Social Work Spotlight - Episode 71: Cathy C

Episode Date: November 25, 2022

In this episode I speak with Cathy, who has worked with a wide variety of populations in Sydney and in Cairns, through hospital, legal, youth, mental health and drug and alcohol services, as well as spending time volunteering overseas. She has recently moved into private practice, specialising in providing therapy in outdoor settings, with a range of mental health, family dynamics and practical needs. She has also completed research into the role of the priest’s wife within the Greek Orthodox Church in the Australian context, drawing from her own experience.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:The Shopfront youth legal service - https://www.theshopfront.org/ATODS in Cairns - https://adis.health.qld.gov.au/service-providers/alcohol-tobacco-and-other-drugs-service-atods-aplin-street-cairnsCounselling By The Seaside - https://www.instagram.com/counselling.by.the.seaside/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/17xSX6burD9f2dHssAg-v4RbXIkvfUSPbz8Or6jprBeU/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode. I'm your host, Jasmine McKee Wright, and today's guest is Kathy. It came to the profession after first working in personnel management before moving into community welfare and eventually social work. She has worked in a wide variety of populations in Sydney and in Cairns, through hospital, legal, youth, mental health, and drug and alcohol services, as well as spending time volunteering overseas. She has recently moved into private practice, specialising in providing therapy in outdoor settings

with a range of mental health, family dynamics and practical needs. She has also completed research into the role of the priest's wife within the Greek Orthodox Church in the Australian context, drawing from her own experience. Thank you, Cathy, for coming on to the podcast. Really happy to meet with you and chat with you about your social work experience. Wow, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure. And I'd love to know firstly how you got started in social work. What brought you to the profession? I guess what brought me to the profession as a social worker, I've always been that

person that was the go-to person from a young age that people came to with their problems, or for support, the shoulder to cry on, so to speak. But I came to social work. I come from a personal management background. The personal management background. The personal management was more about the training recruitment, training and development side of it, and also the psychology and the human behaviour. So that was my area of interests and expertise. Somehow out of that, I ended up, read about the psychology and wanted to do psychology. And then when I read up on psychology, I went, well, that sounds a little bit too narrow for me.

I like a broader range of capacity to be able to work with people. So I looked into the community services welfare and I did that first. And in there I identified that yes, definitely the counselling was my area that I preferred to practice, which took in behaviour and supporting people. with my primary focus being mental health and drug and alcohol and youth work. So once that was completed, I worked in the drug and alcohol field here in New South Wales in Sydney for a little bit. And then my husband was transferred to Cairns for his work.

And that's where I went into them, did my social work degree there. Okay. So kind of there was steps and different paths that opened up. It's a little bit of a roundabout way, but it all kind of makes sense in terms of the progression. Absolutely, because it's all that human behaviour, it's all the support, psychological interventions, it all mixes and matches. With the community services diploma, do they give you an opportunity for a placement, a practical component? Yes, I had three placements. One was in a drug and alcohol service

where we covered the methadone clinic and working with people that were drug or alcohol dependent coming out of rehab as well. The other area was youth work, which looked at providing that support and a lot of skills development with the youth work and identifying and information giving. And the other area, I actually worked in with a legal firm, but again, predominantly with

their focus, their clients, they provided pro bono work for people with mostly drug-related courts and legal issues. So that was a new position, actually. They hadn't thought of that before, and when I applied, they said, yeah, sure, we'll give it a go. Ah, so it wasn't advertised. It wasn't advertised. I sourced the show. It was called The Shopfront at the time.

I was down at Darling, or Kings Cross actually. Yeah. And they were intrigued with the idea I pitched. And they actually then started looking at because I got to do all the welfare work for people that. So it was housing, financial, centrelink, dealing with all the things that the lawyers and the solicitors had no idea. Yeah.

So then they looked at developing that position, which would have been for me specifically. But at the same time, we got the transfer to Cannes, so that didn't come to fruition. But that's okay because, you know, there's a whole other experience up in Cairns. Yeah, for sure. Which took me into the next phase,

which was the actual social degree. Yeah. It's interesting you say the legal side was something you were interested in. exploring a bit more. I did interview a lovely social worker Alexis who works for a law firm for Slater and Gordon and that was a newly created role and they're starting to roll out more positions and it just makes sense. It's that stuff that the lawyers either aren't confident dealing with or just don't have the time and it's a really important component of it because

as you know someone doesn't, the mental health or the drug and alcohol or the legal side of things doesn't happen in isolation. So there's all this context that's building to that person's presentation to court. So the other, just that you said, the mental health, the other place than I did was at Darlinghurst Community Mental Health Service, which was dealing with people with chronic mental health illness. Did you find that confronting as a baby community services worker? It would have been quite a lot to kind of get your head around.

I guess, no, I didn't find a confronting in the sense that, yes, there were, I saw a lot of new things and dealt with the non-new things, but I had a really good support person that was my mentor on site. So she was amazing. So she was able to, you know, we debriefed a lot and talked about it. And debriefing is very important in our profession because without that debriefing component, it, we could end up taking the other people's problems on board and making it our own. Yeah. So, well, yes, there was a new, you knew aspects to our human behaviour, like hoarding and the

related risks that come with that. So I guess I learnt to do risk analysis very early on in the piece for people in their living situations as well. So as you know with hoarding, you know, some of our hoarders love the newspapers and the magazines and they're the huge virus. Okay, so that was an incredible experience even before you started social work. You made the decision to start the degree. Tell me about that journey.

