Social Work Spotlight - Episode 37: Stephanie

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

In this episode, I speak with Stephanie who has worked as a clinical social worker in both the homelessness and drug and alcohol sectors over the last 10 years. During this period she has developed a strong interest in challenging systemic and structural barriers, identifying solutions, and championing diversity. She completed a Masters of Public and Social Policy in 2020 and currently holds the role of Homelessness Health Program Manager for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Homeless NSW - https://homelessnessnsw.org.au/Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute - https://www.ahuri.edu.au/Kirketon Road Centre - https://www.seslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/services-clinics/directory/kirketon-road-centreSt Vincent’s Hospital Homeless Health Service - https://www.svhs.org.au/our-services/list-of-services/homeless-health-serviceSBS video on delivering COVID education and vaccinations for Sydney’s homeless population - https://www.sbs.com.au/news/ensuring-sydney-s-homeless-community-can-access-the-covid-vaccineDepartment of Communities & Justice homelessness support - https://www.coronavirus.dcj.nsw.gov.au/services/housing-and-homelessnessSESLHD Homelessness Health Strategy - https://www.seslhd.health.nsw.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-10/SESLHD%20Homelessness%20Health%20Strategy%2018-21.pdfThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1awBSlOIPiv7VDTwots_0YpKRc9zLsdhH0mKjT7ny0ko/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Hi and welcome to social work spotlight where I showcase different areas at the profession in each episode. I'm your host, Yasamine McKee Wright, and today's guest is Stephanie. Stephanie has worked as a clinical social worker in both the homelessness and drug and alcohol sectors over the last 10 years. During this period, she has developed a strong interest in challenging systemic and structural barriers, identifying solutions and championing diversity. She completed a Masters of Public and Social Policy in 2020 and currently holds the role. role of Homelessness Health Program Manager for South Eastern Sydney Local Health District. Outside of work, she is passionate about live music, good food, fine wine and world travel when permitted.

Thank you so much, Stephanie, for joining me on the podcast. Really happy to have you here and talk about your experience in homeless health. Thank you. I'm looking forward to chatting today. Yeah, can I ask firstly when you started as a social worker and what brought you to the profession? Yeah, so I started in. 2011 or maybe it was 2012.

The years kind of all blur into it to one. But I suppose what brought me to the profession was probably my ongoing interest in people. So for a long time I wanted to be a teacher. And I thought that's sort of the pathway that I'd go down. My mum's a teacher. There's a lot of teachers in my family. But in the end, I think my interest in supporting people and in helping people, I don't know, I wouldn't say, I mean, finding their path sounds a bit corny, but I think

in, you know, helping find people opportunities in life was something that really struck me. And I think it was something that I sort of naturally gravitated to, even sort of as a teenager, you know, as the kind of person that people would come to to talk to and we'd sort of work through what was going on for them and, you know, what their options were. So I think it was sort of a sort of fell into it. Yeah. But perhaps there was sort of something that my mum and my grandfather and my grandmother were all very sort of community-oriented and worked in Red Cross

and with the Lions Club and Legacy, Meals and Wheels, all these sort of charity or community-based organisations that perhaps unknowingly influenced me as well, I think. Yeah, did you have a clear indication then that you wanted to do community or charity work or you weren't really too concerned what it was you just wanted to help? I mean, what I really wanted to do is really what I'm doing now. So I wanted to work in sort of policy and strategy. And I suppose I think my passion for social justice,

but also tied with my passion for writing and sort of considering the interaction between systems and things like that was what when I got to social work and when I got to doing my degree was something that I was really working towards. But I think what I always felt and what I still really feel is important. is even if you are a, you know, working strategy or policy, it's really critical to have sort of frontline experience. So I really wanted to do that for quite some time before I ended up in the strategy policy sphere. But it was what I was always sort of working towards once I got into social work. Yeah. And I guess then that passion for policy led to your completion of a master's in

public and social policy. What was your focus there and what do you think that's brought to your work? So the masters when I started it, they changed the structure part way through. So originally it was a master of policy and applied social research. And then they changed the structure to public and social policy, which was probably my preference because I did a few research units in the early part of the course using like R and sort of that data software. And it's definitely not my strength. And I really sort of struggled with that.

