Social Work Spotlight - Episode 67: Jazmin

Episode Date: September 30, 2022

In this episode I speak with Jazmin, who came to social work after completing diplomas in community service and community development and is passionate about working with children and adolescents with co-occurring disability and mental health issues. She has worked for a public housing agency managing intake and existing tenancies as well as an intake role in Child Protection, supporting some of the unborn notifications outreach visits. Jazmin currently works in primary and secondary schools while completing a Graduate Certificate in Autism and a Master in Mental Health.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:DET Victoria Mental Health Menu - https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/health/mentalhealth/mental-health-menu/Pages/Menu.aspx?Redirect=1DET Victoria Mental Health Practitioner Initiative - https://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/health/mentalhealth/Pages/mental-health-practitioners-secondary.aspxAASW School Social Work Practice group (VIC branch) - https://www.aasw.asn.au/victoria/school/school-social-workers-practice-groupMotivational Interviewing for School Counselors - https://www.amazon.com.au/Motivational-Interviewing-School-Counselors-Reagan/dp/1520525079/ref=asc_df_1520525079/?tag=googleshopdsk-22&linkCode=df0&hvadid=378621448074&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3405802233448571779&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9071383&hvtargid=pla-493436319021&psc=1Lost at School - https://www.booktopia.com.au/lost-at-school-ross-w-greene/book/9781501101496.htmlTrauma informed classrooms - https://www.booktopia.com.au/creating-trauma-informed-strengths-based-classrooms-tom-brunzell/book/9781787753747.htmlAlex Wilson and her trainings and resources - https://www.mindfulrecovery.com.au/shopAASW school social work scope of practice guide - https://www.aasw.asn.au/document/item/8308Drumbeat facilitator training - https://holyoake.org.au/drumbeat/drumbeat-facilitators/facilitator-training-calendar/Jazmin’s LinkedIn profile - https://au.linkedin.com/in/jazmin-pursell-99b0551b8This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rqmI4mA5ud9XuPV9xrN9Iuz3v0aQoKFAexJHygPwh7w/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession in each episode. I'm your host, Yasmin McKee Wright, and today'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, supporting some of the unborn notifications outreach visits. 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 as these are areas in which she hopes to increase her knowledge. Jasmine is passionate about working with children and adolescents with co-occurring disability and mental health issues.

Thank you Jasmine for coming on to the podcast. It's so lovely to meet you and really happy to have a chat with you about your journey and social work so far. Thanks so much for having me, Yasmin. I'm loving your podcast, so I really appreciate your time as well. I'm so thrilled that you're a listener of the podcast as well. So I guess you know what to expect. You've had to listen through some of the episodes. And I'm really keen to maybe talk with you a little bit later about what you've gotten out of it. But firstly about you, all about you. When did you start as a social worker and what drew you to the profession? So I graduated almost two years ago now. So I graduated at the end of 2020. So while I was

finishing my master of social work, I was sort of already, I guess, working in the social work field, but just without that formal qualification. So I feel like I've been a sort of an adjacent social worker for a little bit longer, but I guess a fully qualified social worker for about two years now. I guess what drew me to the professional. profession is that I grew up in a single parent home. So not sort of a lot of, I guess, money and sort of resources at my disposal. So I sort of knew, you know, what it was like to struggle and not have some of those, you know, essentials, such as like school textbook or new school shoes. So I sort of, as I sort of got older, well, how can I help, you know, others that might have been in a

similar position to myself. So I was, yeah, sort of, I just drawn to to work. with children and adolescents in particular just because of my experience. And I think when I was in high school as well, there wasn't really support at all. So they wouldn't have school social workers. I don't even think my school had a counsellor. So there was just sort of no support available. And I always, you know, often think back that I would have loved, you know, a school social worker or some sort of support when I was, I guess, struggling a bit as a child and adolescent.

So it sort of prompted me to, you know, I'm trying to do something about it. And I might, you know, try to, I guess, be that, you know, be that someone for, you know, a child or adolescent. So what brought you to this point in your career? It sounds like you've had quite a bit of experience prior to getting to this point. Yeah. So initially, because I was like as drawn to, always working with, you know, children and adolescents and their families, I started working in child protection.

So I was there for around three years. and then I went on parental leave with one of my children and then came back and was sort of looking at other options where I could still work with children and their families, but have a better work life balance. Although child protection gave me sort of amazing sort of entry level knowledge to then move on to school social work, whereas where I work now, but the hours weren't really amazing when you have young children. So there was that expectation of, you know, of overtime and the work was, you know, never finished. So you would leave for the day and be playing sort of in your head, everything that was left unfinished. So

you'd have to go back to the next day. So it was quite a high stress, you know, having young children. So then I'd made the decision to look at school social work because it would give me, I guess, the ability to still work with this sort of the same or similar cohort children and families, but it would, so there wouldn't be the expectation of overtime. And although it's very busy there, it's still a fast-paced environment, I don't find myself, you know, worrying about what hasn't been done when I leave for the day. So it's not that, it doesn't have that same, I guess, level of risk that child protection does. So it does suit me a lot more with, yeah, with my family life. Yeah. And with the child protection help,

plan work. Obviously, there was a lot of stress around finishing something and leaving something potentially unfinished. Did you do any of the overnight shifts or was it mostly during the day that you were working? So for me, it was during the day, but there was sort of that, it wasn't a rule as such, but everyone was encouraged to take work home as overtime. So if it was a long weekend, And then if there were reports that needed to be written up for closure or they needed to be written up for a referral to, for example, family support service, then there was an expectation that if you can, can you do some overtime? So there were times where there was a Labor Day long weekend.

