know what works for people of disability, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. but we all know what it is. We all talk about best practice,

but we're not doing it, basically, because we've corporatized the sector, and it's all about money. And, you know, the government is giving a huge amount of money to these giant charities and different organisations, which squash out all these great little on-the-ground services who are much more responsive to communities and people generally. You know, it happened just with the Ush sector,

recently. You know, there's so many wonderful little organisations that were providing out-of-school care. And then the government's just gone, no, we'll give that to admission Australia or whoever. And Vinnie's and all the big ones. And they just have no connection, no need to want to connect with the school. And they don't employ the same people who are there. So their beloved child workers are all gone and you get a stranger who's not really interested. That's the generalisation. I shouldn't say that. But what the people I were talking to, that's what they were saying. And they were very upset. And parents were very upset. But I see this happening all the time. And it just becomes like a product. It's not a service anymore. It's a business. And they're using

that word. But when it's a business, It's not about people. It's about money. Yeah. All the rhetoric is there. I mean, it's a very big generalisation. There's a lot of great people who are doing a lot of great stuff. And I think they try, but the nature of a corporation is different than a service that works directly with a small community or, you know, refuge or whatever it is.

They do it very differently. So I mourn the loss of that, and a lot of people do. and I don't know where it's going, but it's not a good trend. I guess that's the challenge then when you've got a very similar pot of money to allocate towards something, a program, a service, a population, and the services become saturated because everyone jumps on the bandwark and goes, oh, I can provide that service. That sounds easy enough. So you've got all these new services who are competing with the ones who have the history,

the tradition, the experience. I mean, it's confusing for the clients or the people who are accessing the services because they don't know where to turn. Well, particularly with NDIS and it's all about choice and control. But if you've never made a decision, how the hell do you choose? Yeah. So, you know, a big part of it was supporting people to just know how to make a good decision and suss out these different services.

and then, you know, on top of that, I think the funding model, because it's all about individuals again, before the funding was to services, now the funding's to individuals. So an individual on their own is very difficult to often navigate the system and need support. So we've just created this system where you've got one person surrounded by all these different services. And this is life, you know,

we have so many strangers come into our life and they're all interchangeable and doesn't actually change anything and often not people just keep going on and on in that same situation with all these different props going from appointment to appointment and does it change but you know really it's not about a role it's about a relation so this is what's happening now so if we focus more on having long-term people with groups or families. I mean, I love the work of Hillary Cottom. Read her book, Radical Help, Watch Her Ted Talk. So interesting what she's doing.

She has really analyzed the whole welfare system and how it was created. It was created for a different time, for different problems. And it's just not working now. Yeah. So how can we change that? Because at the base of it, it's about relationships, it's about people. with people and supporting each other. And it's a horizontal thing.

It's not about service up there somewhere or other, you know, and it comes down to the people on the ground and then it goes back up the chain. And, you know, it's very disconnected. The bigger the organization, the more disconnection. It's a horizontal thing. This is where real change happens, I think. And also through popular culture, you know,

you can't ignore that. it has to all be, it reflects through that and it gets out to people through popular culture. It's interesting. So you're kind of touching on then funding models and funding providers being that top-down approach. And before we started recording, we were reflecting on some previous work I was doing in a migrant resource centre where just before I started, they had lost their core funding, which meant that all of a sudden you couldn't borrow from Peter to pay poor.

within the organization, you had one pot of money for one service. And that, again, individualized the approach. You had to be able to demonstrate exactly what you're doing. And at the end of the day, you got less money. So it's affecting all of the people that you're supporting essentially, because I imagine a lot of your students would be migrants and refugees as well. Exactly. And they're in a position where they've come with traumatic experiences already.

And all of a sudden, the people in authority are saying, well, no, you can't access that. you can't do this, you can't do this, you've come to this land to hopefully get a better outcome, but what are you left with and how are you treated? It's kind of really sad to see. It is sad. I know. Supporting people who have histories of violence and sex offenders, how did you keep yourself safe in that space? That must have been really challenging. Oh, safe in the prison. Yeah, well, I did have some pretty traumatic experiences. You can't help, but it's been 18 years in prison. I had a lot of fantastic experience that I learned so much,

and it was such an incredible, challenging but rewarding experience. But yeah, the sex offenders was one that I never really wanted to work in the sex offender unit, but I pretty much worked in every other unit. And then in the end, they offered me to do some work in there, and it was just like, okay, I'm obviously meant to look at this, you know, and just deal with this. and it wasn't my favourite place to work, but there were some really good people there, and I enjoyed working there. There was some very disturbing people there as well, but I was there about a year, I think, so it wasn't that long, and the big picture.