So the writing component of the social and public policy, writing briefs, writing research papers or position papers, scoping papers, those sorts of things. I felt really useful. And the course is quite broad. So it did things like health policy, but even I did a subject on environmental impact assessments and social impact assessments. So it gave me a sort of broader cross section of knowledge around public and social policy tools. And then, again, a greater understanding of the writing aspects. of policy. And so I think, yeah, that's sort of where I ended up. And I've found it really quite

useful in my work now, you know, doing things like logic models that I wouldn't normally have done. I can now try and use these tools in my work to enhance what I do. Yeah. And how did you get into your work at Sydney uni as a tutor? That was by accident, I suppose. So one of my My mentors, really, when I was working in one of my first positions in homelessness, changed career slightly and became a lecturer in rehab psychology, I think. And if she listens to this, she's going to be concerned that I didn't remember the title. But she asked me to come and speak to her students in some of their more practical units around sort of drug and alcohol, you know, the policy behind drug and alcohol and drug and

alcohol services and the accessibility of drug and alcohol services for the population. So I did that for quite a few sessions of hers over a couple of years and then did some tutoring for oral health as well, some oral health students around homelessness, given the prevalence of, I suppose, poor oral health in that population. So yeah. And is that a newer focus for them to have people from other areas come into, for instance, oral health or psychology? disciplines from social work? Quite possibly. I think Erin, who works in the rehab space, drew on her networks and her connections to help bring perhaps a real life perspective to her teaching units. So a lot of the other guests sort of tutors that she brought in for her units

were from her network. So I think that allowed for a real depth in learning and perhaps sort of diversity that was presented to those students outside of their own you know, rehab sphere. And perhaps for oral health as well, although I didn't go in as a social worker for oral health. It was more about sort of my homelessness sort of strategy background that that took me down that pathway. I'm interested in your current role and how you sort of progressed to this point in your career. Can you tell me what the role is and what a typical day might be like for you? Yeah. So my role title is Homelessness Health Program Manager for Southeast and Sydney local health district. And it's actually, it's a really unique role in so far as there, to my

knowledge, is nothing like it or nothing alike to it in any of the other LHDs across New South Wales. It's a long-standing role at southeastern Sydney. And that's probably due to the fact that our LHD, according to the last census, and I'm sure we'll find out more in the upcoming one, but did have the largest population of people experiencing homelessness in the state. So it is a relevant role for the context in which the local health district sits. But given that it is a standalone role in that it's not available, there isn't some positions like it in other LHDs, it means that I get a lot of flexibility,

and it means that it allows me, you know, to be really responsive to the needs of the health district rather than, I suppose, guided by KPIs set by the Ministry of Health or sort of LHDs more broadly. So I suppose I came into it as a secondment when I was working at drug and alcohol. I felt when it came up that it was a really good opportunity

to sort of test that sort of policy and strategy angle. That's sort of what I had always wanted to do, but I hadn't tried it. I'd started the Masters by that point, so I thought it would give me that practical experience and tell me whether that's the path that I did want to go down. And I absolutely loved it.

And I think, you know, the role has definitely evolved during the time in which I've been in it, partially due to the pandemic, which through a curveball at everyone. But I suppose in homelessness, it was a particular curveball because it's very difficult to isolate at home if you don't have a house. So there was a huge piece of work last year around, you know, my role was very much supporting our local NGOs to access and understand the role of public health services, the role of public health in, you know, COVID positive cases. I started writing communication bulletins to keep those services, the specialist services, up to date with the evolving information, but the evolving information that was relevant to them

rather than a saturation of information. You know, we were doing a lot of supporting isolation pathways if someone was to test positive. And I started working with the public health unit to visit specialist homelessness service sites and, you know, assess their environmental, situation and their ability to be responsive if they had a COVID case. And all those sorts of things that were quite out of the realm,

perhaps of how the role might have been previously, but given the flexibility that I have to just do what needs to be done, I was able to just muck in and do what needs to be done. And, you know, it ended up with me managing a small health outreach service, which is definitely outside of the scope of the role traditionally. So the freedom of it just allows. allows it to be evolving and flexible to the means of, you know, the community. Yeah. And how would you say an outreach service specifically and health differs to other areas

of clinical work? So I think there's a lot about, you know, engaging where people are at. So for my particular service that I was involved in, it was at a social housing site. So a lot of that was allowing people to identify and prioritise their own needs. rather than them coming to you or coming to a clinical service for a specific problem. You know, if you go to a drug and alcohol service or a mental health service, you're seeking assistance for something specific, whereas the health linkage service that I was running, it was people coming and then talking about what was going on for them