And I remember just having a stack of reports that had to be written up for closure. So I took them on the long weekend. It wasn't something that they said you had to, but there was, I guess, the expectation that okay, well, others are doing it. Can you do a little bit of overtime? So although my role in child protection was primarily based in their here in Victoria, we call it intake, so it's like, yeah, the helpline, there was a period of time for three months where I did work in investigation and response team. So that was, you know, often like 10 hour days and so it was, yeah, it was quite long. So sometimes I would, I would be getting home sort of, you know,

well after dinner time. Yeah. Did you always have a passion for? for working in child protection or is that something that kind of was fostered through your university placements? How did that come about? So when I started my master of social work, I was already working at child protection. The reason why I thought about child protection was just because after I became a parent myself, I think I had more time to do a bit of reflecting. And then I was actually thinking about, I guess, those children that aren't, you know, aren't born into privilege. And then I was starting to think, well, what work can I do to support, you know, children that weren't born as so fortunate as my own children?

And while my youngest child was only a few months old, I started to do some voluntary work with primary school-edged children that lived in public housing high-rise towers here in Melbourne, so inner city Melbourne. So that was an after-school program and they provided their kids with dinner and they had different activities. So it was cooking classes and craft and sport. So I found that that was really, that was that really eye-opening for me to, you know, to say that these kids often from very large families living in like a two-bedroom public housing tower. And also the area that I grew up in was also in a city in Melbourne. So the public housing

towers where actually did my voluntary work. It was sort of across the main road from where I grew up. So I always grew up around, you know, public housing, you know, so I sort of saw, I guess, disparity between the kind of more affluent or middle class families and also then they're more, I guess, disadvantaged public housing families as well. Yeah. And then it just seemed, you know, natural fit after doing the voluntary work to move into child protection, just to kind of get an idea of, you know, the system, I guess, protects and sometimes disadvantages families. Yeah. And can you tell me about your current role?

So you're working in a school. You've got a group of people around you. So you work with quite a multidisciplinary team, it sounds like. What does a typical day look like for you? So yeah, I'm working at two different schools, actually, both government schools. So I only work with adolescents. So that's years 7 to 12. And a typical day, that's really funny because, yeah, there's no, I guess, typical day.

Anything could happen at any time. Adolescents are quite unpredictable. But that's why I like it because no one day will be the same. So I do a mixture of individual counselling with the adolescents and also small groups. So, for example, one day I will run a group. group in one period and at the moment I'm running a group of year nine male students and it's around emotional regulation and like skill building and sort of like it's trying to model I guess pro-social behaviour because the students do exhibit some challenging behaviours so that's

something I've been working on and then sort of in between running the group then I would have a few individual counselling sessions scheduled with students and then all also a family meeting. So I have quite a lot of meetings with parents and carers, both with and without the young people, depending on on the situation. I also have, so I do work in a multidisciplinary team. It's quite a small team. So most of us, if not all of us, I think, we all work part time. So we don't always have crossover days with one another in the team, which is pretty difficult. So we communicate a lot via like Microsoft Teams or emails.

I can imagine if you're really having to, with adolescent boys, I can imagine there's a bit of triangulation and trying to say, well, he said this and you said that and how do we sort this out? How do you do that collaboration? How do you make sure that the messages are other than using the platforms available to you? what do you have to draw on in order to be able to make sure that you're being consistent across the board? Well, this is a pretty unique group and it's actually, I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's the drumbeat program, which uses African jambay drums as sort of the

platform for engaging the adolescent boys. And I find as well with, particularly with adolescent boys, not to journalise, but the majority of adolescent boys that I have worked with that traditional talk therapy might not be effective, you know, that they like, you know, they like to do things with their hands, whether it's something sport related or in this case, sort of music based. And since I'm not sporty in any way, and neither are my musical, but the drumbeat facilitated training was really good. It's sort of teaching me, you know, how to deliver this program. So through using the drums, then the boys are sort of, they're able to express their emotions and how they're feeling through music. So there's one activity

that I do with the boys and they will, that will say play how your day is or play how your week has been. And then they will make the associated noise on the drums. So if they do quick banging and then they can then explain. So they might say, oh, I feel really busy or I feel really happy and excited and then some of the boys might do a slow sort of scratchy sound on the drum and then they'll say you know if I work really tired or not motivated so I'm finding that using the music does I just encourage them to engage talking about their emotions in a sort of a non-threatening way and also just I think it's really important with this cohort to develop group rules you know at the start of the group and then sort of every week just quickly at the start of the group just going