But I did enjoy the psychiatric prison hospital. I didn't think that I sort of wondered a bit about that because it's the most severely mentally ill people in New South Wales, and a lot of them have. killed a parent or a brother or somebody close to them. Very florid, especially in the beginning. But actually I loved it because I could just be totally mad and we could all be mad together and have fun and just sort of, yeah, just put the music on and I used to do a lot of art with them.

We did murals. We did lots of really fabulous things. Yeah, it taught me a lot about the mind and mental illness as well. well. So yeah, that was a really, or seven years I was there. So it was a really great experience. It sounds as though you made it an opportunity for you to connect with people rather than, again, that top-down approach of I'm here to do this and this is how it's going to go. It was much more of a collaborative. What are we going to do today? Are we going to have some fun? How are we going to look? That's really, really wonderful.

That's right. And we decorated everything. We ended up painting every wall we could get hold hand on and just trying to change the atmosphere. Amazing. Your colleague identified it's worse in the system now, the prison system. How does your friend negotiate that and does it horrify you hearing about some of the changes that have happened? Just less support. It's becoming this American sort of system of warehousing people rather than rehabilitating. I mean, it was always about, you know, the priority of security.

education and AOD and psychology, all of that was only like a tiny bit of a budget. Even though they know that that's what works, that's the main thing that works for people. And also post-release support. So yeah, so that's being taken away more and more and more. And I don't know with COVID, I think. I'm sure that there was lots of lockdowns and must have been very difficult. Yeah. But I did work for five years or something, training and running the monthly groups for the mentors of women coming out of prison through the WIPP program.

And it's now Women's Justice Network, I think it's called, it changed names. But that was really good. I really enjoyed that. And it was lovely to be able to support people to support people coming out of prison. Yeah. Because often they didn't have any friends who weren't drug. dealers or scamming and doing stuff that they got into trouble with. But just to have an ordinary person to talk to who is actually interested in them,

it's just amazing how much difference it makes in somebody's life and somebody who thinks of them and cares for them and gives a damn if something happens to them. So we take those sort of things for granted. But, you know, again, it's this whole relational thing. That's what helps people through. I mean, we all have struggles, but it's those relationships that help us through them. So, yeah, it was really nice to be a part of that. Have you seen over time many changes in the curriculum or maybe the types of people who are

enrolling in your courses? Is there sort of a push based on advertising for a certain person to join up or how is it pitched and how do people find out about the courses in the first place? Yeah, it's a good question, because I haven't been on that. side of it. It's mostly they, somebody they know or themselves has been through a hard time and had to get some help from certain services in different ways. So they have that personal experience and they have that desire to want to help people. So I feel lucky because so many of students are really well motivated. So that makes a big difference to come in with that rather than just,

I just want to get a job. You know, that's unusual. We get quite a few people who kind of in, you know, 30s, 40s, they've had a different career. It's meaningless, even though they've made a lot of money sometimes. But they haven't really got anything out of it, and they want to do something that touches them and that is real and that they can actually make a difference,

even though they know that the money's crap. But, yeah, so we get some people like that. We get some very young ones, you know, who just are very enthusiastic to have no experience. So they're, you know, just sort of got a woo, woo, woo, woo, well, you know, because often they think they know everything. Yeah. But it's, as I said, it's not as easy as it seems to help people. Yeah.

I was speaking with some other guests who came on to the podcast, episode 25. If anyone wants to go back and have a listen, Rabina and Belinda, who work for ECHAV, the Education Centre Against Violence and they were looking at the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse and Neglect. I'm curious as to whether that's been something explicit in terms of your team. Is there a flow-down effect on education as a result of some of those reforms that are being spoken about? Do they want to try to support the people who are supporting the people by doing something different that hasn't been done before? Are they trying to make sure that they're safeguarding the workers and the people that they're supporting in the future.