and us working out. What we felt that we could support them to access in terms of health and other psychosocial services, but also what they were prioritising. And I think there was also a real strong health education. aspect and capacity building aspect as well because it is out in the community and we want to be able to provide those tenants there with the skills to navigate their own health needs and be responsive to their own health needs. So I suppose there's a broader section of some additional considerations I think that you need in an outreach setting and some really practical ones too

prior to doing this I worked in assertive outreach in drug and alcohol which is a very or can be a very volatile setting. And so there's a lot of sort of practical things to consider around your environment, your safety, being able to ensure the safety of vulnerable people that you're working with, particularly if they're intoxicated, being able to assess risk of withdrawal and those sorts of things in an open environment and open space. So I think outreach comes with, there's a real interesting and really important aspect to outreach, but it definitely comes with its own complexities, I suppose.

You don't necessarily have the same resources that you have in an in-the-house setting. And Southeast Sydney Local Health District is one of the most diverse socio-economic areas. So it would be quite interesting having the perspective of people who perhaps see homelessness every day but aren't really part of that cultural community or don't understand that during, COVID, that homeless population was so incredibly vulnerable. And even things like when it's raining or you've got thunderstorms, obviously you and I, you've seen it all the time and so you're more aware. And do you find that there's any communication or education that you can do to help get that message out to people who aren't already sort of invested like NGOs or health services?

Yeah, I mean, so there's probably two ways that we do. So internally within the LHD, I run training around homelessness health, and it's really sort of, you know, homelessness 101. It's about helping people recognize and comprehend the drivers and the sort of subsequent perpetuating aspects of homelessness and sort of taking away the stigma so that we can run or operate and offer more inclusive health services that sort of are much more equitable and reduce. stigma in those settings, but we also offer and run training, similar training to councils, for example. So we do a lot of work with councils, collaborative work in terms of outreach for vulnerable rough sleepers in a variety of areas. So we can offer training to them, particularly the cleansing staff who go out and, you know, have to do the cleaning when someone has got a camp set up and have to sort of navigate around the camp in person. And so we,

work around respecting someone's dignity and someone's privacy and someone's reason to be there and allowing them to be there and sort of talk about the legislation around that and people in public places protocol. It's a mouthful to say and how that sort of interacts with different government and community organisations as well. And again, so the council then have the skills and the tools and the words to communicate back to members of the public who are often the ones who raise flags or concerns about people who are sleeping rough, the council sort of at the first point of call for that. So we like to be able to give them the right words to be able to respond and then the tools to refer. Yeah. So it sounds as though in your role you're very much

separated from that front line, which, you know, it can be challenging because you have so many more responsibilities, but you're separated from that actual work that informs the research or the policy that you're developing. Are there any situations where you do get asked or do have capacity to support someone, whether it's advocacy or helping with a specific topic? Like if it's even I'm thinking for funding for NDIS or any of those sorts of things, do you get that involved on the ground level? Occasionally. So one of the things that I do regularly is provide support to our clinicians on an individual level for complex cases. So I won't see a patient necessarily or a client, but I will work with the clinicians to identify referral pathways or options, work through

housing applications or housing appeals, NDIS as well, and occasionally participate in case conferences as well, because I suppose as well as being sort of the strategy and policy person for homelessness in the district. I'm also normally the subject matter expert with the sort of local connections across services across the district to enable our clinicians to connect their clients to the right people at the right time. So I wouldn't see a patient necessarily, but I would support the clinician to better support the patient. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. How do you work with other disciplines in this field? So it sounds like you collaborate a lot with other health services. You've said there's nothing similar in other LHDs, no similar roles at least.

Is their talk of setting something up or is it just too much of a funding nightmare? How does that work? So recently the Ministry of Health established a mental health housing and homelessness community of practice, which is a statewide community of practice and sort of the first of its kind to actually get LHDs across the state to talk about homelessness and housing sort of strategically more broadly. And so whilst I don't think the ministry is about to release a bunch of money to fund this position in every different LHD, I think what it does is begin conversations for other health districts about how they can better respond to homelessness.

