Social Work Spotlight - Episode 62: Marie

Episode Date: July 22, 2022

In this episode I speak with Marie, an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker, Family Therapist, presenter, podcaster, and trainer. Her focus is on supporting adults to have better relationships with the teens and young adults in their lives. She is committed to improving mental health awareness, reducing stigma, and promoting prevention and early intervention in the field of mental health.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Wintringham housing organisation - https://www.wintringham.org.au/No Bullshit Therapy (La Trobe University) - https://www.latrobe.edu.au/research/centres/health/bouverie/practitioners/specialist-areas/nbtInside Social Work podcast - https://insidesocialwork.com/Youth Mental Health First Aid training course - https://mhfa.com.au/courses/public/types/youthedition4Tuning in to Teens program - https://thetherapyhub.com.au/tuning-into-teens/Notice That podcast - https://emdr-podcast.com/Caroline Burrows ( EMDR therapist and consultant) - https://www.carolineburrows.com.au/The Therapy Hub - https://thetherapyhub.com.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mkGcaHlVFC-310I0bJOL12l2D8wR8WC8meC2b1dSnw8/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 Marie, an accredited mental health social worker, family therapist, presenter, podcaster, and trainer. Her focus is on supporting adults to have a better relationship with the teens and young adults in their lives. Marie facilitates programs for parents and carers in a safe, supportive environment in which she teaches skills to help build emotional intelligence, and promote positive relationships between caregivers and young people. Through the delivery of innovative and engaging training workshops, clinical supervision groups and a successful podcast, Marie also equips mental health professionals to work confidently with young people.

She is committed to improving mental health awareness, reducing stigma and promoting prevention and early intervention in the field of mental health. Thanks Marie for coming. coming onto the podcast, really happy to have you here and have a chat about your social work journey. Yeah, it's super exciting to meet another social work podcaster. Bit niche, aren't we? Yeah, there's not many of us. Yeah. When did you start as a social worker and what drew you to the profession?

It's been over, well, over 10 years. I started off studying psychology and then I moved into social work and then added on family therapy to that. I don't know. I knew nothing about social work when I first started. I don't know if it was just we didn't have a careers cancer at school or I had no idea. I just picked subjects I liked in my final years of ECE and psychology was one of them. So I just studied that. And then, yeah, realized even after a psychology degree, that doesn't mean you become a psychologist. So went back to the drawing board and found the MSW program and just I loved the subject. So I really like that it had diversity around like adolescents, families, mental health.

Like it just seemed like the kind of content that would be really interesting. And so I just thought, why not, gave it a go. And I've been moving around ever since, not necessarily through leadership positions, but across the lifespan. So I started off in aged care, working with a service called Winteringham, which was housing for, it was housing for aged care, but with people who are homeless, so the threshold to access age care services

was much lower if you were homeless. Yeah. And then there was an overlap with people who had alcohol-related brain injuries and various alcohol and other drug histories. So some complex care management, as well as some mental health support, and then I started getting progressively younger,

and now I work a lot with young adults, adolescents, sometimes children and families as well. Did you find it difficult as a young social, worker to jump straight into working with an older population? I probably was really naive. I thought I had all the answers and that, of course, they're going to want my help. And no, I didn't. So it was really quite humbling and it really taught me a lot around the kind of rapport

you need to build trust and get that buy-in and to go at someone else's pace. So that was something that I found really, I had to learn it on the job to build those connections and yeah i remember doing a training i think the bouvery center runs it called no bullshit therapy and that was just and then that was one of the things that i had to use it's just sort of like i'm here you're here you kind of don't want to be here so how can we make the most about time so i really had to upskill and it was quite a quite a learning curve of i was sold this idea of that you're the professional and people you know you have care plans and all of this stuff and on the ground yeah people don't care

they want to know that you understand them and you get their story and you've made time to to build that connection. So it was hard, but I probably didn't realize it at the time. I was very naive. Maybe that was a blessing at the time. Probably. Yeah, it probably was. So going from psychology, was there something during your studies, other than knowing that you were then going to have to complete further study to

sort of get ahead and be at practicing clinical psychology? just was there something in that experience that impacted that pivot that sort of made you think I really enjoy psychology, but social work has a lot to offer? It was more the choice of subjects. I found to do an honours year. I ended up doing a research year on top of my MSW, but I found the subjects didn't just seem as interesting, quite a lot on statistics and research. And I was quite interested by development across the life space.

