Social Work Spotlight - Episode 55: Uni

Episode Date: April 15, 2022

In this episode I speak with Uni, a case manager working in youth crisis accommodation. Originally from Mongolia, Uni has developed her passion for supporting children and young people from traumatic and disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their circumstances and build their quality of life through love and understanding.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Dr Bruce Perry - https://www.bdperry.com/Connections by Karl Deisseroth - https://www.penguin.com.au/books/connections-9780241381878This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMGdee3j-R85N5nuymlyrrtBWcJokvbarWs4B-DR1C4/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, Yasmin McKee Wright, and today's guest is Uni, a case manager working in youth crisis accommodation. Originally from Mongolia, Uni has developed her passion for supporting children and young people from traumatic and disadvantaged backgrounds to improve their circumstances and build their quality of life through love and understanding. Thank you so much, Uni, for coming. onto the podcast, really glad that you could take this time to have a chat about your career so far. Thank you so much having me. I cannot believe, but I'm here. I'd love to ask, firstly, when you started as a social worker and what drew you to the profession? So I started as a youth worker

in June 2019, actually. So I'm very new in the social work field, but I have had two years of experience back in Mongolia when I was a student, I used to do lots of volunteering in youth sexual health service. I used to answer anonymous phone calls from young people about protection, abortion, and I used to participate in groups that go around high school or first years of uni to show have to use, you know, have to protect what is safe sex, what is consent, have to use condom. So I used to be the kind of person that hang around with world interior people. And then I came here to study Sajrard because in Mongolia, trafficking women into countries such as China, Turkey, Russia for sex work, sex slave. And you can just see a newspaper.

There is two or three pages of advertisement that's looking for a young woman this much tall, this position in hotel recipients. in China, but anyone can identify it. That's not true. That's a sick slave. But because of people don't have enough information and there's no services to bring information in the society about this and it's severely corrupted government. So they know it, but they just don't want to know it. They know, but they don't want to do anything because it's corrupted. And I am sure that the police department, the head of everybody's involved here. So that was horrific. And I, my friend, And lucky she realized before she took that job of her, but her friend was victim of this crime. And I heard horrible story, horrible, horrible stories, how she was slaved as a sex worker in China

and how she was brave enough to escape. So that became my interest to become a social worker. So I came here, but because I came here with zero English. I had to start from beginners course, completely one and a year, half course. Then I had my daughter, then I had to take back. And then all these diploma courses, because my English wasn't enough to be accepted in master's. So it took long year. And then I had my second child.

And as soon as uni started, I had my third. So it was a long journey to become a social worker. And quite disrupted from the sound of things. Yeah, but I was like, an end of my. social work study, I had strained my ankle, like severely. I had to use clutches when I was doing my tithses and places. And I was like still, no, I'm hanging. It's exhausting enough going through that. Yes. But I was lucky that I was supported my lectures. Because it's a field of social work, all the lectures have social work background. You know, they're very sensible. They're very,

very aware of all these things. So that's why I was lucky to be able to keep going and graduate. I had the right support that I needed that time. Yeah. Yeah, even just going through my life, all these things. I really learned that support is very important. Yeah. It doesn't have to be financial or something matter, but just you have someone that believe in you or someone that open to hear you, listen to you, all this support is very important in life. Without support, no one can do anything. But my life really showed me this. Sitting here talking to you, If I didn't have all this support, I wouldn't be able to even come to Australia, even have my children, even be able to finish my study. And working in youth homelessness sector and, yeah, support.

And how did you come to Australia? Like, why did you choose Australia? Because I knew that I wanted to have a baby. In Australia, back then, the Aourses student health cover was covering pregnancy. which is a beautiful compared to England compared to America. But now they took it off. Interesting. Took it off so sad.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And so you just, you didn't know anybody. You just thought, I'll come here and it's incredibly brave. Firstly, moving to a new country, secondly, having a child in a country where you don't understand the language. And know English. Yeah.

