Social Work Spotlight - Episode 53: Anna

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

In this episode I speak with Anna, a social worker who is passionate about women and children's rights, reducing inequality and empowering our most vulnerable populations. She is a recent graduate and holds a Masters in Social Work (Qualifying) and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Sociology. Upon graduating from social work last year, Anna began working as a graduate management consultant at KPMG Australia in their Health, Ageing and Human Services sector.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Family is Culture Review Report (Independent Review of Aboriginal Children and Young People in OOHC in NSW) - https://www.familyisculture.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/726329/Family-Is-Culture-Review-Report.pdfKPMG Health Ageing and Human Services sector - https://home.kpmg/au/en/home/services/subscriptions/health-ageing-human-services-subscription.htmlThis episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rD1qjPN11HfYicTTv4x6m61GGemjZtc-2t6d17U64I8/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, Jasmine McKee Wright, and today's guest is Anna. Anna is passionate about women and children's rights, reducing inequality, and empowering our most vulnerable populations. She is a recent social work graduate and holds a master's in social work qualifying and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Sociology. Upon graduating social work last year, Anna began working as a graduate manager, consultant at KPMG Australia in their health, aging and human services sector. She is an advocate for a person-centered, strength-based and culturally safe approach when working with children and families and is committed to using her social work perspective

to inform inclusive policies in the health and human services sector. Thank you, Anna, for coming on to the podcast. Really happy to have you here and excited to hear about your journey so far. having me, Asman. Yeah, when did you start as a social worker and what brought you to the profession? So I am a very new social work graduate. I graduated last year in November 2021 with a Master's of Social Work Qualifying degree and I was really much drawn to social work because of its idealism to make social change and to tackle some of the most entrenched social issues like inequality, inequity and injustice.

I very much felt like social work would kind of provide me with the skills to understand these issues on a broad systemic level, but also how I could be part of the solution to help alleviate these issues and working in direct practice with children and families. And I also grew up in Western Sydney where there was great diversity and I went to school with friends from so many different backgrounds and I loved getting to know about different cultures and languages and religions and I guess growing up I also saw a lot of disadvantage and how disadvantaged impacts the lives of so many children and families and yeah families from those socioeconomic backgrounds, refugees, newly arrived immigrants.

And yeah, I definitely saw how these factors impacted educational outcomes, job prospects, and how it could create barriers to access services. And I really wanted to do something that would allow me to have a impact in my community. So social, I don't think there is a more perfect job. or study for me. Yeah, did you have a mentor of sorts who kind of guided you in that direction? You already had the idea of what kind of work you wanted to do, but how did you land on social work? Yeah, I actually have never met or worked with a social worker before,

kind of knew what the job was about, just based on my own research. but just even in my everyday life there were, I knew nurses and I knew teachers and occupational therapists, but there weren't any social workers in my life. So yeah, it definitely took some research to find out what a social worker is. And I think even before applying to study social work, I didn't really understand what a social worker did and I'm still kind of learning. Was it through your arts degree then that that, that kind of broadened your perspective on the options. Like I know you did an arts degree and sociology and that would have really given you an

opportunity to have a look at those types of disadvantage and how people go about tackling them. Yeah, definitely. So in my arts degree, I did philosophy and sociology. And I think that really primes me well for social work because I definitely think it taught me how to think about issues on quite a broad level to think about, to take a step back and to think about issues of justice and inequality and all of these issues that direct social practice social work is about. And yeah, I think the skills that I learned in my arts degree is so applicable in social work. And it just definitely felt like a natural progression for me to go

into social work and actually to apply theory into practice. Yeah. What were your placements at uni? What did you do for practice? And how did that kind of inform the direction that you wanted to take? Yeah. So I did one of my placements at a community centre. And that was very much doing community development work.

So working with refugees and migrant communities, working with women and doing a parenting course, working with youth. We've had a youth drop-in centre where youth would come in and after school and play sports and we would hold activities for them and also in disabilities. So there was a Disability Day programme that we would help out in. So that was my first placement. And my second placement was with the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice in child protection.

