Social Work Spotlight - Episode 43: Jonathan

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

In this episode I speak with Jonathan, who currently works in research, and uses his experiences with people from diverse gender and sexual identities and those seeking asylum to develop and implement anti-oppressive research methods. He advocates for critically reflective practice, and for greater collaboration within personal and professional networks.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice, by Donna Baines - https://www.psa.org.nz/assets/Uploads/Donna-book.pdfUsing a trauma-informed, socially just research framework with marginalized populations: Practices and barriers to implementation by Laura Voith and colleagues. Doi: 10.1093/swr/svaa013Centre for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality’s Guide to using trauma-informed interviewing skills https://www.pacarepartnership.org/uploads/Trauma-informed_Interviewing_Skills_Guide.pdfThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UX7AXIUZPUWrdVF33MsnXtHyrKTwSN_1z4JOwVcYvKM/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, Yasmeen McKee Wright, and today's guest is Jonathan. Jonathan currently works in research and uses his experience with people from diverse gender and sexual identities and those seeking asylum to develop and implement anti-oppressive research methods. He advocates for critically reflective practice and for greater collaboration within personal and professional networks. Thanks so much, Jonathan, for coming on to the podcast. Really happy to have a chat with you about your social work experience so far. Thanks for having me.

I love having chats with people, but I especially love having chats with social workers. Other social workers, we all like a bit of a young now and then, but yeah. I will start by asking when you began as a social worker and what drew you to the profession. Yeah. In the world that we live in today, sometimes it's always about the qualification. So I guess technically I became a social worker in 2018. But what really led me to even considering doing the kind of work that I do today probably spans back to 2010 or 11.

So actually, I used to be a music teacher. So it's quite a journey. And I was involved in community involvement projects. I would basically connect my students with other districts. there were these like family service centers and the youth that came to the school were of a different I guess socioeconomic background from some of the youth that they would work with in those districts that were more at risk. There was greater socioeconomic disadvantage in those districts. And so it was like an eye-opener for some of my students. And as the community involvement liaison from my school,

I think I definitely got a little over involved and probably took up a lot of my time and I decided to actually go to do a master's degree in social work because I actually wanted to work in that field. I wanted to work with a lot of the families and the youth in those programs. And so I got sucked into it as one does. And I, yeah. So I went to get a qualification to be a social worker. But yeah, yeah, that's how I actually ended up in where I am today. Sounds like it found you more than anything else then. Yeah, it's sneaky that way.

It's insidious. Yeah. And were you always wanting to work with younger people and families, or did it not really start out that way? Well, yes, I know. I guess I actually never know because I never wanted to work with their children. and children who know where scared me, but I guess part of music teaching is this,

you know, it's that sort of where you just immerse yourself in it day in and out. And you're like, ah, you know, actually kids aren't that bad and all that. But I think just because of my background where I used to grow up in a neighborhood that was probably not the best sort of area for kids to grow up.

And I always always wondered, you know, what some of the workers that came in were doing. I wanted why, what was their motivation for wanting to talk to some of my friends in the neighborhood. It came from that space, wanting to help. And so from wanting to help, it's very different for, I guess, the way I practice today, that conversation about social working a helping profession versus being a profession were actually working alongside because that's actually more the model I work with today.

But yeah, I guess I was curious as to what and how people felt like they were helping others that were in need. So, yeah, and I'm still exploring it today. I'm still trying to understand practice in different ways people practice today. Yeah, and you've had quite a lot of experience, both paid and volunteer. What has led you to this point in your career in terms of the experience and skills you've developed? So I work in research at the moment. I've never wanted to go into research. Things keep finding you that you don't expect. I don't think anyone goes to do a degree in social work or any sort of qualification in

community service knowing that you're going to come out and like, I'm going to go and apply for the first research job. It was always just a way to pay the bills as I was completing my degree. But I think it's the work in it that really attracted me. So the projects that I used to work on actually still work in one of them because it's a major project. It involved actually going out to organization, service providers, schools, and working with young children or teenagers and getting to talk to them about their experiences with the service systems. So a lot of the children and the teenagers that we talked to were in and out of the child protection system. Some of them were in the out-of-home care space. A lot of them had run into with health, with legal, the police.