Yeah. It's all right. So I guess you could then relate to a lot of people that you support. in terms of feeling like you're sinking part of the time and needing someone to provide some guidance and support. Yeah. Wow. Before you studied social work, you did a bachelor in philosophy and politics.

In literacy, yeah. Is that something that you have kind of integrated into your social work practice? Yes. So what happened is, I wanted to become actually back then, I wanted to become a nun in my parents, in that pro. So I choose that bachelor because it had philosophy. I really didn't care about the political, but it was just as it is.

I couldn't take off the politic part. So it was kind of class that designed to be better. So I really enjoyed Buddhist philosophy as a philosophy to view the world. So I used to spend hours in Temple's library to read about, you know, what is peace, what it is. we all have same heart you know it's all same but why

every bad things comes from human being why we do bad things and hurt each other I learned a lot lot and that helped taught me you know to practice my heart I guess to see things through my heart

so I guess that helped me a lot to have my own view about life about people Yeah, and it definitely helped to work as a social worker too. Yeah. Was there something about your upbringing in Mongolia maybe that got you interested in that sort of study? Yes.

So, Mongolia, we are people from nomadic culture that it's, you know, we live in mother or nomadic cultures means people move according to the nature. They don't change nature for their comfortable or living, but they leave. following the nature, respecting and loving. I'm not lucky that I didn't grow up 100% nomadic in countries. I was born and raised the city. But my grandparents were very religiously. They were very Buddhist.

And on top of that, they were really believe in Mother Earth and believe in humanity. Like my grandmother, she's still alive and she's still alive. and she still says that, you know, the only difference between you and animal is that, not that you have a brain smart, you have a beautiful heart. And I think she really teaches me have to love people. A love is not one thing.

Yeah. Love is very generous. And don't be afraid to love. Yeah. Another important part of nomadic culture is that it's a group-oriented culture. Even, you know, we live in a circle, it's called Yurt, Circle GER, there's a no room. So it's a very, it's not an individual-centered culture, it's centered of group and community.

And I feel so many similarities between nomadic culture and Aboriginal culture in terms of focusing on group and community, and the spiritual, believe that the land, the mother earth, the spirit of elders. So I see so many similarities there. So because of that culture, I think it's not just me. People who have that culture raised, learning that standing for each other, like standing for the people, not putting ourselves in front, rather putting the community or person next to you or people next to you as an important. I think I learned from my culture a lot from there as well. It's not just Mongolia. I feel it's very similar with Aboriginal culture and all other people who believe in the spirituality as well.

It must have been difficult leaving your family when they were so instrumental in your life. Yes, it is. It was difficult. I still have days that I miss my family. But I have three children and they identify themselves Australian and I respect them. It's true. So I have some responsibility to be here. Otherwise, yeah, my heart misses my family and my culture and my people too. What has led to this point in your career then?

So I think after I graduated, I applied to the job as a youth worker at the service that I'm working now. So I started as a youth worker. When I was doing my master's, before the second placement, my supervisor asked, Which are the areas that you feel that you're not confident, you don't want to do, you don't want to go in your career life? And I said, please don't put me any placement with children. I have my own children. I know, I'm sure I cannot do this. And they put me with a placement where I support children, young people.

And that was, the day I started there, it changed my understanding. It changed actually about, it actually changed about myself. that why I was thinking that I wouldn't be able to work with children. Actually, I enjoyed from the first day, especially with the young people. And so I got that positive experience and motivation. And I was applying for mostly children or young people support services. So I was lucky to start as a youth worker there. And again, from the first day, it sounds very funny.

Like from the first day, I decided this is where I'm going to work. work for the rest of my life. I know where I will work. It's homeless young people. I wish I really want, it's my dream that I lose my job because there's no homeless young people. And since then, I was lucky to do different roles and now I'm working as a full-time as a caseworker draw. I think I like how I started working as a youth worker more real connection. More real worked like a face to face in the evening, having all those beautiful chats, just hanging around, playing or just sitting the way they're doing nothing. All these experiences actually helped me to grow as a social worker. And then I was doing outreach caseworker for a couple of months.