And that was quite a unique placement opportunity for me and all of the girls that went through that placement because CCJ was running a pilot program in partnership with Western City University, where we would go on placement, but also do the casework development program, which is the program that all new caseworkers have to go through. And then we also did a bit of project work,

and had a lot of training with the organisation. I know a lot of people who do a placement at DCJ end up working there. Was it something that you were passionate about after the placement or you wanted something a little bit different? I loved my placement with DCJ and I think that was such an important part of my learning just to understand what it would be like to work with children and families. and I'm so grateful for the team that I worked with and the actual project work that I was doing.

And I learned so much just by being in a room with such experienced practitioners and seeing what they can bring to solve quite complex problems. And a little part of me did want to stay and to work for DCJ because I think there's such incredible opportunity to make a great impact on the lives of children and families. but I also had that desire to work in policy and to work in macro social work after that because I guess a lot of the issues that children and families face had to do with larger

structural issues. It kind of had to do with asking systems questions and sometimes challenging policies and questions that were a little bit larger than direct to practice social work. And definitely in thinking about what I wanted to do after graduation, A part of me did very much want to go into a case like role, but a bigger part of me wanted to go into working in macro social work. Right. I think the work in the refugee and migrant space is incredibly interesting as well.

That was my first professional role out of uni. And I found that it, especially as a new social worker, it's a great opportunity to be able to really articulate the difference a social worker can bring to that sort of role because often they're not advertised to social work roles, but we bring a certain something to those perspectives and to those approaches. How did you find that working with people from other backgrounds, other disciplines in terms of how that might inform the way that you practice your social work? Yeah. So in my current role right now, I am the only social work graduate with a social work background. And a lot of my kids,

colleagues come from very diverse fields, from economics to business to law. And it's really interesting to learn about how different disciplines can come together to solve issues. And I think we really do need a lot of different ways of working and thinking. And I think social work, I wish there were more social workers in our organisation and doing the work that we're doing now because I think social workers are so skilled in critical reflection, in working with people, in asking questions and to really listen to find out the issue and the core and how we can approach to to solve those issues. And I think a social work perspective is so valuable, definitely in our organisation. So I definitely wish more students are applying for these roles.

What is your current role and what does a typical day look like for you? Obviously now you're working from home, so it's a little bit different to if you're in the office, but how does that look for you? Yeah, so I am a graduate consultant with KPMG and I'm aligned to their health, aging and human services sector. And as a graduate consultant, our role is very much to support project work. And it's nice as a grad because you're very much new to the job and you're still learning and not everyone expects you to know what you're doing. And so we're very much encouraged to ask questions. And I guess there is no typical day because it's very varied and it depends on what projects

and what task you're doing. But on any given day, I guess you could be doing research and writing for a literature review. You could be working on business proposals. You could be participating in workshops or being in a client meeting or team meetings. And yeah, it's very much very. And I really love that about the job that keeps you on your toes and you're constantly learning. So yeah. And with those literature reviews and the research you're doing, can you give me an example of a recent review that you've completed and what the topic was? Yeah, sure. So a project that I'm on is in age care and we're working to improve governance in the age care sector following the Royal Commission into age care

and that group show of you was about how do we work with culturally and linguistically diverse communities in the age care sector. And what were the recommendations or have you not quite gotten that Well, in the process of trying to think about what that would look like, a lot of the literature points to cultural competency and cultural humility and ways that we can really work to understand another person's culture, not coming from a place of, I know everything about who you are, but actually asking curious questions to invite the person to talk more about who they are in their culture and how their lives experience impacts their ways of doing and living. There are parallels there between what I would consider social work values and practices

in terms of person-centered approaches. Yeah. But when I think of KPMG, I think I have this impression that it's very corporate and kind of far away from some of those visions or values that we would hold within the social work profession. How do you see those two matching up? Yeah, so this is something that I definitely had to think about myself, even before joining KPMG, because I knew that it was a corporate organization and I knew that it's such a big

organization that sometimes perhaps their values might not align with social value values and my own personal values. But what I'd really found when, especially in the health, aging and human services sector that everyone's really passionate about making a difference and to really value your opinions and to respect that what you have to say is quite important. So I've actually found that the team specifically our service line is really great because we really value everyone's experience and background. So so far it hasn't been. something that I've had to really wrestle with. But it's definitely on my consciousness a lot.