So they basically had more experience than probably all the researchers on our team established academics and interfacing with the service system. And so there was all that lived expertise. And I think I just felt really flattered to be able to talk to that and learn, you know, what actually worked for them. Because when we think of service provision, and as much as we're sort of trying to move towards the model where there is a co-design approach, you know, when practitioners are consulting their service users, it's still very authoritarian in that it's still sort of like, we're going to listen to you. at the end of day, we're going to have to do some things because of A, B, and C, or because it's a policy move or because we just have to. Protocol dictates it.

But the project that I worked on was it acknowledged, and it gave a lot of power to child voice. And so that was where I had encountered. I started learning more and more about child voice, really giving credence to young people. that we're, if you think about it, young people are very, they're stakeholders. You know, there are players in the service system, but they have so little power that it's untapped. And very often policy decisions are made that completely disregard, ignore their needs, really. So I guess that project really introduced me to the fact that, no, we can.

actually work with children and teens, get their opinions, their views, their ideas, their recommendations. And sometimes, you know, they need a bit of support to articulate, but a lot of them are extremely eloquent. They can give it to you as is. They can tell you directly what's working and what's not. And it's up to us as researchers, but those are us as people who develop policy or people who practice, who are caseworkers, who are program managers to take all that swallow our pride, our ego, and actually really have an honest conversation with them as well as with the rest of our team, with the organizations and how to improve. So that highly subversive strategic work really, really spoke to me. Okay. And you've done some volunteer work as well.

How did you start with that and how did that then develop the direction you wanted to take with your work? Yeah. Oh, that's such a good question. Well, I have these chats with my friends and my colleagues all the time. The line of work that we do, obviously, there is, there's paid work. And then there's unpaid work. And for me, I think it stems from a place where I always want to be, I still want to be connected with practice, with working with clients, working with people. And volunteer work, unpaid work, there is unfortunately still a high demand for it, whether or not it's managed well in terms of, you know, the support, you know, or supervision of it, it's still lacking. And a lot of the organizations I've worked with, I still work with, they definitely

struggle with that in sort of managing and providing support to volunteers. But yeah, I guess, I guess to answer your question, will let me to it was just, I wanted to feel like I was sort of flexing some of my social work skills. And I think it's not, only till probably maybe about two or three years ago when I actually realized that you don't have to be doing work in a position that had the title social worker to be using social work skills you do it in every sector you do it every level it's just about how you do it and in our education now we're training as social workers we talk a lot about critical reflection You know, it's great to acknowledge, you know, to recognize some of our biases and assumptions,

but I think more importantly, it's about seeing how we can apply ourselves into roles that are either not called social work or not traditionally meant to be social work. And yeah, it took me a bit of time to get to it, but I think now is when I'm gaining a lot of confidence in talking about the skills that are required. And a bit of a small win for for us is actually we have recently, the project that I'm on, we recently agreed to host a couple of social work placements. And yeah, it'll be exciting to actually to do a non-clinical based placement and bring more people into the fold of being a social work researcher.

Fantastic. I think the other thing that helps with those sorts of, whether it's volunteer or paid work, where it's not advertised as a social work role, in addition to us bringing a flavour or a lens, a perspective for social work to contribute towards whatever it is you're doing, I think it also helps, and especially in my experience, I've found this, people around you who are either benefiting from the service or are working alongside you collegially,

I think it gives them an opportunity to see what social work is capable of. So I think it furthers the profession in that sense where they would think, oh, it's not traditionally a social work role or it's not advertised as such, but this kind of makes sense. I understand what you're bringing to the party. So I think it's really important for people to put themselves out there and to not necessarily look for roles that say social work in the title, but more to think about what are the skills or knowledge that I can apply to this setting.

