Social Work Spotlight - Episode 32: Madison

Episode Date: June 11, 2021

In this episode I speak with Madison, currently undertaking her third year of a Bachelor of Social Work at The University of Sydney. Madison works for an Employment Service Provider contracted by the Department of Human Services and has experience in aged care in-home support work under the Commonwealth Home Support Programme, and disability support work with TAFE NSW. Her goal is to eventually work in migrant resettlement, or in a hospital.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Centrelink Job Seeker payment - https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/individuals/services/centrelink/jobseeker-paymentCareer Transition Assistance - https://jobsearch.gov.au/career-transition-assistanceEmployability Skills Training - https://www.employment.gov.au/employability-skills-trainingTransfer of ADHC services to the non-government sector (factsheet) - https://www.ndp.org.au/images/factsheets/508/2017-05-adhc-services-to-non-gov-where-are-we-at.pdfNational Disability Insurance Scheme - https://www.ndis.gov.au/The Guardian article: Life on the breadline: $4.50 on a coffee? Who can afford that? - https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/mkzgCROND2uvgOwy0S9jd08?domain=theguardian.comI, Daniel Blake movie - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I,_Daniel_BlakeThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CksghmlZeTiLMXLF8Qxa_UCHAjWb5Dzg-hgFU0P5jCk/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession in each episode. I'm your host, Yasamine McKee Wright, and today's guest is Madison. Madison is currently undertaking her third year of a Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Sydney. She also works for an employment service provider contracted by the Department of Human Services. She has experience in aged care, in-home support work under the Commonwealth Home Support Program and Disability Support Work with TAFE, New South Wales. Her goal is to eventually work in migrant resettlement or in a hospital. Thank you, Madison, so much for coming on to the podcast.

I really appreciate you taking the time to have a chat with me about your experience in social work so far. Thank you very much for having me. I wanted to ask firstly how you got into social work and why you were interested in this profession in the first place. I'd never really thought about it before. I just kind of fell into it, I guess. You know, my bachelor of social work was the third degree I'd started. fresh out of high school, I was studying high school teaching and I only lasted a few weeks. I just realized very quickly it wasn't for me. And then I sort of worked for a bit trying to work

out what I wanted to do with my life. And then the year afterwards, I got into just a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in counselling and applied psychology. And it was just the only, it was the only career that made me, like, excited to go to work. I couldn't think of anything else that would give me the same kind of fulfillment as like working with people and, you know, having really important conversations with them and really, I guess, helping. And then I did the arts degree for a year. And I actually, I had a lecturer at the time say to me, look, you know, it's great that you want to, you know, go into the helping professions, but counselling is very unregulated. It's not as regulated, I guess, as psychology or social work. There's not very many like registration processes.

and if you want to find like a good job, you're going to need to either go into psychology or social work. So I sort of had a bit of a think and the thought of, I guess, just sitting in the same room every day and having very similar conversations with people, like as a psychologist, I found that a bit boring. I'm quite prone to getting bored.

So I decided on social work just because it was more versatile and, you know, no two days are the same. I wanted a job that I would need to adapt quickly. like it was very fast pace and social work just was it. And I'm just started my third year now and I'm loving it. It's just been absolutely fantastic. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing. Yeah. So that applied practical knowledge is more interesting for you because you can then take that into other fields instead of being stuck in a room with someone and I guess understanding or

identifying that there are other things that you can be helping them with, but you'd be so limited being in one space, one room, you wouldn't have the ability to follow through with someone and hopefully apply things to their everyday life. 100%. And what we talk about a lot at uni is social work, having like very holistic approaches. So it's all well and good. Not to bash psychology. It's just all well and good if you have somebody sitting there distressed by, you know, having like a very normal emotional reaction to a traumatic event. You can't really do much because it's not within your jurisdiction. And so I think social work being more practical, I'm very much a problem solver.

So that also really appealed to me. Yeah. And it sounds as though you've developed quite a lot of experience in that process of studying. I guess you wouldn't have any regret from the sounds of things because you've learnt different ways of studying and different learning opportunities throughout that period. You've worked with people who are unemployed. You've worked in home care. You've worked in disability supports.

