Social Work Spotlight - Episode 66: Claire

Episode Date: September 16, 2022

In this episode I speak with Claire, who in addition to completing her social work studies also has a degree in Indigenous Studies. Claire started her work in child protection with Indigenous families and then progressed to community and inpatient mental health. Claire has had personal and professional experiences working closely with mental health and now works with people experiencing acute illness.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Link2home (homelessness information and referral telephone service) - https://www.facs.nsw.gov.au/housing/help/ways/are-you-homelessCommunity Packages (ComPacks) - https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/ohc/Pages/compacks-patient-brochure.aspxThe Way Back Support Service - https://www.neaminational.org.au/find-services/the-way-back-support-service-sydney/Paws and Recover - https://www.pawsandrecover.com/RSPCA Australia - https://www.rspca.org.au/Mentally Yours podcast - https://audioboom.com/channel/mentallyyoursDecolonise podcast - https://decolonise.com.au/pages/podcastTranby National Indigenous Adult Education and Training - https://tranby.edu.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jhrFrBLfyFfKh9NeKEit1nfw0mHtFjr9knT_3kRt1do/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 Claire, who in addition to completing her social work studies, also has a degree in Indigenous studies. Claire started her work in child protection with Indigenous families and then progressed to community and inpatient mental health. Claire has had personal and professional experiences working closely with mental health and now works with people experiencing acute illness. Thank you so much Claire for coming on to the podcast. Lovely to meet with you and I'm really excited to have a chat with you about your work so far. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Can I ask firstly when you started as a social worker and what drew you to the profession? Yeah, so I started, I did two degrees and my second degree was social work. So I started in a social work role two and a half-ish years ago now. And my My first area was in Indigenous Studies.

So then with the second one and COVID hit and everything, it kind of put a delay on everything. But I was lucky enough to start in a social work role and do my prac, my second prack at the same time. So yeah, officially two and a half years ago. Yeah. Amazing. And how was it going through the Indigenous Studies?

Was there sort of transferable knowledge between the two courses? Yeah, definitely. I think there's a huge, huge crossover. So I sort of started with Indigenous studies thinking that was the area I wanted to go in within social work. And so much of it is social justice related, which is like a core part of social work and equity. And I think just having knowledge of the experience of First Nations people in Australia is so relevant to social work, no matter where you work, what area you work in. So yeah, there was definitely a lot of crossover, but it was really interesting and important

to have that background before I went into social work. I really appreciated having that in-depth kind of knowledge and training because even though we did cover some First Nations voices and perspectives in social work, I feel personally it's not enough. So yeah, I'm glad I got to have both. And just because I'm not too familiar with the course content, do you get a practical component as part of the Indigenous Studies Bachelor? You don't. You can choose to do like a practical unit of study or subject, but no, it's not like a requirement like it is in social work.

So as part of Indigenous Studies, I did actually get to go and live and work in the Tiwi Islands. Wow. Yeah, which was an amazing experience and definitely very social worky just because over in the Tiwi, their services and way of living, is very, in my opinion, not up to scratch. Yeah, it was a massive experience, definitely. And from what I understand, you were involved in community development,

was it like one project or what sort of things were you working on? We started with working with council to make more culturally inclusive services available to the Tui people living on the island. But we sort of went into a range of different things within that. we got to go to the high school there and we got to work with young moms and new babies and all different types of things also after death processes and services as well in the way that the people there hold burials and that kind of thing so it was really interesting to get all those different perspectives because it wasn't something that experienced in the city yeah so it was it was

really interesting but it definitely you felt sort of the impact of the Northern Territory intervention there. There's no healthcare services on the island. There's no Centrelink. There's no bank. There's one grocery store and a bottle of small shampoo is like $20. So it was very eye-opening in that way as well. And even just as a student, that would have been a little bit challenging for you. It was very confronting. I think I realized how much I took for granted and the things that I had readily available to me that I assumed most people had access to, and that just wasn't true at all. Also, the education system there is so different. It almost felt like I was sort of angered that people don't realize how little people in the Tiwi Islands,