Absolutely. And I think it's also about the approach that we adopt that we take on when we're working with a range of different people, whether it's with colleagues or higher ups, managers, with management, with people, with clients, service users. For instance, having a trauma-informed approach, being aware of things that we say, being aware of how we might say or make decisions based on our own experiences, how we do profiling. Oh, because social workers are immune to any of that? No, we are more, we have to remain responsible accountable.

I think just being aware of those weaknesses make us, you know, really competent workers. But yeah, absolutely, yeah. Can you tell me about the role that you're in at the moment? What might a typical day look like for you? Yep. I'm a member of a research team on a ARC's Australian Research Council funded project. We work with youth on basically reconceptualizing the service system. So a bit of other project is just we work with both youth and teens, young people,

and we work with service providers, we work with local councils, policymakers, to try and re-envision and re-conceptualize how the service system could work, you know, to actually really help the cohorts that they're tasked to help. So a typical day for me could be working with service providers, liaising with them, having consultations with young people, not this year or the last. Well, the previous one in the last year, sorry, I think it was the lockdown in COVID has really throwing everyone's time frames out.

Yeah, our time is no longer something that's just set right now. We actually worked with a few sites in Sydney, where we went in and worked with young people. So some of them were schools. We worked with an online group as well. And basically getting them to tell us their experiences with the various service systems, whether it's health or with facts, child protection and out-of-home care. and we would collate all their findings and go back to some of the service providers that were also partners in the project to understand how programs could be tailored a little to meet the needs.

And yeah, this was the youth voice or the child voice project. And so it's a very dynamic role in that you get to actually hear first and talk to a lot of these teenagers about what they want changed. Where you go with that information, I guess it depends on how you approach a service provided to say, actually, the program that you're running isn't really peer-led or the program that you're running isn't really helping them in a way you were hoping to. So it's also a lot of that strategic messaging and helping the youth, you know, deliver their points in a way that wouldn't get a negative response from service providers because of, you know, practitioner fragility or getting defensive about, you know, how we only want to help,

but it's not enough to actually want to help. I think what's more important is to really listen and hear and understand what you could do to really help. The teenagers that we speak with, you have a lot to say. And so I was just drinking all of it up. I was just taking it all in and working with some of my colleagues and some of our partners to really action their recommendations. In my experience with research, a lot of the funding comes from government departments who perhaps have their own agenda, whether it's obvious or not. What is your funding source? What's the instigation for that? And I guess the intended beneficiary would be the services and the young people who are accessing them.

But I'm just curious as to how that all came about and who's responsible for making sure that the outcomes are actually delivered. Who came up with the idea in the first place and then put the money into it to say we recognize that there's a potential issue here and we want to try to gather the information needed to then make some changes. From my understanding, I think it's a mixture of both, I think federal, well, state governments, their goals of actually, for instance, improving service access or having services that actually would meet the needs. So it was in response to that.

And I think that's how we apply it to this grant. I'm not sure about the specifics of it, but a lot of it was, you know, there were conversations with, like I said, agencies and at the end of the day for research, I work for a university. I think universities also have a different sort of reporting our funding model to, you know, NGOs or a typical another research organization. So I think it depends. But in our case, it was a mixture of looking at what targets the federal and state governments were set, you know, for the next five, 10, 15 years and seeing the need areas. And so I think for us, you know, my director and the other, I guess, lead investigators knew that this was an area that was lacking youth child voice. It's kind of what we talk about right now.

You know, in any other, in all sectors, we're always saying, you know, what is it that people need? That's how programs should be engineered, should be developed to meet those needs. it's the same thing for services for children and youth. Unfortunately, the system is still very exclusive or, I guess, ages in its sense, where it's like practices that are battling over, oh, we know it's best practice to consult, but are we going to consult a child? This doesn't always make sense. And even if it does make sense, you know, unfortunately because of policies

in an organization, it, prevents practitioners from really doing what they know they need to do, which is to seek the counsel of the service user. In this case, it would be a child or a young person, but very seldom are there child voice projects that really honor the voice of the child. It's sometimes the voice of the child, and then it's translated along the way by, you know,

the person that's actually collecting that voice, and then relaying it, you know, in a report, or, you know, when they redesign a program and it's, it's something that they say, oh, that's actually what, you know, youth have told us. But then there's very little accountability. There's very little ways for that to be actually proven because, once again, the voice of the child is usually suppressed. It's a bit of a sad, vicious cycle, unfortunately, but I think that's why. projects like the one of mine is trying to change that.