And that was another extraordinary experience in my career. And that was a privilege. to be able to visit people's home, to be able to hear their experiences, to be able to accept it at their home, you know, having coffee. I think that was the highlight of my career. And I learned a lot. For example, you know, the referral, of course DCJ or whoever did the assessment, whoever called the helpline, they're concerned and it's good. keep calling, keep letting know.

And then referral comes with all this information. And then I tried to reach out them. And I was lucky to be able to visit home. And the end of the day, I just learned that these people are, you know, burned out parents. Right. I think visiting these young people and their family, it just brought me another deep level of understanding about this homelessness.

I think the way a system, is running in Australia around child protection and youth homelessness, I don't think it's doing good enough. For example, so I work in crisis service. Crisis service is like a short-term accommodation, three months, young people coming. Three months is nothing. It's such a small time. And there are so many pressure that have to do this and this, this, and we cannot keep them because it's the nature of the organization service, nature of the funding, nature of the politic and then we have to send them somewhere. And so many times I know that they go different services.

They come to us from different services. And then they move another service and then move another service and then come back. And it's just the waste of resource and it's just another trauma for these young people. There's no place, space for healing. Understand. Crisis. Like everybody's working in this field working super hard. Our time, trauma from the work.

These people are putting so much hard work, but it's just a system that runs, you know, crisis service. And then if they fit in the criteria of other services, such as longer medium, then they move there. So there's a condition criteria. Personally, I wish that we should tackle out these crisis service. I think we should take it out. It should be just a supported accommodation

for young people and every services have main value. For example, some of them can be services that there is no criteria of how long they stay. If the young person developed trust there, if settled, then it's better for young people to stay in one place as long as possible. Then there is a healing happens. Then there is, it's not a staple. I think it's just the short-term support is going, but it's not good enough for these young people. So if we take off the crisis service and then take off the length, all services, all accommodations

should take off the length. So any young person like the play that service, then they can stay there as much as they want, even until they're turning 17, 18 to be able to move independently. And if that young person doesn't like the service, then can go another one without any pressure of Lent or pressure of condition or criteria. And I think if system changes that way and put more resources and more workforce in that way, I think that that will improve the current condition of food, homeless services. Even when we are full house, when we try to find, if someone calls, then we full house and we try to find another service, there's not enough service.

Everybody is full. You know, even DCJ, I wish that they put lots of, you know, they changed the philosophy of when things really escalated. They wait until when things really, really escalated and then start to work. I think they shouldn't change it opposite. Put more workforce, more funding into the intervention that when there is a vulnerable mother bearing a child, then start supporting from there and don't live. we know that when young person comes crisis service, most of the time there's a huge trauma in family. Most of the time, mom went through a lot of trauma too. And there are so many times that there was a DCJ support or other services support earlier, then, you know, then stopped.

It's very, very sad, but I think we're not trying enough or doing enough. So I think if the system or, I mean, to be honest, if politicians, if the people in the higher positions, if they really really want to, you know, improve the current situation in this field, then I think we have to completely change the philosophy and the method and put lots of hearts there. Yeah, and support in the early intervention. So it sounds like it's re-traumatizing for these. young people. Yes, it is. It's another trauma. Just being in this system, going around all these different services, always in the crisis environment through a lot of trauma. And then, you know,

your peers going through a trauma and you are in that environment, it will be projected to you as well. And how we expect them go to school, how we expect them to engage in routine. The environment is not letting them to do that. So that's why the environment, must change. Yeah, it sounds like the system is really disjointed. Yeah. And to what extent do you feel your organization has capacity to change the way funding is distributed or policy is developed?

So the organization that I work, it's for young women only. It's a refuge for girls and all the workers are women. And we have, recently, last year and a half, we introduced new persons. at the Refuge. It's a three days of their program. The people who work on this project, the board, all the previous case managers, the CEO, the aim of this is to give the young people who don't have school, the opportunity to learn new things, you know, just to be exposed to study, environment, you know, have a tutor or other activities during the day, just to give motivation to go back to school and also, you know, have a plan for the day.