and mental health and working with families and it just offered more variety. I think I had a more systemic view on life, having travelled quite a lot. I was really interested in culture and languages and I probably could have easily just done something like anthropology. I just found it really interesting. So I think it was the broader systemic stuff that attracted me rather than a very individual focus, very kind of individual cognitive-based, assessment-based. And I've met psychologists who throughout their career then changed their focus and broaden their scope of practice,

just as some social workers narrow into mental health and different modalities. But I didn't know. I mean, this was going back like 15 years. There weren't Facebook groups of people discussing options. There weren't online careers councils. Like we really just had this big kind of printed out book to try and make sense of what courses were out there. And some of the applications you still had to go into the uni. or they had very minimal information online.

So there wasn't that information. I really didn't know what the options were. It was just kind of a guess, a best guess. And do you think that's changed much in terms of knowledge and understanding of social work for that younger, say, high school population? I think there is a saturation of information. So if you want to find some information, you probably can. But perhaps then it's too much choice.

And that might be overwhelming as well. So, yeah, I'm not sure. I think I work a lot with students who already started social work. So it's really, I'm not sure how people go making that decision and they're in high school. Or even how careers counselors, I think people still have limited understanding of different professions. So I still think people get pigeonholed based on particular skills. Like, oh, you're good at STEM. So you must be, you know, medicine or engineering or you're good at this.

why don't you do psychology and really not realizing that you could do speech therapy, occupational therapy, social work, community development, youth work. Like there's so many overlapping qualities in those degrees. And maybe they're just not as well known. Hopefully that's something we can change. Yes, that's part of the plan, I think. Yeah, telling people what we do and what kinds of careers they can have. That's it.

And you have done quite extensive further study. You've done a graduate diploma in youth and adolescent mental health. You've done the Masters of Family Therapy. You're an accredited mental health social worker. From your perspective, what does that additional training bring to your practice? I don't think I could do my job without that additional training. I think the degree itself is very basic and just the bare minimum. And so much of it depends on the training you do three.

through out your career. It doesn't have to be necessarily tertiary education, but I think it's crucial to upskill and learn things that are related to the industry that you're working in. So for me, I worked with, as I got further down in the lifespan, I started to work with adolescents, and I realized there was a bit of a gap in my knowledge. So the grad dip felt really fitting. And then I started working more and more with adolescents in a counseling capacity, and I realized there's something that I could offer if I worked with the families, but I didn't know how. And so I went back. I quite enjoy study, especially if it's practical.

Yeah. At the moment, I'm doing a supervision course. And whenever I look at the journal articles, I nearly fall asleep. Like it just feels so far removed from the practical component. But a lot of the other courses, like family therapy has an academic component, but also largely practical. And I find that's great. So the last two years, I've been focusing on workshops and therapeutic skill-specific things

rather than just book learning. But it's a passion of mine. I'm a learner and I really enjoy it and I highly value it. And I think I enjoy the diversity in my role being able to choose different areas to work in and bring different tools into the work I do. But you said you did an extra year of research as part of your social work training.

Yeah. What did you focus on? I wanted to look at supporting individuals with alcohol-related brain injuries to live successfully in some of these housing projects through organizations I worked with. But the ethics approval for that was quite difficult because a lot of people had guardians

or other people sort of signing off for their decisions. So I ended up interviewing the staff. So I was looking at how to support staff who work with sometimes difficult, what we then called challenging behaviours, to better support them. So things like aggression or irritability or maybe over-sexualised behaviour or quite childlike behaviour from adults.

So really supporting them because they essentially had brain injuries that was due to long-term alcohol and drug use. And so I focused on, yeah, interviewing staff and looking at what their support needs were. And then that informed a larger project across the organisation. Wow, such important work. And something that you can see is leading to something bigger. Yeah, it was really interesting. I sought out the project.