Mostly projects on my eyes also really expensive to run because it takes extra time when you're actually engaging with children and youth and then you want to check in back with them, but then there are additional barriers in place, you know, safety measures in place that make the process a bit longer. I can imagine the ethics process would be a little bit more stringent as well. So you'd have to go through extra checks and balances to make sure people aren't disadvantaged or that you are in fact following up, I would imagine, if there are any issues that come up for them. Absolutely. Yeah. Something that we've done recently as well is really take

additional steps to, so for instance, we had a site where the staff were, I guess, struggling to see the benefits of some of the recommendations that, you know, some of the young women were putting forth. And it's understandably so I can see why, you know, practitioners would be like, oh, what are you saying? This is not, you're in our center and, you know, we're here to provide and protect and guide and support. So it's hard for them to hear that they're not really doing what they're doing. And it happens, I'm sure it happens in other projects as well, but for this project, I guess that's when the staff decided to pull back a little bit in terms of being responsive, you know, to some of our attempts to connect them with the young women and their

recommendations. And so it's a bit of that sort of negotiation. And it's that sort of advocacy that we then have to do to help the young women get their voices heard, but also to explain in a way that doesn't result in the service or the, you know, the professionals in that service, the practitioners recoil because it's hard for them to hear, I guess, but then we have to do it in a way that's very strategic and constructive. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's hard when you're asking for feedback and not really wanting to hear the hard stuff come back at you,

but that's what's most important. Otherwise, you know, what's the point in doing it? Yeah. What's the makeup of the other people in your team? I know we talked about social work roles that aren't really social work roles, but do you work with other disciplines together? How does that look?

And what do you think a social work? work professional background might lend to the team. Yeah, it's a really good question. Well, on my team, well, I'm doing so much work on my team. And that's why I think I am extremely fortunate in that a lot of respect and weight is given to my recommendations or, you know, in team meetings, when we start brainstorming ways to engage or when I say engage, I'm talking about engaging with different stakeholders, whether it's with some of the teens or whether it's engaging with our partners, engaging with reporting bodies. It's about how we actually navigate that space as well. So I'm just lucky because I've heard stories from colleagues and ex-collects about how their

voices are not heard as much. And I think you probably hear that as well in the health space. I think it's shifting now, but there's still quite a bit of ways to go where I think social workers very often are probably not as, not regarded, but just it's a different expertise, I guess. It's a very, very hard thing to describe as why it would matter to have, you know, a social work consult or a social worker's expertise be called in. And there's always, if it's not a clinical skill that they already have, for instance, if a social worker is also a counselor, or if a social worker is also, you know, therapy trained, then it's different. But there's always that professionalization that we look in that actually determines if you, you know, your voice actually carries some weight. So I guess in my team, I'm just lucky that I think some of the soft skills that I bring, you know, whether it's to build rapport with different groups of people. or to build the capacity of, you know, people to be open to new ideas or be open to a more collaborative approach to designing a program or reviewing a program.

Yeah. And I would imagine a social work background would assist. I'm not saying one or the other, but I would imagine someone with a psychology background wouldn't have had quite as much experience working with the service supports that are in the community and understanding that system and how that all integrates. So that's probably a really good addition to the team in terms of being able to understand the intricacies and the dynamics and just making sure that those voices are heard and you understand the implications of it further down the line.