And I think that that was a beautiful thing that people did. And I am very proud and lucky to be able to be part of this team because it's a very, every single person in this team has a beautiful quality. it's hard to explain that just you know i feel like i work with my own sisters i never feel that i'm coming work you know like colleague it's just it's a so feminist and so trauma-informed and on top of that like a social advocate and very cool it's a beautiful little sisterhood and everybody works above and beyond every single person i think that's what they do is in our own level to change this system.

Yeah, and we are very well known by our trauma-informed staffs, which is a beautiful, important thing, yeah. And I think in this industry, trauma-informed approaches, I think it's not just an approach to use it work. It's as a society, I think everybody should have this as a philosophy. And I learned a lot from this book. Like I learned a lot in classroom, but wasn't really, you know, getting on my hand, that really understanding. But during my second placement, my supervisor gave me this.

She always has these books, few books from Bruce Perry, doctor, and gives her students to read. And that changed my understanding into another level. Yes, so that's the boy who was raised as a dog by Bruce Perry. So all these good people's books really teaching all of us. And recently, he's getting really famous too. Connections by... This is his second book. Carol Dysrot.

This one is second book. The first one is projection. Because English is not my first language. Compared to Dr. Bruce Perry's books, I experience a bit of difficulty to understand because lots of academic vocabulary. Otherwise, overall beautiful books. Really good explanation about emotion,

how our brain works about mental health, mental health conditions, have to understand. The books that from Dr. Bruce Perry, it's a very general, a beautiful language that anyone can understand. Yeah. Those are such great resources. So so many people have recommended those to me and I'll definitely put links to those in the show notes so people can go off and have a look. But yeah, definitely really accessible like you were saying with Bruce Perry. I have a question that just I thought of.

A lot of the refuges and youth support programs that I know of are geared towards, or at least the funding is geared towards young females. Is there a lot of funding for young males? Why might that be the case, do you think? I don't think I have a right to answer that question because I never worked with youth service that supports young males, boys. There must be a good answer. I don't know. something to do with vulnerability, but then still surely young men are just as vulnerable. Yeah.

Our organization feel challenges that, well, yes, we girls and then what someone from, you know, born as a male and then transitioned into women, that why we cannot accept if that person identifies women. So we all of the organization, we also have that challenge. So you can't accept someone who identifies it. Is it based on their Medicare card? How does that eligibility work? So based on my experience, there was one referral. It happened when I started working as youth worker. There was a young person who, transgender. And the answer from the organization

was we couldn't take because it's only for girls. Because you could very easily make the argument that it's probably really good for other people in the facility to be, exposed to people with different backgrounds. Yeah. I think I should explore the history of my organization more, I think. Just reflecting on my answer to that good question, I think I need to do a lot of more exploring. But I joined and because it was Giles refuge as well. And I still love work here because it's a woman-only organization, supporting women and all the workers are women as well. Do you find that helps the clients associate better with you? Or do you find maybe there's a risk there that you might associate with them?

Another big reason is that we have lots of young women come to our service from sexual assault or being sexual assault before. And they come with that huge trauma. And this is one of the few spaces they can feel a little bit safer, less trigger. And it's really important to gain their trust. Yes, yes. That is a huge reason. Well, if you find out anything about young men and refugees, definitely let me know. I'd be really interested in knowing more.

I think there are many semi-independent or a little bit longer-term services that have both gender because young people move there when they're a little bit settled. Yes, but when they're in crisis, yes, it's better to consider. are all the triggers and, you know, safety. That makes sense. And environment, yeah, is very important, yeah. You mentioned you have a really wonderful group of colleagues. Yeah.

What are their backgrounds? Are they all social workers or do they come from different backgrounds? Social workers. Yeah, all of them, all of them social workers. For example, evening staffs, most of them have daytime social work, job, and services in disability services or other youth services, and then evening as a youth worker. Yeah, and all of them. That's incredible.