When I was at Vinnie's, they started introducing trauma-informed care as a kind of a norm and training around that and training around dealing with violence. And, you know, we teach that now. It's a kind of part of the whole framework in community service trauma-informed care. It's a tricky one though because you know you don't want to trigger trauma but at some point you've got to talk about it You know so like we had this discussion in a domestic violence class where I went in and talked about the work I'd done with the women Into this class and they were saying well well you can't say that because this is trauma-informed care But you know if you're dealing with women who are living in violence and children you can't ignore it Yeah

you have to talk about it at some point that you have to be able to know for yourself how to work with your own trauma, your vicarious trauma or whatever trauma it is. And it's not that we can avoid it. So there's always this kind of swing, you know, like one way or another. Yeah, it's an interesting one. And I think it's good because there's a lot more awareness around a lot of things. And, you know, now we always do an acknowledgement of country at the beginning of class

and meetings and these things never. happened before. So I think it has trickled down in many ways, a lot of these recommendations. Sometimes like a lot of these things, you know, you do a training, you've got the tick the box. Now I know what I'm doing, but those same patterns can continue if management doesn't uphold those ideas and behaviours. So, you know, bullying, all that sort of stuff. It still goes on. and how it's managed, I think, is more important in the long run than just putting it. Training's a good, but a lot of people just go, go to go to this training, you know, boring, go and tick that box.

So, you know, this whole tick box mentality is really annoying sometimes because I think it's good to have it there, the trainings, but it has to be enculturated. into how people work and how people talk to each other. And, you know, that's how it actually changes. So if that happens, and where I'm working, Tave, we're fabulous. We're all so supportive of each other. And, you know, we really talk about things

and we really try and find the best way to work with challenging people or situations or behaviors or how do we get this principle across of these ideas. So there's a lot of brainstorming, a lot of backwork that goes on to try and make it as good as we can, even though, yeah, the system is very clunky in many ways. It's a big dinosaur. Do you have much of an opportunity to do research within your role? Not at the moment.

When I was at Vinnie's, I did quite a bit of research and I developed a model for inclusive of projects and I did stuff around my role there. And I do my own research. If I'm teaching something, I'll, you know, go into it and if I want to learn more about it so that I can pass it on. And I'm always trying to hear what, you know, talks and do training and things like that. I just did a really good training with Sydney Alliance. Community organizing training last year. That was really good. Things like that. So it's not so much research in the sort of technical turns, but keeping my finger on the pulse, I like to know what's going on and listen to the politics a little bit and, yeah, things like that. Just keeping in touch with what's going on.

I'm twice the age of most of them, and I'm more in touch and often more active than most of them. It's unbelievable. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, you know, international women said, what's that, you know, oh, really, I'm not kidding. And, oh, well, just in Martin Place, they had all these 66 shoes, you know, pairs of shoes out there, you know, I saw it on Monday. Oh, why, you know, it's like, 66 women died last year by their partners. You know, like, there's a lot of people who are quite out of touch. They don't look at the news. They don't.

They study, but they don't read. They don't do the readings. Pretty much most of them don't do the readings, you know. they only do it when they have to write an essay. Sure. So there's not a lot of kind of, not all people, but most of them not really want to engage and really kind of absorb what's going on

and think about it and analyze it and think for themselves. And what we're finding is that we have to teach critical thinking. And especially to the young ones, We're going to do the critical thinking little training that we've got. Because, you know, 16, 17, how do you know what's real news, what's not? How do you have the facility to really analyze all this stuff that they're getting bombarded with? And they just believe it's all true. And how do they know, oh, that's, you know, that's not true, you know.

Because when you've been around a lot and seen a lot and know a lot, you kind of, you can suss it out pretty quickly, but it just doesn't add up. But they don't have that ability to, or they've never been taught to critically analyze stuff. So it is a skill, and I think we do need to teach it more now. We sort of assume it, but that doesn't necessarily happen. Sure. If you weren't teaching, what would you like to do? What other kind of social work?