So unlike, I guess, a lot of the experience. a lot of people who are still studying social work. You've actually had quite a lot of experience before you've even graduated. Yeah, and I'm very grateful for that. My current job especially, it's been fantastic because I can, you know, go to class and learn about these social work theories and frameworks and approaches and then, you know, walk into work and see it, you know, either play out in real life as my lecturer has explained it or not play out and think, well, maybe the research is a lit out of touch because this is not happening as I've been taught that it will. You know what I mean? Yeah. And with the home care services, it's interesting being on

the other side of that because often as social workers, we're making referrals to home care services, but we don't have a huge amount of experience or understanding of what that funding actually means for a person and how that plays out for them. So I think it's pretty cool that you've had that and then if you choose to work in age care or home care supports, it's probably going to inform the way that you make referrals. Yeah, 100%. That's been really valuable, I guess, knowing how, yeah, how the front lines work a little bit, even working in, I guess, employment offices now and I guess being a little bit on the front lines. I'm not as on the front lines as the employment consultants are, but at least seeing it play out in the office, you know,

it's been really valuable. And with the disability support at TAFE, what were your roles there? How did you have an impact? So I worked predominantly with deaf students, taking notes and, you know, reading, writing, things like that. Sometimes I did a little bit of work with students who maybe had, like, learning disabilities.

But yeah, with predominantly deaf students, I really enjoyed, you know, working with the same student week in, week out, and really, I guess, building that rapport that's so important in like the helping professions. And were the people that you were supporting studying sort of the same sorts of things? Were they studying community supports or were they doing something completely different? No, so I did quite a long stint with a student who was studying networking. And so I did, yeah, all sorts of things, you know, personal training, different IT classes, you know, animal care,

like just all sorts of things. I suppose that was a good experience too as a social worker because often I would walk into the class and it would be like halfway through the term and I'd have no idea about personal training or networking or animal care, but I'd have to make comprehensive notes for the student. So I think that I really appreciate being thrown in the deep end

like that. Yeah, but I love the fact that those sorts of supports exist in the first place. You know, people aren't disadvantaged. just because they have a learning difficulty or they can't hear what's going on, they can still be involved and they can still learn and then contribute. So I think the fact that that support exists in the first place is wonderful. Yeah, 100%. Can you tell me more about your current role?

What are you responsible for from day to day? So I sort of am, I guess, a little bit more behind the scenes than the employment consultants, the caseworkers. So my job is to advise employment consultants on different activities that we can put people who have been on Jobseeker for at least 12 months into. So by the time you've been on Job Seeker for 12 months, sometimes there's a barrier why people maybe can't stay in employment. And we need to make sure that that's addressed because if you're going to just keep putting

people into jobs and not actually helping them with what's not keeping them in a job, then you're not being helpful. So I guess sourcing relevant and meaningful activities that will help people overcome any barriers to employment. So whether that's helping them upskill with like a assert three or a cert four, offering them counselling. We have external psychologists that we can refer job seekers to as well as internal kind of just careers counseling because often, often you mention counseling and clients are like, oh no, I don't need it. Like I don't have any mental health issues. It's sort of a lot about being creative. What kind of internships can we find for this young person, you know, this older person, how can we maybe upstill their computer

literacy so that they can, you know, find a job or, you know, how can we help this older person handle any health issues that might have prevented them from going back to work that they're done when they were younger? I'm mainly working with caseworkers. I have about 17 over the Sydney metropolitan an area that I sort of liaison with on a regular basis just to, yeah, make sure people are getting what they need to get employment. Yeah, because for someone to be out of work for 12 months, especially in some industries, you've lost that currency and that training and things can change so much within an industry in 12 months. So all of a sudden, what you knew was obsolete. So it sounds as though it's instilling people with that sense of confidence that, yes, I

I am skilled and I can do this job, but for whatever reason, I also have limited financial resources and limited social capital because I've been out of the workforce for so long. So I think it's really important that that sort of program exists and people can get back into the workforce. 100%. And especially over COVID, we've had a lot of people who have never been out of work before, you know, don't know how Centrelink works. And so it's been a lot of explaining, I guess, the red tape.

of Centrelink to different people. And also, and this is sometimes difficult, helping people not get discouraged. You know, the job market's so competitive at the moment. Helping especially older people not get discouraged. You know, there's quite a lot of ageism in the job market. And so, you know, very much trying to, I guess, keep people motivated, which can be so hard.