And it might not be necessarily creating a whole position. But for example, one of the things that I have been doing is, and because of this sort of background and experience that we have in our LHD is supporting other health districts to do some work around strategic responses to homelessness as well within their setting or within a part of that service. So I suppose it allows for really good discussions about how health can be more responsive to homelessness, noting that homelessness isn't just a housing issue. There's much more to it and people are homeless for a variety of different reasons. And it's really important, I think, for health services to take a bit of accountability and ownership over that. Yeah, great. What would you say

you'd love most about your job? I think that it's really dynamic. No two days really are the same, particularly during COVID. It was just sort of, you know, chaos after chaos after chaos. So it keeps me on my toes. It keeps me engaged. And it really gives me the opportunity, I think, to contribute to the broader system change around homelessness, you know, working with our government, non-government stakeholders, working with the ministry, working with other LHDs, working with our own internal clinicians, I'm able to really sort of influence the way that we work

and respond to the health needs of people experiencing homelessness. And I suppose that's what gives me the most meaning and most joy from my work. Yeah, that's incredible. What would you say you find most challenging? So there's a lot of really good work that happens in homelessness, but there's also a lot of what I like to call red herrings. And I suppose that is different groups or organisations or agencies that don't necessarily have a strong background or an experience in homelessness,

but they do have an interest and they come in and they want to do good and they're altruistic and they have, you know, really good, I suppose they're trying to do something for a very vulnerable population, really good intentions. But it doesn't necessarily result in a coordinated response and sometimes it prevents coordinated responses to homelessness or it derails the conversation and you end up going down a different pathway in focusing and money goes into a particular issue or a particular agency where it could be perhaps better spent funding existing agencies or existing services or existing initiatives.

So I think the challenging part is really trying to navigate through that and ensure we're still able to be as supportive to the population and work together as much as possible. How then do you look after yourself in that space? It must be really hard to disconnect from what's happening, you're feeling as though you need to be really responsive and almost responsible for a bit more in an outreach setting, as you said, less protected for your resources and also creating some boundaries for yourself while still developing trust with these services.

So I think one of the things that I particularly learned during COVID because it was very difficult to create boundaries and space at a real practical level because I was working in my lounge room for a lot of the time. So, you know, there wasn't that physical space or physical boundary between work and home and work and safety, I suppose. But one of the things that has really shone through COVID and since has been the collaborative nature and really strong partnerships across the sector. And so I think for many of us who've worked throughout the whole pandemic and are perhaps all feeling a little bit run down in a variety of ways. physically and emotionally, perhaps being able to really seek support from each other and rely on

each other to support where we can, you know, really beef up resources in different projects or supplement each other when, you know, there's the competing demands on time has been really useful. And I think that's one of the things that has kept us and kept me floating is the support and the just collaborative nature of. homelessness and of the sector. So I think that's been really important. Has there ever been a manager of homeless health in South East Sydney, local health district that hasn't been a social worker? Yeah. I think I'm the first, actually. So prior to me,

I think the person who was in the position had a sort of public health background and policy was a policy background. And then prior to that, the lady who had held the position for, you know, a number of years, perhaps since it began even, was a nurse by background. So it definitely is, I am the first social worker. So what do you think you contribute then? Obviously, you've got the masters, but in terms of our social work training, what do you think that contributes to the role? So I think my social work training plus my background as a clinical frontline social worker in homelessness and drug and alcohol gives me a better understanding of the challenges of working in a frontline position in homelessness. It is a very difficult space.

It's constantly evolving and it can be quite volatile. It's also very rewarding, but there are a lot of systemic and structural challenges to being a frontline worker. And so I think my social work background in terms of the theory aspects have provided a good foundation for contributing with a more sort of social justice social work perspective to the internal LHD responses but I think it's also given me the frontline and practical experience allows me to understand in a little bit more detail the complexity and the interaction between you know homelessness services and government organizations and health services and the way that they often don't interact particularly well at a system level. So I'm able to understand that and perhaps provide some extra support in helping our external

and our internal clinicians to navigate those beasts. Yeah. Where do you think this is going in the future? Where do you see social work continuing to make an impact? I mean, I think social work is a fundamental background or, or, you know, fundamental discipline to homelessness responses, both sort of theoretically and then perhaps, you know, the inherent compassion and the type of people social work attracts that perhaps the type of people you want both from a frontline perspective and a strategy and policy perspective

in the realm of homelessness. In saying that, you know, homelessness responses are very much into a multidisciplinary and our sort of nursing and health education and other sort of disciplines and even medical professions are all very important. But I think social work brings a different and very useful element to it. I was reading yesterday actually that Edward Eagle Lodge has just gotten a bunch of new funding for renovations and those have been mostly from donations, but a little bit from council. And I think that's wonderful. It was a homeless resource,

a lodge for people to stay, but often the conditions were so incredibly cramped, but it's what was available. So I think it's wonderful that there's been an acknowledgement of this sense of dignity and worth and even just changing the environment where people will stay or where people need to be.