I had a guest speaker at once at uni and I just loved how he spoke and I tracked him down and got a job as a casual in the organisation and worked my way up and then wiggled into the research team as well. So I really just, if I want to kind of get to know someone, I kind of annoy them like a little fly until they become my friends or employ me or I can collaborate with them somehow because I really valued the work that they were doing and it really had got a good experience there. I'm sure a lot of people are glad that you didn't get swatted away. It's something that was really good to be able to implement. And then you've moved completely, not into a different type of social work,

but sort of from a different platform, different capacity. You've run your own business. You've started your own business and you've got a group of people that you're working with. How did that transform? It was something that happened over time. I worked a lot. the last few years counseling and then I realized I had quite a fondness for that one-on-one work as well and so I upskilled and I got my accreditation and then an opportunity

presented itself to move into private practice so I started the therapy hub which is based in Victoria in a suburb called Footscray and I also have the inside social work podcast so I tried to create a routine that just matched my values and what I'm interested in so I really like the education component that I had in different jobs. And so the podcast allowed me to connect with other social workers and other allied health professionals and network a little bit. Well, also I kept learning through really interesting conversations. And then the private practice allowed me to do individual work.

I see families. I see couples. And then I've developed a team. So we get to do things like group supervision and team building activities. And through that, I run various trainings as well. So I get to cultivate a sort of a work week that I enjoy, but also over the course of a year or, you know, however long I kind of forward plan,

I do individual counselling and then I do mental health first aid. So I run workshops in school. So I help teachers and parents support young people who are experiencing a worsening of their mental health or mental health crisis. And then I run parenting courses. One of them is called tuning into teens and the other I'm developing at the moment

so that I still get to do that systemic work across the lifespan. And then there's the business owner thing, which is incredibly different and stressful and involves a whole bunch of other things that we don't learn as social workers. Yeah, I can imagine. What is the hardest thing? What's been most challenging for you going through that process? I think the most challenging thing is also one of the benefits is I don't have to ask anyone for permission if I want to do something.

But it also means if something goes wrong or I get stuck, there's no one. to look to for guidance or to make that decision. So the final decisions rest with me clinically in terms of managing risk, but also in terms of business decisions. So it's, yeah, the same component is the stressful bit and it's also the best bit. To what degree have you been able to build on, let's say you might have been working in health or under a state-based system where they had their own risk management policies and processes in place. Have you been able to translate a lot of that over or do you feel like you're

having to start from scratch in private practice? Some of it could translate and then it's also matching that to overarching bodies. So Medicare might have different requirements to NDIS, which might have different requirements to victims of crime or something like that. So the clinical side is the bit that is transferable across the different industries. And then it's, it's, it's just matching that to a private practice model. So for us, Medicare really kind of, not necessarily dictates, but has its guidelines around session time. So, you know, a 50-minute session.

So it's trying to wrap up a session in that. And then there's limitations around case management because we don't get funded for that. So a lot of the skills were transferable in terms of the clinical component. And you can also outsource a lot of things. So I supervise my team and then I also have a senior clinician who now does the supervision and I just supervise her. And then I have an external supervisor. So a lot of those things, I can still cultivate the same structure, but it's just paid for. It's just services that I pay for.

So I'll have two supervisors for different modalities. And so any tricky clinical cases I go to them for, I have people who I debrief with and I have my own group supervision. So essentially I use the best bits of all of those workplaces and then I try and put them into what I can realistically do and what I can afford being a small business owner. So it's, yeah, there are some transferable components, absolutely. Yeah, but that's a great way to invest in your program and to safeguard you as a business owner. And I feel like that's probably got to be the best kind of overhead. It's just having that really good foundation where you've got the support people are

you, which if you're starting out on your own, you potentially wouldn't have that. Yeah, I think I'm quite passionate about advocating that it's a necessity. I think I've seen some small business owners try to cut costs. And I think at the end of the day, we still need to put the clients first. So if we burn out and we have to take big chunks of time off, the clients get impacted. If I don't manage the business well and it folds or goes under, you know, there's, 10 people out of a job and then all the clients that they see have to go somewhere else. If I don't manage my time well, I don't write timely reports. GPs might get upset. They might,

you know, might impact. So everything comes down to good client outcomes. And so I think that, yes, there's the business component, but also putting in those good practices is part of good self-care and part of having good boundaries to keep doing really good work. So when I see people seeing eight, nine, ten clients a day and they're trying to cut costs and they're saying, I don't have time for supervision. It makes me really nervous because I don't know how long you can sustain that. And I don't know if, you know, is the first client you're seeing for the day getting the same part of you, the same attention as the 10th client for the day? Are you having enough time to digest the information, to debrief, to plan your session, to reflect on notes?