I guess sometimes you have to fake it a little bit because we're not stupid. We can see that the job market's competitive, but for the sake of the job seeker, you just need to be a motivating force because it might be the only one they have in their life. Yeah, right. And you would have to keep on top of what's happening in a lot of those industries as well, because I imagine six months ago, there weren't any jobs out there, everything had scaled down, whereas now there'd be a lot of competitiveness, there'd be a lot of things opening up again and therefore a lot of people going for the same

sorts of roles. So you'd really have to keep your finger on the pulse and know what's out there in order to be able to give people the right indication of what their chances are. Yeah, 100%. It's great that this sort of thing exists, but are there programs that are put in place with shorter timeframes? I'm thinking if someone's newly out of work, is there any sort of like an early intervention program for people to make sure that they don't get to that point? Definitely, if somebody's linked to an employment services provided, they can utilise the services from day one. I believe the Australian government, I'm not 100% sure the ins and outs of it yet. Since the rate of job seeker increased a few weeks ago, the Australian government also

introduced a program for people who've been unemployed for six months. So it'll be this program that the government has introduced and then by the time they, you know, reach 12 months unemployed, then it will be, you know, work for the doll. and then sort of it's six months on, six months off in terms of work for the job after that, after the bid on the payment for 12 months. For young people under 24, there's a program called Employability Skills Training, which is for younger people who, you know, they teach them how to present themselves in interviews, how to write resumes, different things like that that's really going to

help them in the job market. And for people over 45, there's a program called CTA, which I believe that they can take up at any time. it's basically yeah focusing on computer literacy helping people who may have had careers that are kind of going obsolete or maybe they can't do anymore because of health issues or something like that helping them find other jobs that they might be interested in that they can do now that they're a bit older but yet there's different TAFE courses counseling like they can all take advantage of it pretty much straight away it's just it's not a requirement until they hit 12 months

right okay I'm interested that they still call it work for the dolls scheme or program. To me it has a negative connotation and I would have thought they would change the terminology. Do you think that's because people are so used to referring to the unemployment payments as the doll? Possibly. And I definitely think especially, you know, under the liberal government, there's a, there's a lot of stigma still about people who are on the doll, you know, that they've gotten

themselves into this situation. and, you know, if they'd just worked harder or they'd been more responsible with money, then, you know, then maybe they wouldn't be on the doll. I read a really great article as part of one of my classes at uni about a woman who, you know, was sent to a budgeting class. She literally went because she just didn't have the money to feed herself, and they were holding a free barbecue that day. I'll try and find it.

It's just this woman with this other group of people who have just found themselves in an unfortunate situation in this budget class going, I know how to budget. I just, you know, job seeker's not livable anymore. You know, it hasn't caught up with, I guess, inflation and, you know, the cost of living and things like that. Yeah, because I think it's those sorts of stigma or that negative connotation that will stop people who really need the support from accessing it. So that's a real shame. A hundred percent.

And especially, I think COVID's helped in a way because people who may have never needed to access Centrelink before are now saying that, you know, the line between, somebody living comfortably with a, you know, a good job and everything like that is, like it's quite fine. Anything can happen. And the line isn't as bold between people who are living off Centrelink payments, you know, living paycheck to paycheck, financial instability, all the instability that comes with financial instability and having a good job, having security, living comfortably. I think COVID's really helped everyone see that, you know, it's not necessarily the fault of

somebody who's on Centrelink that they're on Centrelink. Sometimes things just happen. Yeah, and at some of those industries that perhaps were higher paying previously that have been hit hardest, whereas someone working in a supermarket has been able to retain their job, and so many more positions like that have come up because that was the primary industry. We all needed that when things were locked down. So just interesting how the tables turn, and I don't know, maybe people aren't all that reflective, but it makes me think those sorts of jobs are really important. They shouldn't be discounted as not worthwhile for people. 100%. Yeah, I completely agree. What would you say you love most about the work that you're doing