Yeah, that's exactly right. I think, and obviously this is a very brush to say all social workers have this propensity or have these skills. But I think by large, we do see the service systems or we see things, you know, through an ecological like lens. We look and see the different players and how, you know, there are levels of impact or impacts, but also the extent to which it's impacted. and we see things in, you know, non-sequential ways where we can actually see a cause and effect that someone else may not immediately identify, but we can see that that could have a negative consequence for another player, another person in this space. That's what gives us the edge. Have the COVID lockdowns had much of an impact in terms of you being able to do the research?

I imagine you can't get out there and meet with people face-to-face like you would normally. Yeah, unfortunately, yeah, it has because we're working with organizations and institutions like schools or like, you know, service providers, the lockdown and even the pandemic as a whole have really interfered with our ability to meet face-to-face. It's put a lot of delays in our, I guess, our interactions or, focus groups with children and 10 teens. And for anyone that works closely with younger people, there's a benefit with actually being the same space. They really feed off energy and feed off our energy. And they love knowing that they're actually being listened to by an adult

in the room because it doesn't happen all the time. And so for us to not be there or for providers to be like, actually we can't, yeah, we'll have to postpone that because there are other things that have to happen, or that, you know, it's all moved on to online learning and it's going to be tricky to give you access to certain, you know, IT platforms ready to do that. It's been deprioritized. So definitely it's delayed some of our, I guess, key dates in our project. And the way we work has also changed quite immensely. Yeah. And other than the way that you work, to change, what do you find most challenging about the role that you're doing? Most challenging thing. Oh, challenging thing probably be working with organizations and policy

developers or policy makers. I think I mentioned before, it's a very delicate balance. It's a very delicate skill to, and I'm not saying that I have it. I'm still honing it, but it's tricky telling someone that they're not doing a good job. So the trick is actually about telling them in a constructive way what could actually be done differently more even more importantly to have a plan and also you can when you actually have a plan and how to be constructive with your advice and when you have with that plan ready to go when you're actually working with organizations it builds their capacity to see a different perspective from you know from what they would normally just half and that that cannot happen that can happen it's a very black and white but then

when we have a plan and we go in and we then you know help them see things in a different way that makes our job a little a lot easier actually i should say a lot easier and so i guess that's one challenge working with resistant yeah with resistant systems with resistant organizations what would you say you love most about it that that very very very same thing. It's when you actually succeed and you start building bonds, not just with them. So, you know, let's say there are, we will be extremely reductive and we say that there are three players. There is the young person or it will say, you know, service user, consumer, client, whatever we call them today. The young person, there is the service provider. All of them just count, you know, management, frontline staff, everyone into that one group.

And then there's us. It's not about just us building. Also, I'm holding this up like this is a like a video. Air quotes. I know. So it's not just about us building bonds with each of these players. It's about helping them see the possibility of having a bridge between the two as well. Because ideally what we want is for us to be redundant.

I think that's the same thing for, well, hopefully for a lot of caseworkers and social workers to not have to be, you know, the referer or the bridge between. a person that's trying to access another service. Ideally, we want to build the capacity for both sides to create more access points for the service user and for the service user to feel confident to go to them. So I guess for us, it's to facilitate that preliminary conversation and then help them see like, actually, they do want the same thing, which is to improve the circumstances of the young person or to improve service access. So I think once we do that, that's done. So that's the biggest challenge I see in my role and also probably the most rewarding thing about it.

So creating confidence but also transparency so that everyone understands everyone else. Exactly. That's interesting. What support do you need in that role? Because as we've said, it's not a traditional social work role as such. You wouldn't have sort of a direct supervisor as such as you would with clinical work. How do you get supported in that work? Is there any other external support that you need?