which is only like an hour from Darwin. How is this huge group of people so marginalized compared to of where I'm from in the city and most of the places I've experienced. It might not be as resourced as here in Sydney, but they have something, whereas there it just seemed really dire in a lot of areas there. So in education, I think within education, the majority of the population there is young. I don't know exactly, but quite a lot of kids and young people there. but there was only, I think, 40% school attendance, and that's nothing to attribute to the people there,

but rather the fact that maybe we've got fly-in, fly-out teachers who don't understand the culture, who don't teach in bilingual language, and there's just, like, how do you teach kids that don't have food, don't have somewhere safe and warm to go home to, because there's no money in housing either. Like there was just so many issues that it was overwhelming at times. So then when you came back home,

did you have an opportunity to continue that sort of work with your local populations? I did. I worked at Tranby, which is a small organisation in Glebe in Sydney who provide education specifically to First Nations people from all across Australia. And it's a fly-in, fly-out,

They have courses that run for blocks and then the rest is distance study. So the idea is that people can get a diploma without constantly being on campus away from their family and their friends and their support. And so I started off in that in student support and student services and then I went into child protection, which was also with a small organisation that works specifically with First Nations families. I did that for a year-ish while I was still finishing off social work. And that was also another experience, definitely. I think I realised that even though it might appear as though there's more support here in Sydney and in urban areas for First Nations people, that it is almost as bad as it is

the Tiwi Islands. It's just not blatantly obvious. So yeah, that was definitely an interesting experience and learning, I think, for myself. I think it definitely opened my eyes up to what the reality of how Indigenous people are existing in a very primarily white world and white system. Yeah, wow. Yeah. And given that you had had all of that experience working with First Nations, people, did you then have to choose something different for your social work placements or were they happy for you to continue along that line? Within the university that I was at, they actually chose the placements for us, which I was really lucky that I got two really awesome placements. They weren't specifically with indigenous people or with an indigenous organization, but

definitely worked with First Nations clients, but yeah, wasn't specific to. indigenous families. Okay. Yeah, I'm just curious as to what those placements were and I guess how that helped develop then what you wanted to go into once you'd finished your degree. Yeah, so my first one was community mental health. It was like casework going out to northern parts of Sydney all the way up to sort of the central coast.

And it was very like psychosocial support with people who had chronic mental health illnesses and chronic mental health diagnosis and it was sort of, I'd say, primarily focused around casual informal counseling and probably also encouraging socialisation was like the foundation of our practice was getting people connected to informal and formal supports because I guess one of the biggest learnings I got from that is that once people become isolated, that seems to be the point in which things tend to go downhill for them. So yeah, that was my first crack. And I actually got a job from that and went in to do some paid work as well in that organization.

And then my second prack was in a mental health inpatient unit. And I did that. And then I went to a different hospital and got my job that I'm in now, which is in acute mental health in the hospital. It just sounds as though you had so many opportunities thrown at you at once and you had to kind of juggle, okay, which of these is actually feasible and also which is going to help me along this journey that I want to carve out for myself. Yeah, definitely.

I was really, really lucky and privileged in that I was able to have choice and so many different opportunities that came my way. And I was lucky to have the freedom to sort of choose. the area that I was interested in the most and most passionate about. So yeah, that's sort of quick kind of overview of how I got to where I am now. Yeah, yeah. And what is your current role? What does a typical day look like? I guess so it's inpatient mental health still. What sort of concerns do people come to you with? Yeah, so we get patients admitted under the Mental Health Act primarily. And so we do see people when they're at their very worst and struggling.

the most with whatever is happening in their life. So a lot of the time people may become non-compliant with their medication and I think there's a sort of feeling that people just choose to come off their medication but we don't know the severe and sort of profound side effects that a lot of these high dose of medication have on people that also affect their well-being in their life. It's sometimes that people are kind of choosing the better of two worsts. You know, they go on their medication to maybe manage their psychosis, but then that medication also has quite severe side effects as well, just maybe not as detrimental as having an active psychosis. So yeah, we tend to see people at their very lowest, at a low point in their life. We have quite a range