at the moment? Well, as I said before, I'm very much a problem solver. So I enjoy, I guess, having, you know, such a collaborative relationships with the staff I support and, you know, helping them brainstorm, you know, solutions to different problems. If a consultant is a bit stumped about what activity they could use for a job seeker helping them, sitting with them and saying, look, these are our options. Have you spoken to the person? You know, different things like that. I just very much like helping problem solve. Are there many other social workers in that job, or are they from different areas? All of the staff have very diverse backgrounds. Some of them, you know, were in banking before. Some of them have been in employment services for a long time.

Yeah, they just come from all over the place. Management. Well, that brings with it a wealth of experience. So that's good as well than having everyone from the same background. Yeah, 100%. And, you know, we very much will depend on each other. There's very much like interdependence in terms of skills that we rely on with each other. So I really like that. How has COVID affected your study?

Have you had to sort of shift the way that you do things and has it affected your ability for placement this year? I'm very lucky that so far it hasn't affected placement. but all of last year we were online and I'm such an extrovert that I just almost went crazy being stuck in my apartment for 12 months and only interacting through Zoom. I've been very grateful just to be able to step back onto campus, you know, a few weeks ago when the semester started. It's given me, I guess, a better appreciation, you know, for the people in my class

that I'm doing this journey with. And I also found, too, that the way I needed to study needed to change, so I'm prone to getting bored. So I needed to listen to lectures whilst doing something with my hands, whereas before COVID, I could just sit and read for hours on end. So that's been really interesting to see how, you know, we learn about learning styles. And I'm starting to think that maybe learning styles aren't necessarily consistent throughout your whole life. Maybe, they change as, you know, life goes on. Now, it's really interesting to be able to observe that because I think you would then see that in the people that you're supporting in terms of how they learn

and the fact that it might be very different 15 years ago from when they were studying to what it might be like now. Yeah, definitely. You know, with people I work with, especially older people who aren't confident on the computer, even with my friends at uni, you know, reminding them, look, the whole world's been through this really big event. And so it's okay that maybe it's expected we'd need to adapt a little bit and just to be a bit kind on yourself. maybe the way you study 12 months ago might not be the same way you'd study now. Yeah, we were talking before starting recording. You left a very small town in New South Wales to come to the city to study.

Before what you've been saying, I would have thought that would be challenging for you, but perhaps being an extrovert, you might have found it a little bit more stimulating and a little bit easier to be part of that sort of diverse, constantly moving learning environment. How did you find it? Yeah, you're right. I've loved it. I've loved moving to Sydney. I feel like it's, yeah, it's been a real big learning experience,

encountering people. Encountering different communities that I might not have encountered in, you know, a tiny regional town, learning about how other people live differently, different demographics and how they live and different cultures and people in different socioeconomic brackets, all of it. It's just been so valuable and I'm so grateful that I'm going to, have graduated, you know, already with all of this, with all these encounters, with all these

different people that I might not have gotten if I'd, you know, stayed in my small town. Yeah. Was there anything about that small town that if you kind of look back on it now, was there anything about that experience growing up there that perhaps guided you in this direction in terms of wanting to help people that perhaps didn't have the same opportunities that they put in a larger town? I don't know if I thought about it that much while I was living there because I'd moved to Sydney when I was fresh graduated from high school. But it was interesting because in my first year of my social work degree a few years later, we actually went back and visited the community

center in the area that I grew up. And so it was really interesting after living in Sydney for a while, going back and seeing, I think now that I'd seen how other people had lived, going back and noticing different things I hadn't noticed before, maybe noticing that that there weren't as many resources in these small towns that I'd experienced in Sydney that I just hadn't thought of before when I was growing up. Yeah. So that was interesting. And it was, you know, interesting to watching people in my cohort who had grown up in