Yeah, it must be nice also from a corporate perspective, knowing that you've got funding to carry out what you need to do, whereas coming from, say, a community perspective or health work, you've got to grapple constantly with budget constraints and you might have really good ideas, but you might be told, well, no, we just don't have the resources for this. So it sounds as though you're listened to a great degree and there's actually a commitment from KPMG to follow through with any of these recommendations that are made.

Yeah. And I think I'm really quite new to the organisations. I think I still have quite a lot to understand about, do we, does our work and our recommendations have real-world implications and do organizations really take up our recommendations. Yeah, and I've heard from other colleagues as well that sometimes all of the hard parts of the jobs are wrestling with sometimes what you think is best, that other organisations might not think so as well. So that might be a bit difficult to wrestle with. What are some of the other new grad disciplines that you're working with and how do you see that being a good match for you?

In our team, we do have quite a good mix of people who come from clinical backgrounds and non-clinical backgrounds. So we have paramedics, nurses, podiatrist, physiotherapists, doctors. And we also have people from economics, from business, from law. And all of these backgrounds, I think, are so great, because everyone comes from a different perspective. And you bring so much. You bring so much. much to bear and I think it's really helpful for me to be surrounded in a business environment because I get to learn a lot about how to write business proposals and how to work within that space which I think sometimes a lot of social workers don't get that experience and I think it's been quite a valuable experience for me. It sounds like the work that you did with your first

placement in community development would have helped that because there would have been a lot of report writing, a lot of advocacy written as well as spoken. So it sounds as though it's a good transition for you to have made. Yeah, definitely. And I think just having that experience of working with vulnerable communities and to understand how policies impacts the real world actually is such a benefit for graduates. And even in my second placement, I learned so much about child protection and that system and I think it brings these skills to bear on working in these projects as well. Yeah. What do you think you enjoy least about the work though? What's the most challenging thing for you? That's really hard to say, but I think there are times when I do feel a little bit

out of my depths and I feel a bit overwhelmed because I might not know how to do something or it might be the first time that I've done something, but I've always found that, like, everyone's been really, really kind to answer your questions, however little silly you might think they are. And I think sometimes working from home can be a bit hard. Yeah. Just because you can't really tap someone on the shoulder

and be like, how do I do something? It's not as easy to, yeah, ask those questions when you're not sitting directly opposite your colleague. But it's been really okay because everyone's been really nice. But I guess I do miss having a social work community around me. And I miss, yeah, just talking to someone about social work who comes from the same background as me and, yeah, who shares my same background. But, yeah, I think I'm learning every day to be okay with that.

And I think that's something that isn't exclusive to new social workers. it's very much something that we learn as we go. And even when we change jobs, you're still learning. Or let's say when new programs or policies come out like NDIS, everyone's learning again, how to respond and how to work within that system. So in terms of how to respond to that, you're just asking the questions. You're trying to learn from good models, good role models and people that understand what's going on. and then, you know, being able to then explain that to someone else who's not within the system,

your client, your patients or whatever it might be, your community members, to be able to then translate that in a way that makes sense, because often it's such a different language. Yeah, definitely. No, asking questions has actually been so important to my learning. And, yeah, it's definitely not a sign of weakness, but definitely something that all grads should be doing. Yeah. And I think it's so important to have a good mentor or someone within your organisation or even external who you can reach out to and just say, can I just pick your brains for a second or debrief about something. Do you have other social workers within KPMG, someone that you can reach out to?

Yes, so there is one social worker. He's a manager in Melbourne who's a social worker, and she's been really great just to know that there is another social worker that I could tap on and to learn from because she's been through. She started not as a grad, but I think she worked in the field for quite a number of years and then transitioned into consulting. So, yeah, there is one other social worker. And actually the person who started, started this service line was a social worker. So yeah, it definitely has its roots within a social work perspective, which is really great. Yeah. What do you think you love most? What kind of gets you up in the morning when it's really hard and you're just not wanting to get out of bed?

And, you know, what makes you think, yes, I've made the right choice in going down this path? Yeah. I think I love the diversity of our work and that I could be really. working on projects and areas that I had no idea about. And it's that constant learning that really excites me. And I've always, like, throughout uni, I was really interested in so many different areas of social work, from mental health to disability, to domestic and family violence, to child protection.