So yeah, I think you're right, it is a necessary overhead. And it's just part of integrating that into the budget and also creating the time for it. So I don't want to just have supervision. You know, at 7pm on a Wednesday when I'm exhausted, I actually want to schedule it at a time of day when I'm really fresh because that's my time. That's where I get to learn and grow and reflect on cases or my work-life balance or my boundaries. I really value that. That makes sense. How would you, if you could expand the business, then you've already got a number of different allied health professionals working with you, so you've got a diversity of skill sets, but where would you take it from here?

I'm trying to, at the moment, develop some online options. So through the inside social work brand in the process of creating, and hopefully by the time this is released, we'll have launched more skills for therapists. and other allied health professionals. So trying to not cut out the middleman, but get things that are very practical into the ears of people as they need it. So I'm working on a series of webinars that can really capture some of the work that I'm doing right now.

So that's one component, is increasing the educational arm of the business. And then, again, also in the educational arm of the therapy hub is some more parenting workshops and also maybe skill-based as well. So I see a lot of similar concerns in some clients. So it'd be really great to build some workshops or even just small sort of webinars

where people can digest the information that might kind of add value and be in conjunction with therapy. So that's sort of what I'm wanting to diversify into so that we can all, whether it's interviews with other practitioners or whether it's just solo content, but actually trying to give people digestible information based on our vibe and our culture and familiar faces. So that's sort of what I'm working on.

So looking at things like managing anxiety, maybe emotional intelligence, emotional coaching for parents, some act-based, valued exercises. So really digitising some of that, which I tend to say over and over and over again individually in sessions and it'd be really great if more people could access that who choose to do a bit of homework in between appointments or just want to consume a little bit of extra content. Okay. You've talked about some of the challenging parts of it, but what would you say is the thing you love most about the work you're doing at the moment?

It's the outcomes I had, for example, a couple of parents. I'm running a parenting group at the moment and I'm halfway through it. It's a six-week course and some of them. started to implement things and they noticed a change. And one person was saying that their children said, oh, you seem a lot calmer. Or one person was really struggling to connect with their daughter. And they kept having these sort of cold exchanges of just avoidance and awkwardness.

And there was one time where she handled it differently. And she's like, we ended up going for a walk and we chatted. So actually being able to see those relational dynamics change, I absolutely love. and being able to discharge people jointly and they feel confident and ready to live life without me. It's great. So I'd love my job not to need to exist, especially the client work. But it does.

And so it's one of the joys is actually seeing people either work through the challenges that brought them to therapy or if it's a couple or family working through the relational dynamic issues that they're having. some individuals, it's that recovering from poor mental health or finding the strategies to keep going and not impact their functioning as much. So that's definitely the best bit is the actual client work. Yeah. As you said, we're client focused. Yes. That's what we're here for. So if we can see those outcomes, that's best possible day. You mentioned discharging clients and that made me think of, yeah, having to be really strict with your own boundaries of this is a business and we need to run it as a therapeutic business, but also we need to be able to allow for more people to come through

and for more people to be supported. And then I was thinking, I think I would really struggle with an aspect of running a business, which is a billable service, like charging people and knowing how much and how to set that. And was that really challenging for you, just kind of putting a a worth to your role or putting a value on it? It was and it wasn't because if I take a moment and think about the value that we add and what people gain, I don't think you couldn't price tag on that. What's been challenging is when there are other services that are low cost or free, especially around, you know, election time or sort of big crisis like the lockdowns where there's a lot of government conversation about services. That's when it becomes a bit of a

public debate. But I think, you know, I really encourage people to think, well, what's your health worth? And if we think of mental health just as important as physical health, for those who can prioritize putting money aside for it, it gives them back, you know, good relationships. It helps them sleep better at night. It helps them go to school, improve relationships with friends, with family. It could improve the dynamic for a couple. I don't know if you could put a dollar on that. So I think social workers maybe have a bit of work to do around their money mindset, and it can be quite difficult. But I don't find, you know, my accountant has any trouble charging me

or my lawyer has any trouble charging me. My bookkeeper has no problem charging me. My dentist, you know, like there are services that, yes, there are free versions of those or low-cost versions. There's some DIY staff. And there are some people whose skills and experience add so much value to your life that you pay for it and that's okay. And what clients don't realize when they see some of the cost per hour sessions is that covers all of our overheads. It covers our administration team. It covers