Sydney react to, you know, maybe the smaller amount of resources that this town had had. So it wasn't just you. There were a group of you that went back to this very specific town. I find that interesting. Yeah, it was, it was strange, you know, going back and just sort of noticing all this stuff that I hadn't noticed before. What are your placement adoptions this year? Do you have anything lined up or is there anything specific that's on your bucket list? I'd always thought throughout my degree that I wanted to go

into migrant resettlement. I'd still do. I'd still love to do a placement and just sort of dabble in their field. But we've started doing, I guess, hospital simulations at university the last couple of weeks and practicing interviewing patients in a hospital setting. And I found that really, really thrilling, I guess, the the fast-paced, you know, going into a situation with not that much information and then having to work with the not much information you have with a person who's, you know, very possibly in crisis or distress or whatever. And whilst all that is happening, still trying to be like a bit of a comforting, gentle presence. So it's almost like you have to put on, you have to put on this facade. Well, there's a lot of stuff happening in your head,

but you still have to be present at the same time. And it's, it's a lot, but it's really exciting. Yeah. Did they give you any sort of pointers before you go into those simulations as a student, as to how you might maintain that and not break down if something's really distressing? So the last one we did, they didn't give us very much information at all. And then afterwards, they told us that they're deliberately not given us very much information because that's how it works in real life, in a real emergency department. I was sitting with a group with two other students and we were all sort of bouncing off each other interviewing this actor that was, you know, a patient. And afterwards, the other two students and I were talking about how we didn't feel

like we had enough resources to be able to give sound advice to this patient, you know, And that was really frustrating. And we, you know, we wished that we'd maybe known what to prepare for because we felt like we'd been thrown in the deep end a bit. And my lecturer, Dr. Margaret Spencer, is just incredible. She was debriefing about nine of us. And she said, she was my PhD supervisor. So I know her family.

She's fantastic. I'm so lucky to sort of be studying, I guess, under her guidance. But she sort of said, you're not there to problem solve. you weren't there to problem solve. We never said that you were. You just needed to listen. And that was very much a light bulb moment, I think for a lot of people in the room

that we're not there to solve everyone's problems. A lot of the time we might not be able to. We will just need to sit with somebody in their distress often and just listen. She said in this debrief that a lot of people are drawn to social work because they're problem solvers and you can't be all the time. Which must personally be really challenging

for you. It was. I was so frustrated afterwards. Sometimes though the feedback that I've received from patients in a hospital setting is that all they needed at that point was someone to be with them. So even though you can't solve the crisis, you are someone there who can guide them through a very foreign process. So you know, you might be in a clinical setting that's an emergency department or an intensive care unit and you know that the outcome is not going to be great or you might be supporting the family member of someone who's unconscious all they need is to be not to be told that everything's going to be okay because that's not the case but just for someone to be able to sit with them and to explain what's going on as well because in that environment you've got so many different people they don't

know where to go they don't know where they're allowed to be so part of it is navigating that system and then being able to explain to them, this is happening and this is why it's happening, and I'm going to sit with you until we have a plan. So sitting with that uncertainty is actually what we do best, I think. Yeah, and that's definitely a skill I'm still trying to develop. So before I was in my current role, I was working in the call centre for the same company because as well as an employment provider, they also have like an NDIS provider in the same company. And often, you know, answering the phone and especially over COVID, just trying to explain

to people how it all works because, you know, there's so much red tape, especially when it comes to government funding and government money and entitlements and things like that. I really resonate with what you said about helping people navigate the red tape because it's confusing. How do you juggle studying and working? A lot of coffee. I have a very good boss that is just very supportive in terms of giving me flexibility when I need time off to do uni assignments or if I need to change around my days because of various classes. I've actually sort of over the past few years found it really difficult to find relevant jobs that complement my degree because of my constantly changing timetable. So I'm just I'm really lucky that I've. I've found such a, you know, great managers and people I work with who understand that.