And I never really could settle on one particular sector after graduating. So I think this is actually a really perfect. way of finding about different sectors and the issues that they might be facing and how we could work together to solve these issues. And I love that you're working with incredibly smart and motivated people and people who really want to be making a difference in the lives of people in our community. So that's really great. Let's say we fast forward five or ten years into the future. and you've been able to achieve everything that you want to within this role, what would that look like in terms of the outcomes for the people that you're researching?

Yeah, so I don't plan long-term. I'm not a very long-term thinker, and I kind of just always grab opportunities as they come towards me. But I've always had in the back of my mind, perhaps one day I would go into a direct practice social work role and I don't know what that would look like or what service I would be working in but I've always really yeah I did my second placement in child protection and I really loved that placement and I think there's so much work to be done within that space especially without Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander

children. And I guess my vision would be to continue to work within a space that really helps our most vulnerable and to apply what I've learned, I guess, in a macro policy level to a direct practice level. I'm not sure what that would look like, but yeah, definitely something to think about. It's pretty unique because often people will go from practice back similar to your social work colleague manager at KPMG. They'll have that influence on practice and then go back and have an idea of what they're trying to change based on what they've already done in the field. Whereas I think you've got a little bit of a head start in that in the sense that you understand the policies and the governance principles and the guidelines that will inform your practice in future.

So perhaps that gives you a better understanding of what kind of social work you'd like to go into because you could say, well, I know that it will be easier for me to make good change in this area. But on the same hand, you can also say the guidelines and the policies don't allow for really good work in this area. So that's what I want to do because I want to make change. There's not enough change happening. So, yeah, I mean, it's totally dependent on where you're at the time, but you might really be passionate about trying to change something that's not working. And you can see how that goes from bottom up.

Yeah, definitely. Like, I think it's really important to understand issues on both a policy level, but also on a direct practice level. And I think change occurs on both levels. And I think, yeah, having this policy experience definitely allows me to understand these issues on a broader systemic level and how we can make change in a systemic level. But yeah, I definitely in the future, perhaps I would be applying these macro social work skills on a direct practice level.

Are there any other projects or programs coming up that you're excited to be part of? Yeah, so I'm also currently working on a disability project, and that's actually an international project with our KPMG team in Saudi Arabia. Arabia and they're trying to help classify and identify and give support to high school students living with disability. So they're coming up with a framework to help them with that work, which is really great. It's really cool that you then have the opportunity to be exposed to international stakeholders because there's no way you could do this by yourself. You need to have that cultural awareness of what things are like in Saudi Arabia, for instance.

So you'd have to have those consultations. And I mean, it's good that you've got experience working online and by Zoom and all that sort of stuff now from working from home. But yeah, I think that's incredibly fascinating that you can take these skills internationally as well. Yeah, definitely. So I've not been in a client meeting with the Saudi team. But it's definitely very interesting working with an international client because they send us stock. in Arabic and we have to translate it. And with Google, translate, sometimes things get lost in translation, which is pretty funny because you have to read between the lines. Well, it would be so

nuanced even in the language. Yes, exactly. And yeah, and when we're writing, we have to be quite wary that this is going to be translated and to make sure that what we're writing is in simple, plain English so that the meeting is translated well. So that was quite interesting and very fun to be translating a lot of documents. Yeah. Do you have any interest in working overseas potentially one day? What would that look like do you think? Oh, I would love to work overseas and see how different countries approach human services. Because a lot of our literature reviews do look at what other countries are doing. So I think that would be really interesting, but I don't really have a country in mind. But yeah, I think that would be a great opportunity

if it does arise. Yeah. If someone was interested in knowing more about the work that you're doing, other than the KPMG website, where would you direct them? Are there any really good resources that you would use? Or even maybe the Royal Commission, like those sorts of papers? Yeah, definitely. So in my placements, especially in child protection, with DCJ, I did a lot of reading to the family's culture report. That was released in 2019,

and that was an independent review of over, I think, a thousand children in out-of-home care. and the recommendations that that report produced. And I think that was quite a really important report. I learnt so much from that in terms of the systemic and policy issues that DCJ is facing in terms of our work with Aboriginal children in out-of-home care. So definitely that report is very, very helpful. And I guess with KPMG, yeah, there's not,

a lot of resources to find out about KPMG in our service lines, but what really helped me in applying for the job was just to research some of their report that they've produced for government and non-government organisations and reading to the different projects that you could be working on in our service line. And did you have an idea of what it would be like going into it, or you just thought this sounds interesting? I'm interested in writing reports and I'm just wondering, I wouldn't even know what to expect going into that sort of an interview.