Well, I really loved working as a community development coordinator, the job I had with Vinny's ability links because we had lots of money, which was great. And I had six teams of linkers across Metro South who were all out in the field. And my brief was to create inclusive community development projects dream job. So we did so many fantastic projects. And I was all over with all these different great, wonderful people. you know, really engaged in working with people with disability and making a community more inclusive through these different projects. So yeah, I love that. I do love project work. I have another

young woman who's, she's doing her placement at Sydney Alliance and she's doing her bachelor's and social work at UNSW and she wants to do work with young people. So we got our heads together and she wants to do a project. So let's think and let's work and do. something so that sounds exciting so hopefully that'll evolve into something soon so that will be good yeah some more project work would be great okay I'm involved with the South Coast community housing project some of the coordinator through COVID at all kind of fall apart you know and everything sort went AWOL and so we're just sort of trying to pull that together again but yeah I'm a bit passionate about community housing as well.

So I really would love to live in community again, hoping that will come off one day. And you speak another language. You said you've lived overseas. Would you ever consider working overseas? Well, I speak Japanese and I've worked in Japan a lot over the last 20, 30 years. I would have been there about 70 times at least. I've lost count. So yeah, I used to go twice a year for at least.

25, 30 years and then I've been going every year since, but not the last year, obviously. Of course, yeah. And I was supposed to go like next week, but that's not happening. But, yeah, I worked as a tour guide for many, many years. I used to take all sorts of tours and then I used to do pilgrimages. And I took UTS design and architecture groups for about six or seven years, you know, as a study tour. That was fun.

and I also ran workshops. I've been running workshops there since 1989. It's a long time. So I've been doing art therapy mandala workshops in Japan and they just took off and people love them and they just kept coming back. So I did them for about 20 years. It's like a day or a two-day workshop

and sometimes I do camps up in the mountains for four or five days and big masks and mandolas and. fires and myths and yeah living in huts out in the mountains that was fabulous so even during your holidays you're working yeah i used to go japan work but i loved it and i've also been teaching this dance that's a buddhist sort of sacred dance in japan since 2000 so that's 20 years last year we've danced at some amazing beautiful shrines and temples and you know on volcanoes and waterfalls and all over Japan, so that's been fantastic. So I had a very rich life in Japan, very blessed life. And that really helped me get through the prison because I go to Japan. I'd be in a completely

different world, different language, and I completely forget about the jail, and then I come back. And I brought all that back with me, so it was really good to have that. So a lot of people burn out. And in the end, I thought, I need to get out of here. I need to get out of it. prison but that really helped to have that completely other world and sort of come between the two yeah if people wanted to know more about social work in this field like any further reading or viewing or organisations they should check out you mentioned hillary cotton and radical social work cotton c o borghum yeah highly recommend her she wrote a brilliant book called radical help and she's got a great ted talk called something like why the welfare system isn't working and how we can fix it or something

like that. She's great. I just heard on, I love T.C.R. Radio, community radio. And in the mornings, I think once a week, they have a five-minute advocate. And they have this five-minute section where they have all these great speakers who just talked for five minutes, and they're just brilliant. And she had Eva Cox on the other day, who's this brilliant feminist academic. you know she's been around forever she absolutely nailed it in five minutes what's wrong with our society how to fix it the whole thing was so good so those you know i'm sure you can get them on two sierr the five minute advocates what a great idea it's almost like a three minute thesis idea yeah no it's really good i was thinking wow because i know her work she's fabulous so i thought what's she going to say in five

and she just nailed it. So, and I'm just reading, there's two books that are inspiring me at the moment, so I'll just share them. One is 40 critical thinkers in community development. And it's Australian writers, and it's just all the wonderful community development people that I've always loved, plus more, and just little kind of nuggets from each one of them,

you know, just three or four pages on each. one and it's really good. I've really enjoyed it. And the other book I've loved is Tyson Yonka Porter, Aboriginal Man, called Sound Talk. What a brilliant book. I mean, if you've read Dark Emu, you've got to read this one next. Okay. It's really good. Yeah, and I just loved it. I got so much out of it. I can highly recommend that. If you really want to go and understand Aboriginal people thinking and seeing the world, you know, and that whole visual literacy, just a whole different level of, you know, looking at the energy, the space between things, not the things. Things like that, yeah, it's a great book.