And do you have to do your placement then, or do you think you'll still be able to do the full-time placement and maybe just scaled back your hours a little bit? I think I might need to apply to do it part-time just for my sanity to make sure that I'm also still, you know, keeping up at work. Because the alternative is then stepping back from work entirely while you do your placement, which may not be something you want to do in terms of balancing your energy. Yeah, 100%. And even, you know, being in employment services, sometimes having a bit of a gap like that in your resume is a bit of a barrier, especially in such a competitive job market at the moment. I'm interested, given that you said at the agency, there is some NDIS support. Do you get to study much about the NDIS? Do they inform you much? Because when I went through university, NDIS wasn't a thing. And so we just kind of had to learn it on the fly with a very private.

practical application. Do you learn much about that where you're studying? We've done a couple of classes. I took a subject on, there was a core subject on social policy last year where we did a couple of classes on the NDIS. And it was, it's confusing. It's such a confusing system. You know, there were a couple of classes where my eyes glazed over a little bit, just listening to, you know, all of the bureaucracy of it. It's definitely, I think, It's not something you'll learn straight away, the ins and outs of it. I still know a minuscule amount about it. And, you know, I worked at an NDIS provider for, you know, 18 months and studied it at

uni. So I can't imagine how, you know, clients must feel, especially if they're in crisis, trying to navigate such a confusing system. I guess when you're in crisis, you access what's available. So you don't know any different. but having worked with people with disabilities before the NDIS came about, yes, there are criticisms of every system and every funding model. I would see people who were sitting in a hospital setting

or in respite care and residential care after a brain injury and it took nine months for the former system, which was addict, to be able to at least assess someone for eligibility for any of these programs. So NDIS is so much more responsive, at least in my practical experience. And yes, it's confusing. Yes, it's hard to navigate. But if you've got the right people to support you through that, it can actually be really worthwhile in terms of bringing some of that choice and control

back in the mix, which I think we lost a little bit, unfortunately. So, yeah, look, every system has its faults. And because it is so new, we're still trying to work out how, to do it best and how to apply the policy and the legislation to benefit each person individually. But I think it's great that at least you get an opportunity to understand where it came from in the first place while you're still a student so that when you get to placement or get to work, at least you understand the background to it and you hopefully can then apply that to making applications or supporting people with their funding. It's interesting to hear that about the former

system because obviously I, you know, I'm kind of just starting out. I don't know anything other than the NDIS. The lecturer they had in at the time touched on, I guess, some of the limitations on the former system as well about, you know, now under NDIS, people can actually move around. Apparently they couldn't move around. If they wanted to move, they had to go and apply for a whole new package. Yeah. That sounded like it really limited a lot of people's freedom. I know you're still fairly new in the profession, but have you heard about or seen any changes over time. I'm thinking in terms of how age care is delivered, any reforms or changes to the way supports are provided? Maybe not so much watching change, but more, I guess,

working in age care. There was more of an emphasis, I think, I think the discourse around keeping people at home versus, you know, in a facility was a lot different than I thought it would be. There's been a real shift, I guess, to keeping elderly people at home for as long as possible. especially at uni too and you know when they bring guest lecturers in and stuff like that that was I guess surprising when I actually worked in age care how much the push was and the discourse had changed to rather than I guess out of sight out of mind in an age care facility keeping people at home where you know they may have lived for decades with their family and you know they know the area and just how important that was yeah and I guess people don't think about the financial

implications of someone going into residential care, not just the funds that they're paying to be in resi care, but especially with the reforms of how the contributions were made, but also how that impacts on the people who might still be living in that home. Yeah, I think there have been lots of reforms, but I'm glad sometimes I'm not in policy because I think it would be just so difficult to have to make some of those decisions and to weigh up. Is this better? Is that better? And yeah, I feel as though I'm much better at applying the knowledge and the legislation that exists currently than having to be the one to make those big decisions on what should be the way forward. Yeah, I can't imagine the pressure, you know, policy makers must be under, especially,

I guess you just have to embrace the fact that you wouldn't be able to please everyone. And that would be difficult for me too. Yeah. Is there a specific reason you think you'd be interested in migrant resettlement? Is there something about that that you've heard about? about or in your experience personally? I think personally moving away, you know, to a whole new place at 18, obviously not to the same extent, but it really gave me a sense of, I was talking to somebody and they said I was

talking about being interested in migrant resettlement. And they asked me, do you think maybe you identify with people who maybe have left their homes? And that really resonated with me. And I think that might be the reason. And I think I just very much identify with people who have moved from where they grew up and what they knew. As much as I love living in Sydney, it was definitely an adjustment when I first came to live here. I think that might be personally what's gravitating me towards the area.