of people come in of all different ages from about 17 up to think the oldest person I've worked with was maybe in the 80s and it can be anything from a suicide attempt to OCD to schizophrenia. So it covers pretty much every mental health condition when someone's very much struggling and either a harm to other people or themselves or just not manage. with things, that's when they'll come in and stay sometimes for a week and sometimes it can be three months. It generally depends on the person and their own recovery and what they need from us. That's a really good amount of time for you to work with them, actually. Yeah, it is. We do have a peck unit as well that we sometimes we work with, but that's sort of a short stay, one day to five

days usually and that's a little bit more crisis, really time sensitive work and that can be really hard because we're working within a broken system essentially. On the outside, out of hospital, like we're in our little bubble where we can say you need housing, you need some support with your finances and they agree or they say to us, I need some help with more debts and you go, yeah, great, we can say we can do this, this and this, but then outside of the hospital, how Housing is ridiculously full. Crisis housing, temporary housing, and Department of Housing wait lists are so difficult to try and engage with because Department of Housing wait lists are years and years and years.

Even on a priority list, you're looking at four to six years. Crisis housing at the moment in refuges are the worst. I think I've seen them in the year and a half I've been working within the mental health unit space. as a social worker, I've never seen them this bad. So it's really, oh, it's frustrating when you can see that there's these opportunities that people would really benefit from that are not in its outside of my control, patients control to access them. That is really hot.

Yeah. Okay, so just for me to get in my head, Peck from memory psychiatric emergency crisis center, which would normally sit within an emergency department. Once someone is perhaps more medically stable, they've had their initial assessments, would come to you, then they might actually go to a different ward if there's another issue or they might go to a different hospital,

if there's a specialty that's needed. Bouncing from one department within a hospital or within many hospitals, how does that affect someone who's going through this crisis? Yeah, I think when I was at, the hospital prior to the one that I'm at now, it was very much like that. But I'm actually quite impressed at the hospital I'm at now. Our PEC unit is very well set up. We don't tend to have people from the medical wards or other wards come to PEC. It's specifically for people who come to ED having a situational crisis or some kind of crisis in their life and they go to PEC for some kind of respite

is sort of what it's being designed for. And I think it's been really, really effective, actually, because then what you were getting at is that then you're navigating all these systems, if you're going from hospital to unit, different wards, different units, you know, it's very, it's a lot. And having to repeat your story to different professionals is re-traumatizing.

So I think we've tried to avoid that and get people into PEC for some respite, see where social work or the medical doctors can assist by coming to them and then come up with a solid discharge plan. No, that sounds really well coordinated. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's such a different type of health work because you'd be dealing with people who are considered involuntary, right? They've had an involuntary admission under the Mental Health Act. Someone has decided based on the criteria that they're either a mentally ill or a mentally disordered person, and that same person likely is responsible for determining

when they are no longer mentally ill or mentally disordered, and therefore they can leave of their own volition. How do you find that as a social worker when you're going into a scenario where someone probably doesn't want to see you? That must be really challenging. I think we, in the setting that I'm in, there's definitely, people definitely don't want to be there the majority of the time when they first come in. They're usually very acutely unwell and sometimes we have to just wait until the medication

has an effect so that they are able to engage with us on some level. Because when people are really, really unwell and you go and try and talk to them about the fact that they're homeless and we want to get them a new place to live when they get out of hospital, that's too much. It does depend on the person, but I'd say we usually have to wait a couple of days to maybe a week, depending on what is going on for the person before we go and have a proper chat. I find that sometimes people don't want to see you, but often because you're with social work and not a doctor, they do want to see you. Because I guess the first thing I kind of say is that I'll work with you around everything that's not medical. And I'll work with you around

everything that will get you out of hospital and somewhere safe and secure when you do get out of here. And I understand it's not an ideal place to be. But while you're here, we want to come and support you with what your goals are and what you need. I want to try and give you back some of that control and power. I think it's really important to come at it from that, you know, strength-based kind of perspective when you're having an initial conversation and building rapport. whilst also acknowledging that it is traumatic to be scheduled and held against your will essentially and that the person might have experienced some trauma, we often get people who have come in, who have been sexually assaulted or survivors or domestic violence.