over the rules so like not talking over one another like not swearing not using your phone and I find that because they actually came up with all these group rules themselves that they're more likely to follow them and sort of I guess behave appropriately because they've had a say in what the group rules are now I find that as the group sort of has progressed by about week three or four the boys were actually picking up on each other's, like, behaviour. If they weren't listening, they were saying, hey, you're not listening or like, hey, put your phone away, which is really positive. And they've come a long way from when they started the group where they were sort of a bit

more free-spirited and not listening as much to each other. So it sounds like they're taking a bit more ownership over it. Yes, definitely. And it's been really helpful to be able to give the boys like a bit of responsibility. So on their timetable, they can see when they have the drumbeat group. And initially, they weren't coming on their own to the group. I was having to go to whichever class they were in and having to retrieve them and then bring them to the room for the group. And then at about, I think it was week two or three, I'd sort of said to them that we're losing a lot of precious time,

me having to go and retrieve you and retrieve you and retrieve you all from different classes and to bring you here and I said, you know, if you could all just make your way to the room, then we'll all get our drums and then start the group. And then them just having that little bit of responsibility has been really effective because there's been excellent attendance in the group and they have been bringing themselves, you know, and appearing quite motivated to learn, which is really good. Yeah. And how are the kids allocated to the group? Is it something that they need to opt into? Is it something that you can just identify that might be helpful for them based on your individual counselling or maybe discussions with their teachers?

So all of the groups were formed based on the recommendations by the year level coordinator and they were chosen based on any sort of anti-social behaviour. Some of the students may be on behaviour support plans, but that's not sort of a requirement of the group, but some of them are on behaviour support plans. And they're also students that are quite disengaged in education. So while they all attend school regularly, they're not necessarily engaged in the actual learning or attending their classes. And it was seen that this group of male students, you know,

would benefit from some additional support. And so all of the boys, they're not ones that I've had sort of individual counselling with. so I actually met them all for the first time when I started the group, which is really good. And it's an optional group, so the parents' consent was required. I can imagine that's also really challenging, though. You haven't developed any sort of a relationship with these boys, and you're expected to build that rapport and build trust. So, yeah, it's no mean feat being able to engage. Yes.

Well, because I had to sort of chase them a bit to get their consent forms back, I feel, felt that I was able to build that rapport before the group started. So I was going into their classes with the consent forms and then following them up when they hadn't received it. So I got to know a lot of their names before we'd officially started the group. And then a lot of the students actually had told me, oh, yeah, we've seen you around. So although they might not have known exactly, you know, who I was and what my role was. A lot of them had said, oh, yeah, we've seen you around the school.

so I wasn't necessarily a brand new face for them. And I found that when, so one of the boys returned their consent form and then that encouraged then their friends who were also invited to the group to also return their consent forms, so I felt that bit of peer pressure from the boys and not wanting to join the group if their friends, you know, weren't going to be joining. And then now I've had other students who are not invited in the group

saying that they want to join. That's got to be the most positive. peer pressure ever. Yes, so definitely. So it's been really good. That's so good. How do you work to dissolve the stigma around, I know back when I was in high school, it was well before I even considered social work as a career or psychology, I was of the opinion and this was just based on my own biases and absolute misunderstandings that if you got pulled out of class, it was for something bad, it was something was going wrong or you needed disciplining or whatever it was. How did you get around that? How do you maintain that positivity around the program and around making sure that these people

want to come and don't feel as though they're being ostracized or singled out? Yeah, that's a really, really good question and something that I thought about a lot as well. When I was speaking to the students about the group, I was really trying to frame it as something really positive. I've said, you know, we're delivering this exciting program drumbeat for the first time and, you know, guess what? You've been invited and making it sound positive and not saying that you've done anything sort of naughty or bad. And then just saying that this is, it's going to be offered to other students in the future,

but we're just, just because it's a new program, we're just trying with a small group and then sort of seeing how that goes. Sort of in the first session of the group, I was really mindful of really normalising, I guess, my role in sort of their well-being space at the school. So I'd said to them that, you know, you might not have seen me around or you might have seen me, but I work with, you know, heaps of students, you know, individually and with families. So sort of normalising that I, that I'm not just running this group for you, that I see there's heaps of students that I see. And then that also prompted a few of them to say, oh, oh, yeah, you know, I've seen you around.