Yeah, I think definitely in my experience, social work in that area of work is so diverse. You've got community development opportunities. You've got counselling definitely, but also family dynamics and financial. changes and being able to understand the resources that are available in a specific area. So working in migratory settlement or refugee settlement is a great way to know, firstly, what's available in that area. So you have to do a lot of your own research and network with organisations locally that provide supports and services, but then be able to really be someone's main support person.

So you almost end up in a case management role because, that person might not have any other connections in the area. So it's a very, very interesting field of social work. And I was saying before we started recording that I kind of landed in my first role in that area and kind of just had to figure it out for myself and have a look at what were the funding objectives based on what we'd gotten from the Department of Immigration. And I was like, oh, okay, that's interesting. but what do we know about the actual people in this area?

Is there a larger migrant population from one area or another? And how about we actually meet with them? How about we not assume what supports they require? Let's use our research capacity. Let's use our networking, run focus groups with them, involve them, even if we have to go to their church. So it was, you know, you catch up with a whole group of people afterwards and say, what's missing?

What will help you to settle? and how can we support you to access these resources? Or if those resources aren't available, how do we try to advocate for something to be there? So, yeah, I love that that is a really diverse area of work where you will be dealing with domestic violence, you'll be dealing with poverty in some situations and liaising with Centrelink and housing

and all of these government agencies. So it's a really interesting combination of skills and experience that you'll develop. So hopefully as part of your placement, you'll have that opportunity. Yeah, yeah, he's hoping on top of the whole case management thing, you have the added, when I was in my previous job at this same company, you know, we often would have people who's, you know,

English wasn't their first language calling up and we'd need to then liaison with interpreters and things like that. So there's that added thing to navigate where you're doing all of this caseworker stuff. And then on top of that, you have to, you know, develop, you know, a little bit of cultural humility, cultural competency, not just getting an interpretive for the person, actually being aware of maybe how different cultures feel about eye contact, like constant eye contact or as a woman dealing with maybe men of different cultures,

things like that. Yeah. Are there any other areas of social work that don't interest you based on your experience or studies that you've done? I think purely because I've tried it out, I'm not sure I'd be interested in age care. that's the only one I'm pretty open to anything social work is such a diverse field there's probably fields out there that I haven't even thought of or I'm not even aware of so I'm just kind of open to

anything and I'm trusting that I'll just fall into the right I'll just fall into the right job when it comes along yeah if people wanted to know more about the type of work that you do where would you send them the pages and pages of government guidelines that I've had to read but I don't know if I don't know if a lot of people would be interested in that there's a couple of I guess articles in The Guardian that I've read about people who've experienced various activities that have been, you know, offered through job providers when they've been in lack work for the dull phase. Yeah.

I think too, just keeping on top of, I guess what the news has reported on job seeker and Centrelink and JobKeeper and all these payments have been in the use so often recently, I think I often find different news outlets and they're either similar or conflicting perspectives on these different payments and requirements for these payments, I found that really interesting. Yeah, sure. Are there any articles or books that you've read for uni that have been really interesting recently? There's actually a movie that we watched last week called I, Daniel Blake. Okay. And it's an English movie. It's set in the UK, but a lot of, it's very depressing, so have a box of tissues handy. I found it very difficult to watch because of how

realistic it was. It's about this person who's recently fallen out of employment because of a health issue. And it's all about him trying to navigate the welfare system on his own. And I think what really struck me was the depiction of the staff at the employment office and how completely burnt out they were and how completely overloaded they were. And I think especially after, you know, working through COVID, that was very confronting for me to watch. because it really hit home. I guess before I started this podcast, I had this impression of social workers at Centrelink

being completely worn out and miserable and feeling as though nothing they did made any difference. And then I interviewed Astrid for episode 8. And she had so much love for what she does and had a whole career of doing really interesting things and supporting other people in that role. And then she got seconded out to providing assessments and support and relief for people involved with Black Friday fires down in Victoria.