Yes, I do. I am lucky enough to still have a lot of my, you know, and you mentioned that I'm still involved in a lot of that voluntary work with organizations, you know, with different other services. I rely on that to not just think of different, I guess, service providers that we could reach out to when we're trying to launch, where we're trying to implement, like, you know, for instance, one of our initiatives at the moment is trialing a co-designed training module that youth actually design with the providers on, you know,

the intake process, the engagement process, how to help the youth feel respected when practitioners are working with them. So we're trying to find service partners that can actually launched that initiative with. So I've been able to tap on some of my past contacts. And then likewise, like you mentioned, there isn't a conventional supervisory arrangement I have with my boss. I can talk to her and I do talk to her really openly about some of my concerns, some of my ideas for our projects. But I think I still rely a lot on my ex-colleagues, other social workers, in the variety of fields, whether they're doing clinical work or they're also doing research elsewhere, or they're in policy now, I do a lot of that talking with them and trying to

brainstorm ways to work around some of the challenges that I encounter. And I know for volunteer roles, best practice is still to support them as you would an employee. So going into a volunteer role, you're not supposed to know everything. you would get that support in that role. Or you should. Yeah, no, I'm just thinking as well. Because you've had a variety of different roles, I imagine the support that you need

is going to be different in whatever space you're in. And I can just imagine people being hesitant to put themselves out there and put energy into something like a volunteer role if they thought, well, I don't really know much about this area of work or what if I'm not cutting it? It's more about maybe even asking the question before you go in, what support is available to me in this space?

And how do I know that I'm doing well? You know, being able to make sure that that's a very open line of communication with the people that you're working with. Yeah. Yes, you're exactly spot on. I think for the volunteering space today, you know, for volunteers today, it really depends on the organizations. I think organizations have really caught in on really quickly in that they don't want, you know, just any volunteer to give their time and energy.

They want it to be in a way that's controlled, that that is supervised, I guess. That's actually going to help and not do more hurt, more damage to your clients. So when organizations get volunteers who are also trained professionals, I'm working with a few services at the moment that are. are like this day would have, you know, professionals who are actually qualified nurses, doctors, you know, psychologists or therapists and social workers. So what do you end up having is having a super trained volunteer force that's doing a lot of this work, well, pro bono essentially. And most of the time, I hope, most of the time, it's done without taking advantage of the fact that you have a trained volunteer because then the day,

danger lies with having a volunteer do more than what they should be doing. Or, you know, for the volunteer to actually then tap on their sense of the professional responsibility to do tasks that may not be required of them, but they know that that's best practice. So I think the volunteer space is very tricky. I don't think at the moment, I don't think the volunteer space is being managed well enough know, and that includes, you know, supporting volunteers to do what's described in the role as volunteer. We could probably talk for a whole other hour about that.

Are there any other areas of social work that interest you or any other training you would consider? You mentioned you have a background in music and teaching. Has music therapy ever been of interest for you? Yes. To combine one's skills, I think that's the dream for, everyone, especially if you have, you know, a few skills that you think could make a difference. I think for music therapy, it's a bit there are obviously, there's obviously training involved, but there are also other competencies involved that would require extensive training, which would then, you know, take someone away from their, you have to balance, I guess, you know, with sort of ideally what you want and be able to do versus what you could do

and remain financially viable in the world we live in. But something I'm currently working on at the moment is doing, interpreting and translating. So I speak in second language, a mother tongue, a couple of them. And it's one of those things where I think in my work in the assignment seeking space, that there are obviously, you know, codes of ethics, boundaries, you know, in place that prevent you from doing a lot of that work at the same time. But, you know, in working with interpreters, you can also see that there is sometimes, unfortunately, a lack of awareness, you know, of the need for client-centered care or a trauma-informed approach when asking certain questions. And so I think I've really seen that there is a lack. It's just me again, once again, being really greedy and wanting to insert social work everywhere.

But I think it's important. I will always say this, but I think there is, I think there's a need for social work to be everywhere. And when I say social rights, just mean a critical social work approach, not something that's a bit more, I guess, classic or historical, where we're no longer the helping profession. You know, it's more of a profession now where we really critique the way we practice, the way other people practice, and we demand all of that, using emancipatory approaches as, you know, versus doing that. Oh, I'm just trying to help. It goes beyond helping. You know, we are moving into, yeah, it's, yeah, we're moving into something that's a bit

more empowering. We're doing something a little more sustainable. It's just heard that way. Yeah. Are there any other projects or programs that you're working on on the site? It sounds like there's quite a lot happening for you, but you mentioned staying connected to practice and people and trying to continue or maintain the skills that you had. Is there anything else clinical or anything else directly working with people?