They don't have a choice, but it helps them, and helps empower them, I think, to break down that cycle of homelessness. There was a really good quote, actually, from Reverend Cameron, who said, when we get housing rights, so many other things follow from that. And it's just, it's so true, but often we see these homeless shelters or facilities that it's almost nicer being on the street. So I think it's fantastic that there are more resources that are being put into that.

And look, it's interesting that you say that because one of the things that was fascinating during COVID was, so the specialist homelessness services, for those who haven't ever been to a hostel or a homelessness hostel are often quite cramped conditions. They're, yeah, they're not conducive to social distancing. So what was really interesting and what was really fantastic was the Department of Communities and Justice poured in quite a lot of money into these homelessness services to what they call decanter people. So take people out of the service. And so take people out of the to allow the people who were remaining there to social distance, but to put everybody else into hotels. And what they found from that environment, and look, this is anecdotal rather

than a solid piece of research, although I think there is some research being undertaken. But what they found is that it actually, that added dignity and that added sort of space that you get when you're not in a shared environment was really beneficial for a lot of people and allowed people to develop different types of independent living skills and offered people a different space to thrive in. And yeah, people were where they were accommodated in places that had little kitchens, they were learning to cook. And they were doing all these things that would be useful when they finally were offered permanent housing that you can't do in a hostel because that's just not, that's not the way that they're set up. So I think it definitely has posed us,

with questions around what does homelessness accommodation look like long term and what does it actually need to be to give people the best opportunity to be successful in tenancies? Because that's the goal. We don't really want to house people in temporary accommodation forever. So how do we give people the skills to thrive in other places? Yeah. And it's just a shame that it took a pandemic to bring out some of those ideas. But that's been the case with a lot of things like telehealth and other services and flexibility for working from home. So yeah, I think a lot of things have come out of a very, very horrible situation, but it shouldn't have taken something like that to bring awareness to. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It sounds

as though this is an area of work that you've always been passionate about, but can you see yourself working elsewhere if you weren't doing this? What might you be doing? That's an interesting question, I think, because I've worked in sort of homelessness and drug and alcohol and vulnerable populations for a really long time. I really like that. I think I would like to work in different places doing different things, but always with a vulnerable person's lens. So I think working in, you know, drug and alcohol, mental health, blood-borne virus and sort of hep C or multicultural health or those sorts of places where people, there's so many, so much strength in these vulnerable communities. And I like the opportunity to sort of harness that and to really showcase the strength of vulnerable people

and vulnerable communities and vulnerable populations. So I think, you know, when I move on from my role, the one that I'm in right now, it would always and likely be still in that sort of a similar space, I think. Yeah. And are there any specific programs or projects that you're working on at the moment that you're able to talk about? So one of the really fabulous things that we're doing at the moment is the, I don't think we have a fancy acronym title for it, which, you know, sometimes in health it has to have a fancy acronym if it's going to get any traction. But we are working, so the South East and Sydney LHD is working really collaboratively with St. Vincent's Hospital, homeless health team and St. Vincent-D-Paul, plus our other partner services to deliver COVID

vaccinations to people experiencing homelessness. So we have a hub in the inner city that we offer every Thursday we offer vaccinations to people experiencing homelessness who might be rough sleeping or staying in specialist homelessness accommodation or people who are in that local area that live in social housing and just aiming to get that population vaccinated as quickly as possible. So given the sort of additional vulnerabilities. So that's been really good. It's been a really fabulous, intersectoral collaborative piece of work. We've got council down there every week, slinging sausages on the barbie and, you know, working with all our sort of local services to then find people once they're due for the second dose so that, you know, we don't lose them

and they get their whole sort of thing that they need to be fully vaccinated. So that's really exciting. The other sort of really interesting piece of work, I think, is a piece of work called the Intersexual Homelessness Health Strategy, which is a partnership between six agencies. Southeast Sydney LHD, Sydney LHD, St. Vincent's Health Network, the City of Sydney, the Primary Health Network and the Department of Communities and Justice. It's the first of its kind that we are aware of in Australia, if not the world, but it's our local response to homelessness health, noting that people experiencing homelessness don't stay within their local health district boundaries.