Oh, that's what you do. Like they sort of weren't sure up to that point, well, I've seen you around the school, but what is your job? What's your purpose? And I sort of had made it, I try to make it as, I guess, as exciting and interactive as possible and always seeking their feedback. So if I'm running an activity, say, a certain way, then one of the students might say, oh, can we do it like this? Or can I, you know, be the leader in this activity? So I always take their feedback on board so they know that they've got that sort of sense of autonomy and they're not just, you know, it's not a typical classroom that I'm just talking at you and you will just follow my instructions. So I do try to make it really collaborative. So it does differ from

their normal, you know, class lessons, which they may or may not enjoy. And have you had enough time running the program, running the group to be able to see changes in perhaps their engagement in regular school life or their behaviours on a daily basis? Yes. Well, I've noticed just from my own observations that they're much more respectful in how they communicate with one another. So there's less swearing and sort of gerometry name calling, which they often do that as a joke amongst their friends and peers. But I've noticed a reduction in that antisocial behaviour. They have become more, you know, reliable.

So as I said, they now will bring themselves to the group instead of me having to locate them somewhere in the school and also just how they interact with me. I've noticed they've come a long way. So initially they didn't really know who I was, but now they'll see me around the school and say, you know, hi, miss, when is the group, you know, and then when I'd sort of let them know that I'm also going to be running it in term three, that they, you know, were really quite enthusiastic and said, can we have the group for all of term three, not just some of term three, which is really nice and actually their year-level coordinator who referred them to the program has actually noticed a reduction in their behavioural incidents. So she did actually let me know that she hadn't

actually had any reports of any antisocial behaviour since the group started, which I thought was amazing. Even if it's just a coincidence, I'm still happy with that. So it means that they're happier and more engaged at school. Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. That's a big. deal. I understand that your well-being team within the school is relatively new. Yours is a newly created role. How did the school identify that this needed creating and something needed to change? What was the catalyst, do you think? So my role is actually a role that's being created by the Department of Education here in Victoria. So all of the Victorian government schools have someone like me, so the role's mental health practitioner. And it was kind of a staged role

out of the role. So depending on which local government area, the school was based in, they may have been one of the first schools to have that mental health practitioner initiative rolled out, or they might have been sort of one of the last schools. And depending on how many students are enrolled at the school, the higher the student numbers, the more days they will get a mental health practitioner. And at the main school that I work at, the enrollment numbers are quite small. So it's only funded on a sort of a part-time basis, which is why I work at another school to sort of ensure that I can work full-time, but across two different schools. Yeah. So tell me about the other school, the one that doesn't have this very exciting program. Is it purely counseling at your second school?

So the other school is actually an online school. So it's quite a unique setting. So it actually doesn't involve any sort of direct therapeutic work with the students. So it doesn't involve any counselling and it's really more around that complex case management. So the majority of the students have like quite significant mental health challenges or the students that are allocated to me anyway. And then the students will have their external therapists. So my role is sort of communicating with both the external therapist and the family. is just to ensure that the, you know, the students sort of well supported, especially because it's an online school that their student can't be, I guess, monitored in the same way as,

you know, a bricks and mortar school. So there's a lot of, a lot of professionals meetings, sort of a lot of, you know, care team meetings that I go to, just to, yeah, make sure that the students well supported in terms of their mental health while they're attending the school. And also it involves a lot of meetings with their teachers, if the teachers, have any concerns around, say, that student's mental health or if they might want to know a little bit more about how they may engage a student with a particular mental health difficulty, then that's another part of my role.

It's sort of around ensuring that, you know, that the teachers have sort of all the information that they need as well to best support their students. In that sense, it's a bit of, I guess, mental health promotion as well as, yeah, the case management side of things. Yeah. No, that sounds amazing. And do you have an opportunity to meet with the students in person or your interaction as well is completely online? Unfortunately, no, I haven't got to meet any of them in person. They all study online and they could live anywhere in Victoria. They could even leave overseas. So some of them, you live quite a far distance away from Melbourne. So they wouldn't be coming into the office sort of for any meetings. Everything's just

online, which does make it, I guess, more flexible for students that have mental health difficulties, such as you might have some social anxiety. So for them being able to interact online can seem less threatening than having to, you know, come in and sit down in a formal office and then have a meeting. But then I guess there are the many positives of being able to see someone face-to-face. I'm just thinking with my own case management, being able to go to someone's house and just get a feel for the environment that they find themselves in every day. Do you have a space where you can study without being interrupted, all those sorts of things? Yeah, it must be really challenging. How do you see case management in that sort of online role then? Well, it is really hard because

a lot of the students, because they're studying online, they, you know, can lack in motivation. So a lot of them are quite disengaged, you know, in their studies. So then a lot of my work is then working with. So all the students have, it's kind of like a homeroom teacher, but they call it a learning advisor, but it's essentially just an online version of a homeroom teacher. So that they'll have their learning advisor will, for example, they might raise concerns that they haven't submitted any work. So then it often involves in me then being involved to assist in facilitating a conversation, and say with whether the students involved or not or just their parents or carer along with the learning advisor around how to best sort of engage them in their learning. It can be quite difficult

though because it is online a lot of the parents and carers they have their own work that they're doing so whether they're working from home or outside of the home. So it can be quite difficult to actually organise meetings with parents so during normal school hours when often they're working full time themselves. Yeah, so it can be quite difficult, I guess, to sort of organise those meetings to try and bring about some positive change in the students, I guess, engagement in their learning. Yeah. There's a lot of social opportunities as well for the students. So there's different clubs that they can join as well that can sort of improve their engagement in the online space. So that is available for them as well.