At the moment, there is a group of people who are seeking protection in Sydney, and they also happen to identify as LGBTIQ. And the work that I do with that group of people is really interesting because it is, it's a It is about, you know, connecting them to services and connecting them to various other advocacy groups or groups that want to leverage of their experience as, you know, a queer person that's seeking asylum in Australia. And so that space has been very interesting because the way the group is set up is different as well. And it's less of a worker-client model and more of a facilitator-person model where we're trying to, you know, build their capacity to become, you know, facilitators himself, to become peer-facilators themselves. So it's been interesting because obviously there are still organizational accountability that we need to abide by. at the same time, it's also, you know, building their confidence and helping them to tell the

organization what they need. So that's been something that's still, we're still trying to do at the moment. And I work with a lot of colleagues and ex-collects to really, I guess, critique my practice in that. This is one of the voluntary projects that I work on, which is tricky, like I mentioned before, there isn't a clear form of supervision. It's not available. You know, the organization isn't able to provide that. And so, yeah, it's a tricky one. I think the reason why we, I continue doing it is just because we know that there is a need for that. And we can see the value in that work. It makes us uncomfortable, but, you know, that's exactly why we need to do it. Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like where there wasn't something formal available, you've created.

created a network of peer supervision around you of people who understand what you're doing and you can kind of seek that support when you need it. That's probably a better way of doing it. Yeah. Some people say, oh, you know, my range buddy. But yeah, you're right. It's that peer supervision. And I have always belief that, you know, when I was a still-in-case worker, I always told everyone,

like, we're our best resource, you know, how connected we are, not just within this organizations, but with other organizations, that determines how we refer our clients and how appropriate those services are. I think that's carried on to now, you know, where I am as well, because how interconnected we are, how aware we are of those bridges, that's how we actually stay, well, mentally well, but also stay with good practices and with sounding boards for our practice. Yeah. Would you consider using your biolmese? multilingual, multilingual skills and working overseas somewhere? Is that taking any interest for you?

I mean, yes and yes, I guess, yes, no. I don't know what the requirements would be in terms of training and qualifications and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think right now I don't know of any other, and this is not me trying to do the whole social workers could take over the world thing, which I usually do. but I don't think I actually know of any social workers who just do primarily interpreting and translating work. And I will really briefly explain that because, you know, sometimes when we try to, for instance, translate a document and we consult a certain community to do that, sometimes that, you know, the meaning could be garbled or it could be inaccurate depending on our practice.

and, you know, it's not always professionally mandated as an interpreter or a translator to take a lot of the considerations that we do as, you know, people who work with other people and to know and are aware of the power dynamics. So I think to have someone that's maybe not the best at it, but still working at it, I think that's important. So I would love the opportunity to do that. So please feel free to let me know when you know. Yes, me?

Brilliant. If anyone was interested in the type of work that you're doing, whether it's research or the other community-based work, where might people go if they wanted to read more about it? Or is there any good organizations or any good viewing that they could check out? Yes, there is. So I think the way some of the resources that I've used have been, for instance, there are trauma-informed toolkits that, you know, researchers should refer to when doing, you know, especially for qualitative research when you are interacting. It's a very unique space where you're interacting with a person, you collecting data from them,

but you're also interacting with them as a person. And so there's a way to ask certain questions that not just avoids triggering traumas or that doesn't trigger any trauma with them, but also helps you build that rapport and build on your reputation as a researcher that's a person and not just a researcher that's there to collect information from them and then leave. So there are those, you know, trauma-informed tools that you could refer to when developing. Unfortunately, at this point, I think just because there hasn't been enough conversation or discussions about social workers doing research in a way that tabs on a more participatory