And so it's important to also acknowledge the huge things that someone's survived to get to this point and give them some of that acknowledgement and that power back. Do you have much of a repeat client in terms of repeat admissions? Would there be much of an opportunity to follow up someone once they've left your unit? How do you make sure that that continuation of care is there? Yeah, so we don't tend to get repeat clients too often. There's a big focus on longevity as well so that we don't push people out too quickly. We try and come up with the support.

I mean, there's definitely timeframes and we don't hold people there if they're mentally well enough to be out in the community. But we do put a big focus on having compacts or Mission Australia has-e supports our community mental health team linking them in with them as well. They're a huge part of our system. So I think there's a big focus on not just treatment in the hospital, but actually support once someone leaves as well. is like essential and a huge part of the role as a social worker in a mental health unit, definitely. Yeah. I know that unfortunately there's a huge over-representation of First Nations populations in psychiatric units. How do you and your team navigate providing that culturally sensitive and appropriate support? Yeah. Well, we work with Indigenous organisations in the community.

I've really tried to form connections with Indigenous organisations that can support a First Nations client once they leave hospital. We also have Aboriginal liaison officers that we always involve once someone identifies as Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander, we have the liaison officer service offered to them as well and seeing whether or not the client has linked in with culturally appropriate services in the community before and whether or not they've found those connections and supports helpful or not and trying to maybe link them back in with those services

once they leave hospital. That's always sort of the first steps once someone comes in and they identify as being Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander. Do you have many people that come into the unit that are under different sort of legal constraints or guidelines? I'm just thinking maybe someone who has a guardianship order, then you've put the Mental Health Act on top of that and it's just incredibly complicated. It is. And we definitely do have a fair amount of people who are under gun in ship or trustee orders. And so I guess we try and maintain that same way of practice by being very strengths based and trying to give the client options and control in some aspect of their life. So we try and put a definite emphasis on that in our practice when someone is under

guardianship. And I haven't had too many tricky experiences in that the person often has got a private guardian who's a family member and they're very willing to work with us and respectful of our sort of position and experience of social workers and our knowledge base as well. So I haven't had any bad experiences necessarily but it is it definitely adds another layer for the patient and a lot of the time they will say oh it doesn't matter what I have to say I'm under guardianship I'm under the mental health act anyway that breaks my heart yeah it is and it's hard because what do you say because they are under the mental health act or they are under guardianship so they have lost some control in one way or another but it's about thinking out

outside of the box and looking for ways to give back that control and power and autonomy and freedom to choose. One thing that I found, which sounds really minor, is we get a whole lot of donations for clothes, brand new clothes and a whole bunch of them. And when someone comes in and a lot of the time they might have been brought in by police or ambulance and they don't have their stuff in hospital and they're wearing this hospital gown and it doesn't feel like home and they're in a bed that's not theirs and so one thing I found has been actually quite profound which I didn't really think would make that much of a difference is asking someone what colour jumper they'd like or whether they prefer a skirt or shorts or socks or you know trying to find ways to give someone

back choice in anything is a huge, huge part of it. That's really beautiful. And even, I mean, one of the main tenants of guardianship is, yes, it's substitute decision making, but it's also very much supported decision making. So how do we enable someone to feel as though they do have that choice and control, even for something, as you suggested, quite minor. But if that's all they've got to look forward to is picking out their clothes for the day, that's really, really beautiful.

Yeah, and I guess we do groups on the ward as well, so maybe they get to choose the music we listen to or the game we play. I think when someone's so absolutely stuck in that they've gotten all their freedom to choices and decisions taken away from them, it is really our responsibility to give them back those choices in any part of their admission to hospital. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like the role of social work is well understood within your peers, your colleagues, your area of work? I think so, yeah. I've been lucky in that I do work with really fabulous psychiatrists and OTs and psychologists

who really have a high regard for social work. And it's always, I think there's always things that can improve definitely. I think sometimes social workers can be left out of the communication. And so where there should be a referral made to social work, it kind of sometimes isn't, we're not brought into the space to have a conversation and put forward what we could contribute for the person's care or offer the person for their care, because ultimately it's up to them whether or not they want to engage with social work. And if they don't want to, that's totally fine.