my training, my professional development, my supervision. I don't get sick leave or holiday leave. If there's a no show or a gap in the diary, I don't get paid for that. When I do training, I pay for the training and I lose billable hours. So it has to be financially viable. otherwise I'll burn out. And so then I can't serve anybody. So if I keep coming back to that point of view of I've got another 20, 30 years left in me, I mean, for the long haul, these strategies need to be in place so that I can keep serving and not have such a big burnout or have the business failed that then I decide to go and do something else and lose all of this knowledge and industry experience. Yeah. Did you have a mentor as you,

you were setting up the private practice, like someone who you could run some of those issues by? Yeah, I had a few. I had a number of both paid and friendship groups. So there was quite a few different private practice, Facebook groups. I had two business coaches. I paid for a lot of training. I did small networking events. I did everything because I knew I didn't know it all.

And as soon as I could outsource, I outsourced. and I wanted to not fast-track my progress, but where there was mistakes that I could avoid making, I wanted to do my best to avoid those, so setting up all the infrastructure, making sure I had all the correct understanding of, you know, Medicare particular is a big one for us and NDIS. And then also lots of podcasts,

so just really informing myself and building collaborative relationships. So nothing's for free. I think so long as you do get what you paid for and some people need to, if they're going to be a business owner, really invest in that because it's like if you're a chef and you might love cooking. But if you open up a restaurant, you then have to manage the restaurant. You know, you've got a landlord to negotiate with and a coffee machine and repairs and no h. Like it becomes a completely different job. You're no longer just a cook or a chef.

And so I think that's something really important. People need to consider that they become small business owners. and then their product is therapy. Yeah. Given the information that you've gathered over the years now, having run the business and your experience, what do you wish you knew or what would you tell yourself when you were starting out?

Like you were saying as well earlier, and the boundaries are just calming things down, I would probably tell myself something similar of I don't have to compare myself to somebody's business that's five or ten years in. I'm starting out, I can build it up, I can refine things. And as long as I'm compliant, I can enhance processes and systems along the way. So once I realized that, I did take a deep breath.

And also, I mean, I think I did pretty well purchasing pre-made templates and that kind of thing. But I might have maybe done a little bit more of that instead of trying to do everything cheap and for free. It's actually putting a value on my time and thinking, where is my time best? spend and do I need to spend, you know, however many hours doing a consent form or can I just purchase a consent from from a private practice coach and save myself the time and money and just then go to the next thing. So a few of the things I tried to do cheap or DIY ended up costing me time and then I had to fix them up anyway. So I might have probably skipped a few of those steps and just done it properly to begin with. Yeah, yeah. And hindsight's a fantastic thing.

even if you were told that. You probably might have tried it anyway. Have you seen a lot of changes in social work, in private practice, over time? I know it's only early days still, but I'm just thinking in terms of social workers reaching out more into the private practice area and maybe there could be changes to how we approach things or funding opportunities that could help us then provide more services to clients or even just accessible. of social work as a private practice? Yeah, there's quite a few things in that question. I think

one of the things those of us who are quite passionate about being accredited mental health social workers is also to lift the professional reputation. So not to differentiate as in one's more superior than the other, but really start to make it clear to medical professionals and other industries that an accredited mental health social worker has a very unique and specific skill set. and then a clinical social worker. Like really trying to realize that, yes, we all have a very similar base degree and very similar values and philosophies, and then there are expertise within that.

So really trying to lift the reputation of the profession. We've been fighting for pay parity with psychologists for a long time. We're not, we don't get paid the same as them with any of the funding bodies, with private health insurance, with EAP, with NDIS, with Medicare, there's a huge discrepancy. And then also one of my big pain points is seeing all the conversation around mental health in the media and then saying psychologists are inundated. It's like they're not the only ones that can provide psychological support. Mental health professionals are inundated.