Obviously, there's lots of reasons why someone might access different health services at different times for different things. And there isn't a state or federal health and homelessness policy. So all these partner agencies have worked together to develop a strategy that ensures that we've got a strategic response, I suppose, to this population that is broader than just one district or one service. So that's been really fabulous. And that strategy was really fundamental in being able to mobilize our services and our activity during COVID in a really sort of collaborative and partnership way.

And without that, it probably would have been really difficult to find the common language to work together in a very chaotic and crisis-driven period. I wonder how many other Australians would go out and get their COVID vaccinations if they knew they'd get a sausage sizzle at the end of it. It's such an Australian thing. Yeah, exactly. Get your jack and get a sausage. Or it's like when you don't eat blood and you get a meat pie. Exactly. That's the sweetener.

Yeah. If people want to know more about social work in this area, where would you send them? Is there any good reading or viewing or organisations they should check out? There's lots of organisations that do fabulous work in this space. And I suppose I just want to take this opportunity to also really give a shout out to the frontline homelessness workers. who didn't get the benefit of frontline health staff during the pandemic and, you know, the free

coffees, et cetera, but were out on the streets every day supporting people experiencing homelessness and providing them the, you know, the tools to access accommodation and to stay safe during the pandemic. So I think, you know, a lot has to be said for that workforce. I think in terms of extra reading, you know, if you're looking at, you want to know more about the drivers and the causes and the policy drivers around homelessness. Homelessness in New South Wales is always a really good start because they've got a lot of literature and a lot of places that they can point you to

to find out more information in the southeast and Sydney LHD or the local metropolitan area, city of Sydney metropolitan area. The Kirkton Road Centre and the St. Vincent's Homeless Health Service also do some really fantastic work. So checking them out. And Kirkton Road Centre have had a few small documentaries made about them that you can find on the web and the work that they did during COVID in terms of setting up a mobile van to go and test people. So that's some really interesting stuff. There's probably

other things that I can't think of of the top of my head, but I can always send you some stuff that you can then put in the information attached to the podcasts and some links there. I think this is a fascinating area of work, obviously so many ways that social work can make a difference, but I think your specific approach in terms of policy and strategy and your passion for writing and the passion for vulnerable populations really comes through. And I think it's so important to break down that stigma, as you suggested, offering training to people who might not come across these populations or maybe do, but don't really know how to support them effectively. And it's just so much about that capacity building and helping people to navigate their own

health needs. I think that community of practice is really interesting through the Ministry of Health and especially to enable people to begin those conversations and your role in being part of that development of strategy responses to homelessness. And really, again, I think social work in this area can help people to enhance awareness, both in their general population, but also homeless populations, understand those social complexities and also the interactions, these people need to have with systems. So again, it comes back to that structural policy stuff that makes a lot of people's eyes glaze over, but really we work within these systems, we work with these policies, we interpret legislation in a way that hopefully will best support these vulnerable populations,

and it's so important to know the history of them and know what that background is and also know how other people respond because you might have a policy, but how everyone responds is so contextual to the culture of the organisation as well. So maybe questioning that culture or questioning someone's response is also a really good practice and something to be aware of. And I think the more that we can question, the richer these services become. Yeah, I think you're really right there. Yeah. So I look forward to seeing where this takes you. obviously it's going to be with these vulnerable populations regardless of where you are,

but I love that this role has enabled you to contribute to those broader system changes around homelessness and really look forward to seeing where it takes you and just so thankful for your time and really love chatting with you about it. Thanks, Yasmin, and thanks for taking the time to listen to me. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Stephanie, 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 Lauren, who has had over 10 years experience in social work with a diverse career history, including working in remote Aboriginal communities and in one of Australia's largest children's hospitals.

Currently she practices as a school counsellor in Western Sydney. Lauren has a lifelong interest in social justice and advocacy which has led her to an interesting personal and professional life. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you're notified when this next episode is available. See you next time.