But I think it is important to make sure that the patient themselves know how we can support them while they're in hospital and then ongoing once they lead as well. But sort of overall, I think the team does hold social work with quite a high regard, which is really awesome. Do you work with many other social workers? Are you the only social worker in the unit? What does that look like? I do have another social worker who's full-time, and then we have two others who are part-time. So we aim to have three of us there because we're quite a big unit. But I'd say primarily there's two of us there most of the time.

And is your colleague quite experienced? Do you kind of get an opportunity to bounce ideas off each other? Yeah, he used to be a lawyer actually. So he's quite good at navigating because a lot of the time we also work with police and courts and parole officers and DCJ and family court as well. So it's cool to have his experience around those kinds of things. He always likes listening about my experience with First Nations people and organisations that can help.

He'd be great at report writing, I imagine. Yeah, he is good. Very good. What do you like most about the work you're doing? What helps you get up in the morning and go to work knowing that it's probably going to be incredibly difficult? Yeah. I was talking about this with one of the psychologists the other day,

and I think we try and find humor in the work so it isn't so sort of draining sometimes. And same for the patients, try and find a funny aspect to what we're doing. But I think it's really a privilege to listen to the stories of the people that I work with, because often they've been through a lot of trauma, but they've also overcome that trauma and gotten to where they are now, and it's really very inspiring to hear those stories as well. Yeah. What do you find most difficult?

I think it's that thing of when you can see opportunities for referrals to other services, but there isn't the funding or the resourcing to make it happen. That's probably the hardest part. If there was crisis housing readily available for three, three to six months even that would make such a huge difference because at the moment we're relying sort of I think housing is a big one we're relying primarily on link to home which is such an amazing service but it is two to four days at a hotel maybe and then there's no supported accommodation available like it is very difficult and it feels like you're kind of hitting your head against a wall

when you're calling the same service over and over again because a bed will come up one day and then they've got nothing for three weeks and you're calling every day. So that's really hard. There's also not a lot of support for gender diverse people. I've had a few patients who are transgender and don't feel safe to go to or have had a bad experience at a men's and women's refuge. And at the moment, there's, I think, two organisations that can help with crisis accommodation and they've got a wait list that's a mile long.

So I think that's definitely a really draining part of the job. I guess that's a trickle-down effect of COVID that we don't hear about is that crisis housing where everyone is struggling in the housing market to find something. And if you have no capacity to plan for that, you're just all of a sudden thrown into a scenario where you have to find something now. And link to home is you can't plan for that, right? It's just you call if there's capacity, you take it. If not, then call again to home.

tomorrow kind of thing. Yeah, and LinkedIn home's great in that they've never turned me away when I've caught with a patient. They've always found something. It's not maybe an ideal place for someone to go to. And if those crisis or transitional accommodations weren't at capacity, I'd be able to contact them, put in a referral and plan something before discharge rather than waiting to the day of discharged. And it's this really hurried plan. That's when it's really energy zapping because you're like frantically trying to get this person discharged somewhere safe and somewhere supported. And it's really based on luck whether or not things line up for you. And it doesn't feel good for me knowing that I'm sending that person out somewhere

where it's not the best option. Yeah. Yeah, crisis and transitional housing is a big thing that needs a lot more funding and a lot more resourcing. and that would make a huge difference within my job, definitely. And if someone was in the relatively luxurious position of having supportive family and friends who could take them in for a short period of time, that's where I would imagine your role would come in handy

in terms of helping that person to prepare to take on that responsibility. Is there a lot of that in your work? Yeah, we definitely have a lot to do with family, friends, carers, partners and kids. We have family meetings a lot of the time to prepare for that transition. So now with COVID being a little bit more relaxed, we can have friends or family or carers or whoever the person is that's going to be supporting the client. We can have them come in and we can have a discussion altogether, myself, the treating consultant psychiatrist and registrar and the patient so that they also get a voice

in saying what's going to work for them and what's not going to work for them. Yeah. So yeah, it's definitely a massive part. And I think the family and friends of the person who's in hospital really appreciate having the social worker call them and update them or just be a voice if they distress themselves, which a lot of the time they are and they need to cry on the phone is usually the social worker who's on the other end. So yeah, they've got you on speed dial. Yeah, yeah, definitely. other than the difficulty that you're seeing with the housing crisis and a lack of capacity within most services, I imagine, had there been many positive changes in this area over time, things that are helping your role or things that are really positive for the people that you support? Yeah, I think services like compacts and the way back, they're really awesome.