Yeah. So really trying to change the language and think, well, there are qualified counters. There are occupational therapists who specialize in mental health. They're mental health nurses. There are family therapists, mental health social workers. We have a range of professionals who are highly skilled and highly trained. and can add a lot of value and psychology has monopolized the terminology. So that's something that I think is hopefully going to change. But it does take a lot of work. And we don't have a strong licensing

system here like in the US. So I think there's room to grow and we'll see, hopefully we'll see some positive changes over time. Yeah. If you weren't doing what you're doing, you said you've got plenty more years in you, what would you be doing? I know that you spent some time as a liaison tutor at uni, also some time working with schools. Is that something that might be of interest later on in your career? I think I might flip completely and do something outdoors, like be a park ranger. I think it would get to the point where I would want to kind of, if I left the field, it would be to do something with nature. Yeah. I do think I'll go back to working with educational Institutes over time. Once the practice is running smoothly and all the systems are in place,

I'd really love to get into field education again, but maybe one day or week. So I think I really like the idea of a bit more of a portfolio role where I have different things that may be either small contracts or seasonal work that can scratch a particular itch or something that I'm really curious about. And I think that's always going to be part of what I do. I haven't had many years of my working career where I've solely worked at one job, I've tended to always have two jobs or like a point eight position and a casual job or sort of overlapping things. I really enjoyed the variety. And so the idea of any one full-time job would really stress me out. Yeah. So in the capacity at the moment, you said you're working on a lot of projects and

programs. Can you tell me about some of those and what the specific demographic is and what your role is in providing those programs or whatever research or other supports have come out of it? Yeah, so there's two components. One is the work that I do to support other mental health practitioners. So that's one area that I'm working on developing. And that's around teaching other early career social workers or other mental health professionals, some of the skills. that they can use in their work. So there's that component, which, yeah, like I mentioned earlier, is things like building rapport, running groups,

dealing with rupture and repairs. So there's that component, as well as I offer group supervision with a focus on people who work with young people. So I get a lot of school counselors and mental health practitioners who work in schools, who are often either one of a few or the only allied health person in their school, also having that connection to a small group, I think, is really valuable because it offers something more than just individual supervision because you get to hear from other people

also doing similar work. So I have that component. And then the other is my kind of focus is on teenagers, on adolescents. So the youth mental health first aid mostly is marketed to teachers, but also I do get parents, youth workers, lifeguards, scout leaders. I get a lot of people come who work with young people. And this really is a course that is very introductory mental health, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, psychosis, substance use, what to look out for, when to recognize that someone might need help and how to respond to crises like suicidal thoughts or non-suicidal self-injury.

So it's very similar to like a physical first aid course where you sort of, you know, gives you a bit of a structure of what to look out for to do your CPR or, you know, if someone twist their ankle, you've got to rice, you know, rest, ice, compress, elevate, like little things like that. So it doesn't train people to be counsellors. It's not to treat. It's to have conversations around mental health to get that person to the next level of support. That's still sort of that systemic thing of those who work with young.

people and then I run one of the courses is tuning into teens which supports parents of teenagers so really helping them teach their children emotional intelligence and so by emotion coaching they have hopefully fewer conflicts better connection and then we've got a lot of data to support the program and the evidence for high emotional intelligence leading to better mental health lower risk-taking, big measure of success. So that's a program that was created at Melbourne University, so I'm just a facilitator for that. And the youth mental health first aid is also a program that started off in Melbourne, and that's through Mental Health First Aid Australia. So that's content that someone else created and has been tested and validated and evidence-based.

And then I'm also working on creating my own personalised program. So combining one of the modalities I work with, which is called acceptance and commitment therapy, with some family therapy theory. So trying to combine that in a format that is more digestible for people. So one of the barriers is time. Tuning into teens, for example, is two and a half hours for six weeks in a row. Sometimes it can be run over eight weeks and that can be a big commitment for people. So I'm trying to find ways to give people digestible, condensed content. that's sort of the same stuff I would maybe talk to a family about if they're in the room with me so they can access on their device or just listen to the audio.

So I'm kind of working on that. At the moment I'm doing my research into the different issues and concerns parents have, and then I'll run a bit of a beta group and hopefully it'll be up and running shortly. You said there were a lot of overlapping roles, but that sounds like well over a full-time caseload for me. How do you fit it all in? What support do you require? I try and have Wednesdays off.

So that's one of the things I do because I found that, especially in private practice, a lot of networking events and supervision is after hours because people are usually seeing clients. So I have between my own team meeting, a peer supervision group, a special interest group, and I also coordinate the local mental health professionals network, which is quarterly events.

They're all in the evening. And so I thought, I end up doing 40 plus hours in those four days. So I thought, I might as well embrace that and then just have the Wednesdays off. So at the moment, I'm in a position where I'm really excited and energized by my work. So I didn't want to just finish on a Friday and have a long weekend. I wanted to maximize my energy and productivity. So for me, having Wednesdays off was a way to debrief, to defuzz and then get back into it. so I'm feeling really energized.