And multicultural as well. Yeah. Very inclusive. Yeah, very cool people. Okay. They're going from one very difficult day job to a very difficult evening job. I think when you have that much strong passion, I think you're going not to just a job. Yeah, it sounds very stressful, but there are a beautiful moments happen in this.

spaces as well that just you know being around with these young people and yeah it is hard but it is it's a beautiful job what's the most memorable scenario that you can think of memorable or that touched you in a particular way i don't know if it's because of my nomadic cultural background my heart just my heart just connects very easily with Aboriginal community whenever we have Aboriginal young person I just love to be around. And there was one young person who was having some minor psychotic episodes. That time, I think the psychosis was induced by drug use but wasn't diagnosed. She didn't have an opportunity to be able to get right supports, I guess.

So she came when she was in crisis and that was soon after I started my job when I was. was very, very fresh. And everybody tells me that whenever she's in the house, like every few minutes she come and, where's uni? When is uni coming? And I had a beautiful experience with this young person. And we used to walk to, well, we're not allowed to take young people to get cigarettes because it's, it's, you know, it's not good. But to be honest, cigarette is there copying mechanism. They used to it for many years. They haven't had a chance to build healthy coping strategy. Yeah. And in the middle of a crisis is not a time to change that. Absolutely. And guess what? Some people are, some people talking about to change that. Can you believe?

So I just want to let people who makes policy just, you know, hey, come to work in crisis service. Yeah, come to work in crisis service before you make your decision. So she, we used to go walk about 40, like an hour to get the, because not all places sell cigarettes for child and I cannot allow, I'm not allowed to buy for them. So I just, we're not naming any names. Yeah. So I just walk with her. I think those, you know, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a, like a job or case management, but I love those memories. I love those experiences. This is the connection. The connection. Yeah. And I remember my colleague, she asked, why, it is easy for some people to communicate with some young people and then it's hard for others. It's always like that.

And I experience sometimes very difficult to communicate with a specific young person and then other people communicates really well. So it is very common. So my colleague asked, how we communicate with this young person. What are you doing? I just thought, maybe those walks, you know, just those walks, we went. to buy siggies or those walks that we went to the parks. We didn't talk any serious things. We didn't do any case management, but we just enjoyed walking and, you know, talking random things. Yeah. I think, yeah. Yeah, cool. Given that the work itself is really difficult,

from my perspective, at least, it sounds really difficult. What support do you need to maintain your motivation and stay connected to those people? For me, my own, motivation is my safety in the workplace. What I say by safety is trust. We human beings, we can have different answer or you know, different opinion or not agreeing, but as long as we trust each other, like I trust then that's my safety and that's all about it. Yeah. And I got that trust from this team. Yeah. Do you have many opportunities for professional development? Yes. Yeah, a lot of, yeah. That is another important thing and also having a good supervisor, good supervision that is very important in this field. I work in an organization for short time and the main reason I decided that I didn't want

to continue is I felt that I don't have enough supervision support. Yeah. So I think supervision having that space to share the challenges is I think very important. Why do you think someone's made a very conscious decision to employ a lot of social workers in this facility instead of, say, someone who's a psychologist or has a community services diploma? What is it? Do you think about social work that lends itself well to the field of homelessness and crisis? I think one of the criteria was actually either work experience in social work or has a degree. But I remember that we actually,

one of our colleague who just left, she worked with us about the year. I think she was studying psychology and she graduated now she moved, she moved different states, but she was actually studying psychology. And there's one person, now she is not working with us. I think she was very experienced community development worker as well. Okay. It's just you happen to have a lot of social workers. Yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah. What do you think is different about that? What is it about our training? do you think? I think, for example, we learn systems theory as a part of important theory to work in this field and that helps us to understand. There are so many things impact a person to make a decision or to make a choice. I'm sure in different field they study this as well. I think the other thing is actually, for me,