They're really, really good. They respond really, really well when we put out a referral. So I know Compacts, which is a six-week, roughly, period of support where someone can access attendant care, community assistance. What's Wayback? So the Way Back service work in the same model as Compact, but they're specifically mental health trained and they're for people who have recently made an attempt to end their life or struggle with self-harm.

Right. Does that mean that the support people on the other end have more experience? working these type of people. Okay. Yeah. They're trained specifically to respond and support with that kind of trauma or that sort of history. Yeah. History. And they are really great. They're really, we've got such good feedback from clients as well about their service. And do they waive their fees? Is there some sort of leniency there? Yeah, no fees for the client. Amazing. Yeah. And they'll come into the hospital and assess. the client and have a chat. They've never turned anyone away, but it's more like I get to know you

and see where we can support you best kind of a chat. They're great. Also, RSPCA and pause and recover are so good because I've had so many patients who've come in with animals at home and no one to go and care for them. Yeah. And they've been amazing. They've worked with us alongside locksmiths. They've come and picked up keys. They're just a really good both of them. great organization. They've housed pets for our clients for free and sent us update pictures that we print out to the client. They can put it up in their room. I love that. And it's good. It's peace of mind for the patient as well because they know that their pet is somewhere safe and being looked after. And a lot of the time their pet is their family. So yeah. Yeah. It's one less thing for them to worry

about. Definitely. So yeah, the combination of those services have really, I wasn't aware of them. I knew about compacts, but the other three I wasn't so aware of their role within the mental health unit until sort of more recently. And they've been really good. Do you feel like the representation of people with mental health issues has changed over time? Do you feel like there's been a difference in terms of stigma or how we respond to people that are going through these sorts of crisis? I think we knew before that a mental health diagnosis or illness doesn't discriminate, but it's definitely, I don't know if it's just because of the space I'm in and that outside of where I am, maybe there is more stigma. I know that patients often come in with learned stigma

or feelings of being very down on themselves or very judgmental of themselves or disappointed that they've relapsed. That's not something that has ever been a problem with the team, but it definitely is something that I've noticed with impatience themselves because they've obviously had that experience from people outside of the mental health system or maybe Arna's aware of mental health and mental health illnesses. So yeah, I think it definitely has changed and we see such a spectrum of different people from all different backgrounds and cultures. Also a lot of people on student visas come into the unit as well who are very unwell,

which is a whole other layer of things when people can't access benefits or allowances like Centrelink and I'm paying really high amounts to study here. Yeah. And then you're dealing with international insurance companies as well. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, there's a, you know, so many different things. But generally I think people are much more open-minded within my space. I'm not sure if it's so true just in the general world.

I think a lot of young people are much more open to talking about mental health and that stigma is a lot less, but it definitely still is a big part. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously your day-to-day would be incredibly busy. You're keeping up with ward work, with advocacy, with networking, with external providers, with professional development wherever you can squeeze it in. But do you have an opportunity to be part of any projects or programs outside of your regular work?

Yeah, so we definitely encourage to do that. It is very hard to slot it in, but at the moment I'm actually looking into how we can make the service more supportive of First Nations or gender diverse people. So just overall more culturally appropriate, but also more accessible for people who maybe are transgender because it has come up a few times. and unfortunately some of the language used is not always so appropriate. It's a little bit outdated. It's not very open-minded. And that seems to have come up with both Indigenous clients and people who are gender diverse who have come into the service.

I haven't done anything in depth in that area yet, but it's sort of in development at the moment. Yeah, that's great. I know the hospital I worked at was doing a lot of work around. even just that very first initial, when you present to hospital, how does it seem? So in emergency department, there were rainbow flags, there were Aboriginal flags. So it's that first, yes, welcoming type thing. But then you've also got to do a lot of work with staff around Aboriginal competence and cultural competence. So, yeah, you know, you've got to walk the talk as well.