And then I, that's on the Wednesdays is when I do something as my own personal supervision, you know, life admin, the dentist, a haircut. I'll have my own therapy. I'll catch up with friends. So I really try and keep that quite protected. And then I have Fridays where I don't see clients. So Fridays is when I'll book in things like the podcast interview. I might create content.

I'll do the business stuff, bookkeeping, admin. And so I try and kind of cluster my time so that I know things will get done because when I first started, I was seeing seven clients a day thinking, yeah, that's a full day with a half hour break. And then I'd come home and think I've got like seven GP letters to write and then I've got to answer all these phone calls. And so I realized I can't see the clients, like those billable hours as the only way to structure my day.

So sometimes now I'll see between four and six clients. I still do a full day. but in between is admin. Sometimes it's even an hour of watching a pre-recorded of a training program that I've paid for or reading a journal article. So I'm trying to do more of that in my working day and then I batch my business administration kind of stuff

into sort of a Friday. And that seems to be working now, but I change my diary every three or four months. And now I'm thinking, what do I want to do for winter? because it's getting dark at night. So do I want to come home and then do my last appointment via telehealth? Like I can have a bit more flexibility.

And I'm just honest with my clients about that, that sometimes there are changes because I'm human and I get tired and burnt out and stressed and I don't want to impact them. So, yeah, that's sort of my week. And that's just good modelling, right, to try to show people that, you know, we're all human and you don't have to be able to do everything.

Yeah, and I'm really firm with my boundaries. I wasn't in the first six months of lockdown. I thought, I'm home anyway. So if someone wants to reschedule to this time or this time and what difference does it make me and it didn't work. And so now when someone's like, oh, can you do a Wednesday? I'm like, I don't work Wednesdays. And I think maybe in this whole year so far,

I've only allowed for one or two appointments and that's because I've maybe gone away the week before and that was a pre-arranged thing. It was like, look, I don't normally work Wednesdays, but I'm catching up on a backlog. So I'm pretty strict with that because I need to keep myself recharged or I can't do this job. I can't support my team. I can't support clients.

And I never want to resent my job. I never want to get to the point where if there's a no-show, I'm like, or how dare they? Don't they know my time's about it? I don't want to be grumpy at work. I want to be there present and intentional. And so in order to do that, I need to have these really strict boundaries. Yeah. You mentioned one of the modalities that you work with, which is act, and I'm sure there's a lot of mindfulness in there. What are some other theories or approaches, things that you work with in everyday

practice? Yes, I do a bit of act. I'm also EMDR trained as well. So I work a lot with trauma and people who've had life experiences that have impacted the mental health schemer therapy as well. And And for couples, I do a little bit of emotion-focused therapy and the Gottman method. And so it's a bit of a mixture because there's quite a lot of overlap. So within something like schema and EMDR fit really beautifully together. And a lot of the mindfulness and relaxation components of Act really helps resourcing clients when we're doing through EMDR therapy. So they're kind of layer up.

And then CBT, psychoeducation, I've done motivational interviewing. So every year I kind of add to that. So now I've kind of got those few and then I just keep doing like advanced training in all of those. Yeah. If people were interested in knowing more about that and how that could work within your setting, do you have any resources or any good reading for them? I think it's having a bit of a look at what feels good with you because some of those modalities have really good efficacy and they're shown to be just as effective as another.

So it's actually finding ones that feel comfortable for you and just continuing to build. So I think any time you try something new, it feels really scary and daunting, and that's totally normal. But yeah, there are so many podcasts. If you find training that you like online, so long as you can look up those particular instructors and see if they have presentations that they've done on YouTube or if they've been interviewed on a podcast. So you can get kind of tasters for people and see if you like their vibe. Yeah.

and that can be a really good place to start. So I know EMDR has a really good, there's a really good podcast called Notice That. It's probably, if you know nothing about EMDA, it might not be the most helpful. I've interviewed Caroline Burroughs, who's an EMDR consultant and trainer in Australia a couple of times on my podcast.

So Inside Social Work is more targeted to graduates in early career social workers. So that's a really good place to kind of learn what is at 101. It doesn't teach you how to do it, but it just kind of explains to you what it is. I've interviewed Dr. Rosemary Higgins, who talks about motivational interviewing. I've interviewed someone on mindfulness, Dr. Hazard. So there's quite a few kind of entry-level things where you can get a taster and think, do I like this?