I feel it's related to the person who chooses to study social work that, we have that same shared passion towards justice, human right, value. I think before we even study social work, we have this same will and passion and empathy. And then from that, we want to become social worker. Yeah, so it's not an accident. No. Yeah. Oh, yeah, we have actually, in our team, we have a very beautiful,

environmental scientist as well. And she's an amazing social worker. And I call her, I mean, she's working here and she's a social worker, but she has a science degree. Interesting. We've discussed a couple of things that make it really difficult to do your job, such as not having a space for healing in that position and people are already starting from a space of disadvantage. But what else do you find really challenging? I'm just thinking there must be a sense. of helplessness and how do you help this person because they're just going to get moved from one thing to the next? That is, that is everyday challenge. Even though the young person settled during this crisis and move to the, if the young person and family, the family connection

therapy works or that connection gets some healing and, you know, become a state that they can live together. And that is beautiful when the young person goes home. But it is not very, very common. Most common is usually young person moves to longer term accommodation or exited for, you know, that's another reason that I was mentioning. Services have criteria which we're not supposed to have. So because of the criteria, because of the consequences, because of the condition young people exits to whatever, wherever. And that is very sad.

That is very hard. So that is another reason that, we really think we are trauma-informed, you know, everybody in this field is trauma-informed. If we talk a lot about it, then make action. Action is not just talking, oh, I understand, that's not trauma. Action is make the environment, bring the houses that are settled without condition, without criteria. Yeah, they will abscond, they will make mistake, they will go use marijuana, but, you know,

it takes time. We weren't there 15 years. in that person's life. Now we're just three months and we want to do, it takes another 15 years, maybe it takes forever. Yeah, it's not going to happen in three months. Yes, if really want to do the right thing, if we really want to do trauma informed,

then change the house, change the policy. Yeah. And it's always hard that it's the family usually, because the family or mom, dad, itself, went through a lot of trauma when there were children, probably if we do more search than probably their previous generation went through a lot of trauma. So it's so hard to say that, oh, it's family's fault, to be honest. It's society's fault.

Yeah. It is government's fault. So it's so hard that even they go to a longer term accommodation that it's still that what is more safer than family? What is more beautiful than your own family and own people and own person? Yeah. They might not have a big house or many rooms. They might be sharing a little room, but that's the family.

Yep, they have each other. Yeah. So that is my everyday challenge. So I really wish they put lots of resources and funding on intervention and family connection. Yeah. I know that you're fairly new to the Australian context, but maybe you've heard from your colleagues who have been working in it for a little bit longer. what changes have they seen over time in this setting? I'm thinking there have been small changes

probably in terms of the type of homelessness supports that are around, maybe the stigma to some degree around homelessness, but like even just small things like I think there's better understanding that a person doesn't choose to become homeless or they might have been very successful and then something happened to them. So it's not their fault. But are there any other changes? in this setting over time in terms of either how we support people or even the impact that social workers have over time. So from people that I met in this field who are a bit older than me, like I hear that even just five, six years ago, trauma-informed approach wasn't here. So everybody agrees that that is bringing a lot of change. Yeah.

Yeah. Still needs. Yeah. And so. some level. Yeah, but they say that compared to five years ago, there's lots of training, free training, and lots of focus on this approach and all those heroes are trying to be trauma-informed, which is beautiful. Yeah. Hopefully that gives you and other people hope, because if there has been changed, hopefully there can be further change. It's just hard to see that happening. Yeah, I think these, I believe it's not just, this is children, yeah, young people, still children. I don't think it's just a specific service or specific policy makers' responsibility. I think it's every single human beings responsibility. I think if we all of us change the way

we live in this society as, you know, we live very selfish. We live only care, our own family, my this, but if we change that, open your heart, check on your relative who you lost track, know about them. Especially at the moment with COVID when everyone's isolated. Yeah, just check on a just random person. Yeah. Are there any other areas of social work that you might be interested in? I know you're passionate about mental health and education and politics,

but it sounds as though you've really found your niche here. Yeah, no. I think I'm going to be furniture in this service. Amazing. Really hone your skills and see that change happen over time, hopefully. Yes. Maybe some of the young people who stayed with us, specifically one who is staying with us, she really wants to become a social worker. She just turned 17 and I think when she comes back as a social worker, I'll be still there, still here. That's what we agreed. Perfect. Perfect. Are there any other?