Exactly. And it's more things like when we do our initial psychosocial assessment, I try and ask, do you identify as Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander so I can note it down? What are your pronouns? Is there anything else that I should be aware of so that I can support you in the best way I can and be as sensitive as I can? Yeah. Make sure the rest of the team follows suit.

So yeah, those little things actually can make a big difference. Yeah, being a champion. Yeah, thanks. If you weren't doing this work, obviously you've been always passionate about. working with Indigenous people, not necessarily in Australia, but Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and you've been very focused on mental health. If you weren't doing this, what else would you like to be doing? I had an interest in working still in Indigenous communities with women and children experiencing domestic violence. It's an area I definitely

think that I'll eventually probably go into, possibly within a rural community, remote community, maybe, but I know it is going to be extremely hard. And if it's hard for me, I can't imagine what it is like for the people who are living within very violent situations and very unsupported and abandoned by the government and all the systems within our government have sort of seemed to have abandoned a lot of the communities that are really suffering the most. And so I think I'm definitely drawn and interested in going into that area eventually. So, yeah, I can see that as one of the possibilities, but who knows. Yeah, and well, fingers crossed with our new government and with amazing people like

Linda Burney as our Indigenous Affairs Minister. I know. There's hope. You can only hope. Yeah, definitely. Are there any resources or anything else if people were curious about the line of work that you've gone down? Yeah.

Would you direct them to any media? or good reading, social media, whatever it might be. Yeah, I think there's really good podcasts and Instagram accounts just looking at social media that are really good to follow. I think mentally yours is a really good podcast. Any podcast that sort of decolonises another one, anyone that's sort of about people's stories and comes from someone that has some kind of training or experience working within mental health is always really good.

On Instagram there's a lot as well, but I think there's also a lot of toxic positivity as well, and you've got to be careful that you're following someone that has some awareness and level of training because, yeah, it can be, I mean, we know social media can be good and bad, so yeah, there's definitely some good ones though out there. You mentioned strengths based earlier. Are there any other approaches that you use in your work? I can imagine there's a lot of therapeutic counselling involved. Yeah, I guess the main ones would be strengths-based, trauma-informed care,

and those are probably the two major ones. But I think we touch on a lot of them. We touch on feminist theory. We touch on systematic approaches. So systems theory, there's probably all of the major ones come into play, and they're just subconscious. Yeah, cool. I've loved that from day one, you've been so passionate about health disparities and literacy and health outcomes for people, especially looking from a social justice lens, even before you started studying social work. It's really challenging working with involuntary clients, but you've found a way to, I guess, position that in a sense of supporting their goals and their empowerment and looking at their strengths and really, finding that respect for person when all their other rights have been removed. And I think you kind of

frame it in a sense that you've got this position of privilege where you get to work with people to turn things around and you get to find resources to support people at a time when they need it most. So yeah, I find it incredibly inspiring. It's a really hard area of social work. You're very early on in your career, but you've done so much already even while you were studying, which is gotten you to this point and yeah i can only see it taking you great places thank you thanks so much that's really nice of you to say thank you before we finish up is there anything else you want people to know about your experience or any words of wisdom words of advice there's probably a lot a lot of things that i could add but maybe just to try and listen to what your client is saying actively listen

And sometimes they're telling you things not outright and not explicitly, but there's often knowledge or information that they're telling you about themselves that they're not explicitly saying. So I guess try and listen in to those things that they're not saying and use it to empower and support them is probably one of the other things that I would encourage people to do. Yeah, I think that's great advice regardless of where people are working. Yeah, definitely.

Thank you so much, Claire. This has been incredible. I've loved learning about your experience and, yeah, I can't wait for other people to know about it as well. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Claire, 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 Jasmine, who came to social work after completing diplomas in community service and community development.

She has worked for a public housing agency managing intake and existing tendencies, as well as an intake role in child protection. Jasmine has been working in primary and secondary schools since the start of 2021 while completing a graduate certificate in autism and a master in mental health. Jasmine is passionate about working with children and adolescents with co-occurring disability and mental health issues. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you'll notify when this next episode is available. See you next time.