That all sounds really positive. And given that it has always been an online school and the degree to which everyone else has struggled to adapt when we had lockdowns over the last two and a half years, I guess, were there learnings from this particular school and this style of education? Do you think that got translated into other areas? Do you think other schools, other departments saw them as a source of knowledge and experience and took some learnings from that? Or do you think they weren't consulted in that process? I can't really comment of whether other schools might have used any of the, say, learnings or technology, etc., from online school. But given that these students from the online school have always been studying online that when we went into one of our many lockdowns, hearing Victoria, they didn't really need to sort of alter anything because the students already

had their lessons online. They, you know, already had email contact with their teachers and their learning advisors. So it was already, I guess, set up beautifully for a pandemic because they already had all the systems in place. It was more just around the staffing. So normally all the staff would go on site at the school. But then there's been that shift to working from home. So I know it's being particularly hard for staff with their own school-age children at home, I guess trying to manage, you know, a full-time workload as well as their own family commitments.

Yeah. So I'd say, I guess it's probably more of a challenge for the staff than for the students and their families. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And probably for the students who were used to a level of, quiet during the day. I can imagine if their parents are off working somewhere and all of a sudden everyone's in their house. So even the students who were used to the online learning probably found

it a little bit difficult to adjust. Yes. Yeah, I definitely would say that because some students that might have quite a lot of siblings in the home. So their quiet study space during the day might have been a common area such as the dining room or lounge room. And then all of a sudden, sort of everyone's at home with them. I know it was quite challenging for a lot of the students who have their external therapist, or whether it's their psych or their social worker or their OT and many, many more professionals involved, that a lot of the students did struggle to engage by telehealth when they weren't able to have their therapies face to face. So a lot of the students actually disengaged from their external therapists because they weren't comfortable doing telehealth.

So then that, I guess, meant that they didn't receive that support for their mental health that they normally would. So that was particularly challenging, I noticed. And have you yourself struggled to some degree splitting your time over different workplaces? Or do you actually like having that division in your week? I guess a bit of both. So I like that my week is mixed up because it means that the weeks don't drag. Whereas before, if I worked at just one location, and I felt that, you know, the week just seemed very long,

but now the weeks do seem very short. So that's a positive. The only, I guess, drawback is that because I'm not at any school five days a week, then I can't be as responsive to, you know, the students, as if I was there, five days at one particular school, that if something happened and they needed to chat to me on one of the days, you know, any day, then I'd be available. but then the issue is,

and particularly the face-to-face school that I work at, I'm there three days a week, and I find then that when I come back, that the students would be like, oh, you know, I was looking for you, I couldn't find you. And so I think it's, I really have to, I guess,

communicate really well with both the students and their families. And I do do that around, you know, these are my working days here. And then the other days I work somewhere else. So I'm not, I guess, as available. Consistency, the students themselves if I just worked at one place. But I can imagine funding is always the big issue.

Is there any indication that the school might be successful in applying for additional funding, anything that might help there be greater availability of mental health clinicians at the school? Because the funding is based on student enrollment numbers, there would, I guess, need to be an influx of student enrollment numbers for my role in particular to be funded for more days. but the Victorian Department of Education is bringing out something called the Mental Health Menu, which is still at its sort of early stages. So I'm not fully across everything that's involved in it, but it's additional funding for

all government schools with extra funding given to regional and sort of remote schools. But then that's going to provide extra funding for sort of evidence-based mental health support in schools. So that could, you know, include very, different types of group work and different types of therapy and that funding through the mental health menu can also be used by the school to fund, say, for example, extra hours for their mental health practitioner or just your extra wellbeing staff. So that's starting to be rolled out either the end of this year or next year. Okay, so there are ways of identifying when someone needs a

little bit more. Yes. Okay. No, that sounds really positive. What's something we might not have considered as one of the more challenging aspects of your role, apart from splitting your time and feeling as though there's not enough funding, what did you not expect to be really hard going into this work? Well, I think it can be quite hard at times to actually engage the parents and carers. And it's quite different to when I worked at child protection, parents and carers, there was a bit of that, I guess, that power imbalance working at child protection in that the parents and carers, you know, might have felt like they were obliged to, you know, to do certain things if child protection requested of them.