Yeah, so I had no idea what to expect for the interview. And it was actually quite a long interview process. But, yeah, I did a lot of research on the health, aging and human services sector and what they did. And I really found that it aligned a lot of. with social work values and social work skills, which was really, really fascinating for me, just because I definitely thought that KPMG was where accountants were, where lawyers work or someone with a business background would work. But actually, there are just so many different service lines within KPMG that, yeah,

like a social work background definitely fits within that service line. Yeah. I love that from what you've shared, there's been within a short period of time, such diversity in the work that you've done. Yeah. And you've constantly been pushing towards that desire for social change and tackling those social issues and advocating for what you see as an injustice or a disadvantage.

But I think your training specifically in the area that you're in now has really given you an opportunity to understand the issues on a deeper level and what your capacity is or what your agency or what external service providers can do to tackle those issues. It's such a non-traditional social work opportunity though. I think it's incredibly interesting because even when you have your final subjects at uni and they're getting people to come and talk to you about what's it like at Centrelink or what's it like at DCJ, I don't think you'd ever have anyone from KPMG come and talk to you, but it makes so much sense when you. It makes so much sense when you talk about the vision and the values and the fact that the program or the project was

started by a social worker, that really makes sense and really reinforces that there's so many places that we can be making an impact. It's just a matter of thinking creatively about what we can contribute to those areas. Yeah, yeah, definitely. I really am so passionate about having more social work students come on board to work at KPMG and to work in our service line because I think the skills and the perspectives and the theories and also our placement experience make us such well-rounded graduates. And to have that experience, to actually know what it would be like to work within the human

services is so, so valuable. And I wish there were more social workers applying for these jobs. because I think I was the only social worker that applied for this position within the grad cohort. And yeah, if anyone is listening to this, then is a social work graduate thinking about a work within policy or work in macro social work. I definitely, definitely recommend applying because you just never know. You never know what your experience may allow you to do. Yeah. Do they have like a 12-monthly graduate intake?

Yes. So I think applications open twice a year and the first round applications have just closed for this year. But they recruit all year round, I think, depending if there is a service need. But yes, definitely do apply. Do you think there'd be scope for you to have a student in the role that you're in? Oh, I don't know. I don't know if that's happened before, but we do have vacationers coming on board. So not direct social work placements, but anyone from different disciplines can come in and see what the work is like.

And I think that goes around from December to February. Yeah. Amazing. Is there anything else about the work that you do that you want to share with others? I'm just really passionate about having more social workers being in this role. So definitely something to keep in mind. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you again so much for this.

opportunity to chat with you about your work and giving us a different idea of the spaces that social workers can make change in because I think it's important for people to hear about it and especially people who really love research and really love looking at the literature but also looking at policies and thinking I don't know if I want to do a practical placement at uni but not really sure whether a research placement is for them. So hopefully it gives people an idea of the types of places that they could request a placement in or even just looking at the intake processes with KPMG because it sounds as though they're very aligned, as you said, with social work values and visions and really wanting to make a difference but work

with other disciplines. So yeah, I think it's a great opportunity for anyone. And I think the more social workers we can get into the corporate world, the better. Yeah, definitely. Everything that you say is so true. And if you are a social work graduate thinking about working in a corporate space and are a little bit hesitant to enter it, I'd say that KPMG is really friendly and we're really welcoming and the work that you can do have real impact from the lives of Australians. So, yeah, it's definitely a very rewarding job. Amazing. Thank you again for your time, Anna. I've really loved this chat. Thank you so much, Yasmin.

Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Anna, 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 Taylor, an early career social worker in mental health for the southwestern Sydney community. She studied a double degree of social work and social research and policy, majoring in politics and international relations, while engaging in differing voluntary roles, including the Youth Advisory Committee at Headspace, engaged in advocacy work with supporting asylum seekers Sydney, and was employed as an NDIS support worker in the inner west. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you are notified when this next episode is available.

See you next time.