Does it fit with my values before you commit to a larger workshop or training? Yeah. And if anyone wanted to know more about the training programs that you run, where would they go? Yeah, so probably it's best to connect or follow. me on Instagram at Mariva Carcas or Facebook if you're on Facebook. And then the website's called thetherapyhub.com.com. So they're probably the main places that I'll distribute information. And they can listen to the podcast wherever they get podcasts from.

Absolutely. Is there anything before we finish up that we haven't mentioned that you're keen to talk about, whether it's about your social work experience or about the work that you're doing specifically? Probably not for me, but for those listening who I imagine are also social workers is, you know, remember to practice some self-compassion that, you know, we can hear all these stuff and some people might get excited by what I've talked about and some might feel overwhelmed. They're like, oh my goodness, I haven't done any of this. And that's okay.

You can chip away at it slowly. So if you don't have any supervision, you can start with a peer group. You can look at a special interest group. you can ask a uni friend or a work colleague to meet up and talk cases. Like there are ways to slowly integrate these things into your routine. So it can feel overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be, you know, it's not out of judgment or criticism. It's an opportunity to think, okay, so maybe there is room to add a few extra things

and what might that look like. So treat yourself with the same kindness you'd probably treat a client because I think we're really good at being compassionate, and showing empathy for clients and maybe a little hush on ourselves. So I think it's really important to realize we're human too, and we need to do some of those same things, and we need to have some boundaries and be assertive, and that might be uncomfortable,

and that might be where we need to do some of our own work, whether it's by reading things or going to therapy, however your own work, whatever that looks like. I think that's really important. otherwise you'll burn out. It's one of the best jobs in the world, and it's also really exhausting. Yeah, such wise words, but I've loved hearing about your approaches to maximizing client buy-in and going at someone's pace.

I think that's so important to keep the client at the center of everything you do. And when you were talking about your networks, so develop your networks, be that little fly and just get in there wherever you can. But don't be afraid to seek out. overlapping roles and finding variety in your work to make it sustainable. That's really what I'm hearing is just look at what you're interested in. Don't be worried about what you're not interested in. But also, you know, when you feel like you've got your niche and you've got that area

that you're really passionate about, continuing to diversify within that area and continuing to educate yourself and upskill will obviously be able to give you a sense of satisfaction and a sense that you're you're continually doing something new and making it even better each time. Absolutely. And also with the networking is not to be too frugal with that. So occasionally I do get people saying, oh, I came across your website. Can you teach me how you did it? It's like, no, that's so rude. Or they'll. It took me so long. Yeah. Or they'll add me to LinkedIn and be like, oh, so great to connect. So I offer this service if you're interested in sending some of your clients too. I'm like, I don't know who you are. So that really cold marketing or cold

inquiries is, that's not going to be okay. You've got to be genuine. You do. And also, you've got to realize that time is commodity. And so if someone's going to give you their time, you might have to pay for that or make it valuable. Because if I said yes to all of those things, and I'm very generous with my time, I have former students who reach out to me, I have a lot of staff that I support. I've got friends that I network with, but I can't do it to everybody. And so I need to be strict with those boundaries.

But also I can say that some people maybe don't know how to go about it. So yes, I'm saying network and build your way up, but also do it by being generous. And so how can I bring value to you? Don't just send, you know, 30 emails and not even customize them. Or, you know, when people send job applications, some people don't even have the right names in there. It's like you've clearly just, I know you're desperate or you're really keen,

but you've got to take the time to build those connections. Yeah. And then be genuine. Thank you so much, Marie, for coming on to the podcast, having a chat with me and sharing a bit of your story. I know it always feels a bit awkward when you're used to being on the other side at the microphone, but it's been wonderful having a chat with you. So lovely to finally meet with you.

And I really, yeah, hope other people are interested in connecting and getting to know more about you and your podcast and the work that you do. Awesome. Thanks so much, Yasmin. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Marie, 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 Emily, an early career social worker who, after getting a job at the factory youth center, following her first social placement, completing her second placement at a private hospital in Lismore, and a stint as a merit clinician, Emily is currently working as a caseworker at Phoenix House Youth Services in Crowsnest. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notice.

when this next episode is available. See you next time.