So there was always, so then I was sort of, I guess, used to coming from that setting. And then when I moved into school social work, I noticed that some parents and carers sort of didn't, would engage at all, weren't answer. won't answer emails and then when I try to have the conversation around their young person's mental health, offer extra support. Often it's not sort of well received at all and so the parents are not always, some parents, not all parents, but some parents are really not receptive to sort of extra support and there is still a lot of stigma. One of the communities in which I work, there's quite a lot of stigma around that mental health and that sort of mental health and that sort of mental

health isn't necessarily a thing. It's something that if the student's struggling, that the family can sort of solely provide all that support and that any external support, whether it's from the school or from an external mental health service is sort of not, not necessary at all. So that can be quite challenging, you know, trying to have those conversations around mental health with the parents and carers. Yeah. And it's almost as though they see themselves as suddenly shoved under a microscope and so you're scrutinizing the way that they're parenting even though obviously that's not the intention. Yes, I think as well that some parents do seem to take offense and that I'm criticising how they're raising their adolescents. So when I do speak to parents, I always

really try to normalise the existence of sort of mental health and that we all have, you know, mental health and just because your adolescent may need extra support, it doesn't mean they have a mental illness, they might be going through a particularly difficult situation and just need some extra support at that stage, that it doesn't mean that they will, you know, forever need some form of counselling. I guess that's sort of a constant work in progress. Yeah, no, that's really hard. What do you love most about the work that you're doing?

Well, I just love working with adolescents. And initially, when I was looking to get into school social work, my first thought was, I'll get into primary schools because, you know, I love the little kids. Like, they're really cute and little and, you know, so they're really exciting and interesting to work with. And I did work in a primary school as well. And then I actually thought I'll look into working with adolescents as well because I don't really have adolescence in my life or in my family.

So I wasn't as confident in working with adolescents, whereas a mother of young children myself. So I was like, okay, I know how to communicate, how to interact with the younger children. but I thought I might push myself a little bit and try and get experience working with adolescents. So since I started working with adolescents, I just find them really, you know, unique and interesting and they teach me things all the time, even if it's about the latest games or technology or social media platforms that they use to communicate with. I just, yeah, find them fascinating.

And I feel as well that there's so much really great, you know, great, support that I can provide to them before they then move into adulthood where they might not have, you know, the same level of support that's offered at the school. So I just feel that it's quite worthwhile instead of preparing them, you know, for adulthood and also trying to work with them around, I guess, the help seeking and the importance of, you know, seeking help, whether it's for their mental health or any other difficulty. So I think that a lot of that key work is done, you know, with the adolescent sort of cohort. So I'd say that's great.

And I also love running groups as well. So running groups, I find it's really, you can reach a wider number of adolescents when you run a group. There's only so many students you can see individually for counselling. So there's maximum of five students a day I could see for individual counselling, which is the five periods of the day. But then when I'm running groups, you know, I can have up to, you know, six or seven people. people so I can reach a greater audience. So it is nice that I'm able to have, I guess, a balance between individual counselling and also running small groups. Yeah. And I'm thinking even just retention of kids in schools is so good. That engagement in learning gives them a platform for not

only educational learning, but social learning and just what a healthy relationship looks like. and that's the sort of stuff that they're very less likely to get access to if they were to leave school early. You've just reminded me of a really great program and I'm not sure if you've heard of it or if it's something you can access, but it's called Love Bites and it's all around healthy relationships for adolescents. Yes, a few colleagues of mine have done the facilitated training for Love Bites. I haven't done it yet. One of the programs, we use here in Victoria is the resilience rights, respectful relationships, sort of curriculum. And that's for all across, I think it's even for early childhood across into primary and secondary.

And it's all about respectful relationships. And there's certain, you know, areas within that, such as, you know, help seeking and emotional regulation that I, I sometimes do draw upon some of these resources. I do incorporate it in my drumbeat group. and also some of my individual sessions with students. So, yeah, it is a great resource, but love by. I know it's highly recommended. I have to try and do the facilitated training when it's next offered.

Yeah, it's even just going through the training, even if you never had the opportunity to implement the training in its full form, just having, as you suggested, those little bits of information that you can slot into your programs when appropriate. Yes, definitely. I'm curious what happens when there's a school holiday. Like at the moment in New South Wales, at least, we're in school holidays. What happens in your downtime in between terms?

Is that a time for you to kind of recharge, work on new programs, or do you have that time off? How does that work? Well, I'm very lucky, Yasme, so I have all the school holidays off. Yeah, so I'm not sort of working on anything. It's just my time to spend with my family and just have a bit of a break. If any thoughts do come to my head of any ideas on the holidays, I have a little notebook. Well, I've written down some thoughts so I don't forget. And then I close my notebook and continue on with my break.

My heart-end break. Amazing. Yes. And how do you juggle all of that? Because I would argue that it can be more difficult having two part-time jobs than one full-time just because of the amount of brain power it takes to be able to switch on and switch off. How do you manage that with little kids and with all the other responsibilities that you must have? I just find that I have to be very, very organized. You know, everything is in my,

I've got a paper diary and I've got electronic diaries for each of the schools I work at. So I just find that I've sort of got to schedule everything in for me to be able to complete everything. So I'm just, yeah, just big on schedules. And even I put, I've got to-do lists that I have every day. So I'm I know exactly what I have to get through. And I just think that just keeps me on track. But I think you have to have quite a lot of, I guess, motivation to be able to manage two sort of different jobs or two different workplaces. So I'm still, I'm always working on my motivation of how I can always improve.