I was lucky enough to be able to attend TEDx, Sydney, 2018, I believe it was, and Bruce Pascoe was talking. Oh, fantastic. just, oh, what an amazing human. So, yeah, that'll definitely be on my best. Fabulous. But, yeah, Tyson is brilliant. Yeah, thank you for that.

Is there anything else you wanted to talk about in relation to your work that other people might benefit from hearing? Well, it just comes to my mind. I've also had an Aboriginal friend and teacher, lawwoman, or a imagery woman, who I've known for like 20 years and done a lot of ceremony. and learning women's business, etc. with. And that has also been a wonderful underlying support and knowing. And just as a person, as an Australian, I just think it's so important

to connect with all that wisdom and learning and the land and the plants and everything. And she's just such a gem. And it's been a wonderful. thing for me in my life, so I highly recommend people just to open themselves up to that wisdom. Yeah, because a lot of people are, oh yeah, it's there, but don't actually connect. And I think they'll maybe a bit nervous about being around Aboriginal people. I don't quite know how to, you know, connect. But it's so important. It's a great opportunity for students, I think.

Yeah, that's right. obviously swimming outside their comfort zone, if that's not something they've been exposed to previously, but it's a great opportunity to get it wrong. Yeah. Before you're actually in the big wide world and having to, obviously you're a professional as a student, but you've got that capacity to say, I'm just learning. Just give me time. Well, I think that's a good place to finish up because one of the, when I first went into the prison to go,

oh my God, am I going to work here, you know? and this man who used to be the most violent man of New South Wales, we were chatting and he said, look, I'll give you one word of advice. If you want to work here, you just be yourself. You know, so many people come in here and they think they have to do this and be that and, you know, whatever. Just be yourself. We said we can see straight through people.

And if you're talking through your ass, we know it straight away. you're either talking through your ass or talking through your heart. But if just be yourself, you'll be fine. And it's the same with Aboriginal people. You just be yourself. You know, you don't have to try and think I should be this or that, you know? Yeah. And I think that's so important in all your work.

I mean, mature yourself and grow as a person, but just be yourself. Yeah. And I thought, oh, that's easy. I can do that. Then you expose yourself to, you know. other things that might come up, but that's all part of the experience, right? Yeah, good. The T-Vet courses, they weren't around when I was at school,

and I think it's wonderful that they exist, and I think I would have loved to have learned some of these concepts earlier on. I think it's great for people, even if you don't want to be a social worker or go into the field, I think it's great to have some of those ideas and start to really get it all massaged in your head and think, okay, that's really interesting. How does that then influence what I do want to study when I get to uni? So fantastic opportunity for younger people, especially. How are you supposed to know at 16, 17, what you want to do for the rest of your life? Well, that's right. But also, I love how you've seen

to have drawn on the diversity of your own life and your own professional experience. And as you said, take from your bag of magic tricks and studied. You've gone off and you've developed different ideas and skills and expertise and you've got this really amazing tool belt. You've done this other training, which complements any form of work that you're doing currently and expands those future opportunities. So what I'm hearing is read widely, do courses, explore things that sound interesting.

Live life. Don't be afraid to be yourself. Don't be afraid to be colorful and fun and bring a little bit of flare. It doesn't have to all be serious. Exactly. But also something really interesting to highlight is that, yes, you're working in a fairly niche field, but you're dealing with people at the end of the day, whether it's your students or your fellow staff members, they have real lives, they have social circumstances going on. So you have the opportunity to delve into every single type of social work within what you're doing.

I think that's wonderful to be able to do. Yeah, we're a real hub, actually. and it just touches so many different fields and we've all got such different experience that we bring, which is wonderful. The students are lucky. They are. They're lucky to have you,

and they're lucky to have your team, and they're lucky to have the opportunity to study that and have those pathways. So, yeah, thank you so much again for your time. It's been enriching for me. Hopefully other people will enjoy hearing about it and maybe you'll inspire other people to go out and study it at table. Yeah, I hope they too.

Thank you. Great. It's been lovely talking to you. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Felicity, 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 Spotlightpodcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Madison, who is currently undertaking her third year of a Bachelor of Social Work while also working for an employment service provider. She has experience in aged care in-home support work under the Commonwealth Home

Support Program and has provided disability support work for Tate, New South Wales. 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.