And just the most interesting stuff that the government gave her the opportunity to do. And all credit to her, she's the one who put her hand up. But it completely changed the way that I viewed Centrelink social workers and the opportunities that come up for them. So, look, everyone's going to take something different from every experience, but I feel like with the right attitude and with the right supports, there's a lot of opportunity to make a big difference. Oh, that's really great to hear.

I also, I've loved hearing about your passion for problem solving and the collaborative brainstorming and decision-making that is part of your role, and especially your use of teamwork to support people and to help them understand the system. and also, I guess, just to reassure people that you can never really be prepared for a clinical setting. So the fact that you were sent in with very little information is usually how it's going to go. That's what you get is sometimes you will have an opportunity to sit down and read through paperwork and say, okay, whoever's come before me has written this little blurb on what's happening for this person. That's great if you have it.

but you can also go in there expecting to see something and then something completely different comes up. And the difference is the interaction that you have with the person. So depending on how you're engaging with someone will make all the difference in terms of how they feel comfortable with you and what they're happy to disclose or to request support from you for. So even if you go in there without any information, sometimes that's better because you know that you're just going to be hit with a whole bunch of

information and you need to make sense of it sometimes in one setting. So being able to sit with distress, being able to make decisions and support people on the fly, I think is what we do best. And you can only prepare so much. So as a student, I think it's really important for people to hear that and go, I've got all this clinical experience and information behind me. But at the the end of the day, it's about that relationship. It's about how you engage and it's about supporting someone to feel comfortable in an environment that's incredibly sterile or just not meant to be comforting. Yeah. And I think to debriefing afterwards, especially with people who like yourself has more experience, you know, with, as we mentioned Dr. Margaret Spencer earlier,

you know, so much experience. I think too that that is, as you know, as somebody is just starting out, I've personally found that really helpful. And, you know, I think maybe that sort of supervision is going to be, we haven't had to do anything yet where we've had supervision. But I think, you know, even the little chats I've had, you know, with social workers that have more experience than me, because I don't have very much. I've found that really valuable. I think, too, another thing that maybe some other people might be able to resonate with to being a problem solver, try not to over-promise stuff. Yeah. You know, this simulation we did a few weeks ago. I think me and the other two students I was with had a tendency

to overpromise things. And that was another thing that Dr. Spencer talked about in terms of, you're there to listen, not that to fix everyone's problems, not going to be able to fix everyone's problems. It's really realistic and you're going to burn out if you're going to go in thinking that you're going to fix everything. You're not a mechanic, you know. So that's another thing that I'm still trying to learn through my job and through uni is not overpromising things. because I think especially when you have a inclination towards helping professions, it's really easy to, especially if somebody's in distress, just want to fix stuff for them. I don't think people like seeing other people in distress and, you know, we want to help.

And so that's something that I've really had to be mindful of. Yeah, I think people really appreciate honesty. And if you don't have the answer or if something is completely outside your area of expertise, that's when it's really good to draw on someone else and say, well, actually that question relates more to, I'm not palming you off, I'm taking on board your query, and I'm going to find the most appropriate person to help answer that question

because I want to get it right and I don't have the answer. And it's modeling good behavior, it's showing humility, and I think that is more important than someone thinking, oh, this is a one-stop shop, this social worker will have all the answers. Yeah. But I'm confident that with your enthusiasm and your passion, the future of social workers in good hands. And I've loved hearing about what you've done so far. I think it can only take you great places. You haven't even started your first placement yet and you've had so much experience. So thank you so much for sharing that with us. And I look forward to seeing where it takes you.

Thank you. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share that, you know, with everyone. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue the this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Madison, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Dr. Graham Simpson, who has 30 years of experience as a practitioner and clinical researcher in the field of traumatic brain injury.

He is recognised internationally for his work in conducting epidemiological, clinical and psychometric intervention and translation-based research in suicide prevention, positive sexual adjustment, the community-based management of challenging behaviours and family resilience in the field of traumatic brain injury. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notify when this next episode. episode is available. See you next time.