But so far having a to-do list and sort of schedules is the thing I found most helpful so far. Yeah, nice. I know that social work in schools is a relatively new concept and it's fantastic in just the way that it can help to normalise involvement of social work and counselling and support for younger people. Is there sort of like a network? Is there, I don't know, a conference? I'm just thinking ideally I'd love to know that people in your position are getting together once a year just to talk about all the great things that you're doing and, and how you can address stigma and accessing your services. How do you network with other people in your role?

Yeah. So the AAASW has, this is a Victorian branch, have a school social work practice group. So they have both practice group sessions and then peer supervision as well. So their practice group sessions are free, but then the peer supervision is either $5 or $10, depending whether if you're a W member or not. Yeah, so that's really helpful.

School social work, because it is, as you mentioned, Yasmin, of quite a new sort of phenomena here, that there's not a lot of supervision necessarily provided by, like, the individual school, and that is likely due to lack of funding for a supervisor, but also there might not be anyone that's appropriately sort of qualified to provide that supervision. For example, at one of the schools that work at the face-to-face school, there's actually no one that's qualified to be able to provide my supervision.

So I have an external supervisor. I actually have two external supervisors, but a colleague of mine who's also a social worker, her and I sort of noticed that there was, you know, quite a gap in the supervision provided by schools compared to other workplaces such as, you know, health and child protection. So we actually started a PR supervision group and it's for not just social workers, but any sort of allied health staff working in a school well-being role. So we have

everyone from counsellors and youth workers and OTs and psychs. So everyone is welcome as long as they're working in a school well-being setting. So just not a not a teacher. And so we've started this group and it's online and we meet twice a term and we discuss, you know, any could be certain issues that might be coming up. It could be a de-identified case study that one of the group members can bring to the wider group and we can all discuss it together. And I've also organized a few guest speakers in the peer supervision group to talk about different topics. So we had one on DBT, then we had one on running small groups in schools, and we've got some other sort of ideas coming up as well.

We had another one on art therapy, so we try to have sort of a mixture of, I guess, a reflective space, but also a bit of professional learning as well, sort of mixed in there. And that's been really, yeah, really well received. It's been really a support for myself as well. Yeah, wow. Apart from the drumbeat program and the peers, support groups. Are there any other projects or programs that you have an opportunity to be part of at the

moment? There's some groups that I'm going to be running in term three. So one is a small group of year seven male students around emotional regulation. So these are students as well that have additional needs. So it's going to be a program that I'm going to be sort of designing myself. So it's still kind of in the planning stage at the moment. Something I haven't done before and actually delivering class lessons around sort of different mental health topics, so around like the importance of taking care of yourself and also around help seeking and the emotional regulation from the resilience rights, respectful relationships framework.

So I'd love to run some class lessons. I'm just waiting for the timetable to come out. and then I'll be able to slot that in somewhere. I'm also planning RUACA day in September and I'm going to be recruiting some of my students from the Drumbeat group to help me with that as well as some other staff if they're going to volunteer to help me. Yes, I'm really looking forward to that.

And this is sort of the first year of me working in schools that our UAC day will be sort of a face-to-face event and not virtual. That's exciting. I feel like you need Hermione's time to. There is so much going on at the moment. Yes, for sure. But I like to be busy. Then I won't be bored.

Well, yes, yes. That's definitely a plus. You're obviously doing such good work in this space and really passionate about what you're doing at the moment. But if you weren't doing this, do you have any interest in going back to child protection or maybe working with younger people again? Probably not child protection, but I'm really interested in a supervise. social work students. So that's something I'm really keen to get into. And also, you know,

in the next five or so years, I'd love to, you know, get into private practice and working probably still with children, adolescents and their families. So I think that would be, yeah, that would be amazing. But sort of, I'm one of these people that everyone's job as a social worker interests me. So I hear so many stories from your podcast about different areas of social work. like medical social work interests me as well. And I was like, oh, I should try that. So I'm sort of, I guess, open to anything. But while my children are still young, you know,

I'm sort of happy to work in schools and even dabble in a bit of private practice, you know, in a couple of years. That would be great. Yeah. As I was saying to you before we started recording, just the opportunity to do something like this and meet with people who are working in such diverse areas. It gives me energy.

And it makes me proud knowing that our profession, is everywhere and doing such amazing stuff. And often it's not, it's not flagged. It's not celebrated enough. It's just kind of, we slip in there and we do the stuff and we leave and people are hopefully better for it. But we try not to toot our own horns. We're not very good at that. We're very modest. And I think the more we can help other people explain the skills and the capacity that social work can bring the better, which is, again, why it's so good that there's this work that's happening in schools and trying to reach people when they're young, so that that can then hopefully translate to some of those better outcomes later on.