projects or programs that you get to work on at the moment? No, but I have a short experience of working as a community development worker in Mongolian community. And yeah, I learned a lot as well. I also worked intensive English high school, which is one of the very multicultural community. I was lucky. The one in Surrey Hills. Yes, it's a beautiful place. So I might do something in multicultural community. Yeah. I did a couple of volunteering at Waysa Chapel. Then because of COVID, I wasn't able to do that, but I got my first shift starting from March, so I'm happy with that. That's exciting. It's a community service. It's a beautiful service. There's no condition, no criteria.

It's whoever comes, can have shower, can have a food, can have a chat, can change clothes, essential needs, and they have social workers and caseworkers there. they need, they talk with them. It's a cool service, very cool service. No age limit, but mostly I saw only adults. Yeah, it's an incredible service and the CEO is actually a social worker, the CEO and pastor. So I interviewed John for episode 27, so go check that out if you haven't already. But yeah, their tagline is love over hate. So it's really about providing that unconditional love and care and support to people who are experiencing homelessness similar to what you're working with, but just that isolation.

And it's even sadder that they had to stop that volunteer support during COVID. So I'm really glad to hear that's opening back up. Yeah. I think they opened quite early. It's just me I wasn't able to. Yeah, they're very cool people. One common thing, everywhere in social work field, even though sometimes I support a young person and go to others, there's always that beautiful human beings.

Yeah. Well, I'm slightly biased, but I think we're great. Yeah. Oh, my goodness, such amazing stuff. Before we started recording, you were saying, I'm really not sure that my work is interesting or that I've got much to say about it, but clearly you are so passionate about working with young people

and calling out injustices especially, and even just you were saying It's a privilege to be able to meet people in their space and being welcomed into their homes. And I think it takes a special kind of someone to be able to connect with someone like that and to be able to gain their trust, especially when they've had so many reasons not to trust you. And even being a mentor for other people, someone wanting to be a social worker, largely probably because of you. So, yeah, I think the other thing we tend to do in this profession is downplay the role that we have. and what we do and our skills and capacity.

And I think hopefully this conversation will highlight to people that, firstly, it's us as people who come into this profession in the first place who want to make a difference, but then the training that we have and the opportunities that we get through the work that we do to be that change and to support people in their context within a wider system becomes a little bit more obvious. And hopefully that's encouraging for other people. Is there anything else you wanted to say about the work that you do or about being a social worker?

I just want to tell that when we talk about trauma-informed approach, there's a beautiful organ we can use. It's our heart. So I just want to say, it doesn't matter, social worker or whoever just use your heart, practice your heart. Let's start using our heart. Yes. Thank you. It's such a wonderful opportunity to do. chat with you. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to do this. And I can't wait for

other people to hear your passion and the excitedness you have and just your drive to support people in the best way you can. I feel very embarrassed actually to give this. But I feel very, very, I feel very beautiful that I was able to talk. And I, you know, before I felt that I would feel stressed, anxious, but I actually connected really well with you. I think you facilitated this space safe, is very important for me, which is trust. And yeah, I actually enjoyed. I think I talked from my heart. So, yeah, that's me. And I'm very happy to be social worker and I'll be social worker until I die. Yeah, which will be a very long time from now. Thank you again so much. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue. this discussion or ask anything of either myself or uni, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlightpodcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Danny, who has worked in a variety of roles, including counselor, mentor, trainer, clinical supervisor, advocate, manager and leader. Danny has a particular interest in supporting women with ADHD and reducing the incidence

of missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis. She is the founder and CEO of The Divergent Edge, an organization working with adolescents and adults combining counseling and coaching strategies to support people to manage and celebrate their ADHD. 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.