approach, well, I'm working on something at the moment with a couple of colleagues to develop. something like that and also to write a piece, academic journal for that, but there isn't a whole bunch of stuff, unfortunately, at the moment. It's about what you can find in adapting it that could fit your purpose and also checking in with colleagues or, you know, other social workers on how this could actually work. It doesn't matter if you don't work in that space. You know, you can always consult, you know, a colleague, ex-colleger, you know, service that does and sort of test it with them. But then again, that also requires your own rapport building skills with that service so that there is that trust that you're not going in to do anything other than really

try to improve the way you work with people with collecting research. Before we finish up, is there anything else you wanted to tell people about the work that you're doing or any sort of words of wisdom, any encouragement? Yeah, I think to all people, people who are in social work roles, whether it's clinical or non-clinical, we are our best resource. So don't hesitate to reach out to each other, to us, you know, if you want to test ideas. And yeah, don't shy away from anything that makes you uncomfortable. Because if it makes you uncomfortable, probably means it makes a lot of people uncomfortable. And that's not done enough yet.

And so, you know, if not you, then who. So yeah, just be comfortable, being uncomfortable. Brilliant. Yeah. I love your insistence on inserting yourself into different areas of life and different levels of service structure. And yours is, as we said, not a conventional path for social work, but for you it's about it seems that visibility for the profession

and putting yourself out there and it doesn't matter if you're uncomfortable, just trying to, I guess, lay the foundation for other people to start seeing things from a different perspective. And what I'm hearing also is that you're really passionate about that critical and anti-oppressive approach to your work, which brings the power of voices of these young people and other stakeholders as well. So your social work background gives you the ability to, again, I'm going to make hands, no one else can see us, but you've got those three different levels

and trying to make sure that every level is accounted for and that people have those voices. So I think that's really important. And I think not enough social workers are doing research. So if anyone has the inkling to do it, I think, as you suggested, it's just about thinking about what you know, thinking about what the problem is, and thinking about who you can get on board,

who you can try to take advantage of within your existing networks to help you to meet that need in whatever way is possible, whether it's a tiny project or something quite big with lots of external funding like yours is. And sorry, you just actually prompted me to remember two things I did put down for me to definitely remember to say, and I almost forgot. So the first one was anti-oppressive practice, and that's actually something that really spoke to me when I was studying and was fortunate to actually study under and work really briefly with Donna Baines. So I would definitely get anyone who probably a lot of social work students already do. But if you haven't, definitely check out Donna Baines's AOP stuff.

And the second thing I was going to say was don't exclude other professionals from your collaborative practice. If anyone's not a social worker, you can still work with them, whether they're an education, whether a teacher, whether they're a psych, you know, whether they're a lawyer. one of my favorite people to work with was a legal manager with Rax. And he wasn't a social worker, but he understood the concept of emancipatory practice and really working collaboratively with other professions. So don't cut any other professions out. Reach out to them. Bring them into the full and show them that you don't have to have a social work title

to work in a way that's non-oppressive. Yeah, I've got a friend, a good friend of mine who's a psychologist by background and she's doing her PhD in law at the moment. But her passion is to what extent the voices of children are heard in the family court process. So thinking about what other areas you can draw into your research, as you've suggested, because there might be something lacking in that area or there might be someone who's really passionate in a different profession. who actually might be interested in the same thing but doesn't really know how to get it started or doesn't have the networks in your area. So yeah, really important just to, if you've got a problem that needs solving, which we all do as social workers, just try to think creatively and not be afraid to reach out there and ask for help for something. What a lovely way to put that.

Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Exactly. That's it. Thank you so much, Jonathan, for chatting with me for the podcast, I look forward to people hearing about your experience and hopefully getting energized about doing research of their own. And yeah, just really happy to have your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Jonathan, 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 SWF. 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 Jules, who has experience working with children, adolescents and adult mental health in both the public and private sectors. Jules is now working in private practice as a mindset coach and is a certified practitioner in neurolinguistic programming and timeline therapy. 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.