Yes, definitely. Is there anything else before we finish up that you wanted to talk about, whether it's about your own experience, what you're seeing in your work, or just what you love about doing social work? Well, I just want to encourage other social workers out there, whether you're still on your placement or, you know, whether you're fully qualified social worker is to consider school social work because I don't know that a lot of people consider it as a sort of a viable option. A lot of people, you know, have said to me that they weren't sure of other social work jobs where you can work with children and adolescents other than child protection. So, yeah, I think I would just encourage people. to give school social work a try because it is really good.

You can still make such a, you know, a difference. You don't need to, I guess, work with children and their families in a statutory setting to be able to make such a significant impact. Yeah, so it's very worthwhile and it is a great, you know, opportunity to have a good work-life balance. And even if you didn't have children of your own, still having school holidays off is still always good for yourself care. So I would highly recommend it.

Yeah, I really love that from a young age, you really dreamt big, like you were overcoming multiple barriers from that age and your desire to address some of those social disparities came really early. And the work that you're doing with the schools in supporting expression among the young people that you support and helping to break down some of those stigmas and normalizing mental health, as you were saying, or normalizing mental health issue. is really important. What I've seen, though, also is that you've really challenged yourself. You've come out of your comfort zone to learn more about the people and how you can support them. And you've used your own networks to create your own peer supervision group, which is huge.

Like that shows your desire for constant learning and further developing the profession, but also trying to build in the knowledge, the existing knowledge, and the enthusiasm from different professions into that group supervision. So, yeah, I think you've done so much in such a short amount of time, and it just sounds incredible. Thank you. Thanks so much. If anyone wanted to reach out to you to ask more about working as a social worker in

schools, where would you direct them? Well, they can find me through LinkedIn, so I'm sure you'll put my LinkedIn profile in your show notes. So they can find that's the best way to reach me. I will. Excellent. And are there any resources or, I don't know, great podcasts that you love to listen to, anything else that I can put in the show notes so people can go off and do a little bit of reading or viewing or listening? Yes, definitely. Well, firstly, I would recommend your podcast, Yasmin. It's been amazing for me to learn about, you know, all the other, all the other, you know, fields of practice, which is always so helpful.

there's quite a few books that I'd recommend. So there's one that's called Motivational Interviewing for School Counselors, and the author is Reagan North. And this one you can purchase from Amazon. There's another one called Lost at School, which is by Ross Green. That's Green with an E. So this is around looking at a different way to look at students,

with challenging behaviours. And this one is a huge eye-opener for me. So that's excellent. And then there's one called Creating Trauma-informed Strength-based classrooms by Tom Brunzel and Jacqueline Norrish. So they're from Berry Street. So that's around their trauma-informed sort of Barry Street approach. So that's really good.

I'd also highly recommend any training in DBT. So there's DBT training that's offered by Alex Wilson, who's an accredited mental health social worker, and she has a lot of resources around using DBT and working with adolescents that display sort of risky behaviours, that self-harm. So I'm actually going to register for one of her trainings, but she sometimes has free webinars as well,

so you can get a little bit of insight. I can send you the links, Yasmin. But there's also the AAASW has a school social worker practice guide as well, which is good. So there's also, you can find out more about my role, the mental health practitioner role on the Department of Education Victoria website too. So you can actually sort of read more about the role description and then how to apply as well. if you are based in Victoria or wanting to move to Victoria. So that's also a pretty good resource.

And also the Drumbeat facilitator training. So if there's any opportunity for you to do the Drumbeat facilitated training, I would highly recommend it. I was lucky to get sort of a funded opportunity. So I didn't have to pay for that. But you can contact Holy Oak who run Drumbeat and then sort of ask to be kept in the loop if there's any particular funded opportunities because the training can. be a little bit costly if you only have a shoestring budget like I do. Yeah, I think group leadership

training is something that we don't consider a lot as social workers, but it's just, it's so important. And again, even if you're not in a group leadership role or running groups, doing group leadership training as a social worker, at least for me, was amazing just in terms of being able to relate to someone and to develop your ability to really tune into what's happening in a social setting because often you get that opportunity to see how someone interacts with someone else, which you don't get in that one-to-one clinical setting. So, yeah, just my little piece of, I love group training, even if it's not going to be used immediately in your work.

Yes, definitely. Cool. Thank you so much, Jasmine. This has been a delight. I've loved hearing about your work. I think it's incredible. It sounds like you just keep piling on the additional programs and opportunities for these kids. And, yeah, I really look forward to keeping in touch and seeing what you come up with next.

Thanks so much, Yasmin. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure to be on the podcast that I listen to so often. Thanks again. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Jasmine, 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 Emma, a social worker and youth worker, who achieved accreditation as a mental health social worker while working at Headspace. Emma has expertise in a range of trauma-informed therapeutic interventions, including work with disordered eating associated with ADHD,

the impact of C-P-T-SD in ADHD, and the comorbidities of anxiety, depression and burnout. She has a passion for work in reframing and healing from shame associated with ADHD. 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.