I guess the welfare was the stepping stone to the social work degree. I wanted to clarify within myself that that was the profession I wanted to enter. So having experienced what I did with the welfare, then yes, it absolutely made the social work the right fit for me. And the reason I chose social work over psychology, just psychology, was because it gives you that broader framework to practice with people that are struggling, that are having difficulties. So you look at a person holistically, not just, you know, the OCD, for example, component of their struggles to just modify and work on whatever they're going to do with the

OCD behaviours. It's more about looking at everything else. So the environment, the social, the financial, the work situation, families. And in here, it's, where I started seeing the family dynamic and what a major impact it has on people's mental health overall and everything else in their life. Sure. Moving to a new city, a new state, while all that is going on is quite disruptive, did you find it easy to transition straight into the degree? Yes, it wasn't.

I didn't find it any difficulty because, like I said, I had my application. I was approved to, you know, I got accepted into New South here and to do the social work degree. So it's just a matter of transferring that. The change of state was a new experience because I've always been in Sydney since we migrated from, you know, the motherland from Greece because I'm Greek. And actually my parents are Greeks from Egypt. So that as well hasn't been an impact. It's just a new way of life. But I had to leave family behind.

I had to leave children and a little young grandson that made the move there. But the work when we went there was new stuff. Yes, there was an adjustment, understanding and seeing how you leave everyone behind. So for the families that migrated from other countries, you know, that going to something new, I didn't have a language barrier.

but it was still that adjustment. Yeah. Is there a large Greek community in Kans? There was. It's a very transient community. At the time when we got there, because we went there for my husband's work, which was the Greek Orthodox parish priest of Kans at the time.

So we had about 400 Greek families that were registered in the census for a few years before, which is the reason they built the church. church. So it was very much about a community development place. And so I kind of sat really well with my social work and experience already. It would have been some interesting stories at the dinner table, I imagine, around community building and, yeah, just supporting families. Absolutely. Yeah. And what were your placements as part of the social work degree? My placement was, again, drug and alcohol. And the hospital. And the hospital.

hospital. They were the two placements that I just had to do. So the drug and alcohol was easy because it was already an area that I had practiced in was familiar with. And I actually then, because I was a qualified welfare worker, I actually got a position with A. Tods, the drug and alcohol service, alcohol, tobacco and other drug service in cans. And then the hospital all gives you such a broad range of experience. Yeah. Did you have an opportunity to run groups as part of that? Absolutely.

The groups we ran were skill building, so teaching life skills. Predominantly, our clients were male, and a lot of them that had gone into rehab, detox. So they went in, they detox, then they did rehab. Then they came to our services to develop. some skills. So we ran a lot of groups. One was, you know, teaching them how to cook. One was anger management. One was developing communication skills. The other one was problem solving. The other group was, you know, goal setting. Did you have an opportunity to do any training in group leadership or you just kind of ran with it? I guess coming from the personnel

management, I already had the training because I used to do training and development. So so transferable. So all of my qualifications, all of my training all fit in just perfectly. What we did do with a colleague, we developed a peer support group. So in that we identified people that were on their recovery path and doing well, trained them up and budded them up with someone that was just coming out of rehab. or just, you know, in the early stages of recovery. So we developed that program with a colleague,

and it worked quite well, and then the funding, as everything in social way, is funding-based. But we ran it for a year, so it was pretty good. Yeah, wow. Yeah. After you worked for A-Todds and the funding ran out, did you continue working in that area, or did you mostly work in the hospital?

I reduced the hours with ATARs with the drug and alcohol service and increased my hours at the hospital. So what happened with the hospital? Because I had so much experience over the years, I was there for 13 years. So in that time, I got the opportunity to work on all rewards. So I ended up being the locum. So when people were on leave, I could just step into their, ward and provide the support. So whether it was the maternity or emergency, ICU, surgical, orthopedic, and level six, which was the aged care, our elderly that would

experience falls and then a lot of work was with the families. Yeah. Such great experience having that opportunity to work across the different wards. And I would imagine also the teams, on those wards, the doctors and the allied health staff and the nurses would probably, they'd get to know you. And so if someone on their team was going away, if the social worker who normally looks after that ward was going away, they probably felt a little bit more reassured knowing, oh, Kathy's coming, it's okay. Kind of like that.

And being Cairns, we worked a lot with indigenous, the indigenous population. So it was good, I guess for me, being Greek, having an understanding of the cultural impact and the importance of culture. Yeah. So the clients or the patients found that comfort zone because I could identify with, you know, their cultural nuances, the things that they would do as their traditions. For example, if someone passed away,

and then we would have them all viewing. But they had specific the traditions. so we were able to cater to that and work with the staff down in the morgue to have, whether they were Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders. So it was amazing work. I feel very blessed to have been able to be a part of them. Wow. And how does that then transition?

You've worked there for 13 years. You've come back to Sydney. What does that look like? And how is your, I guess, social work identity changed? My social work identity. Good question. Yes, ma'am. So the transition, I came back to Sydney and applied for positions.

The one position, I applied for two positions, actually, and I got both, both part-time. The one position was social worker on the wards at St. George Hospital, and that was surgical and rehab. So that were the two wards I worked together with. Yeah. Because after surgery, then most of the patients would go to rehab, so the transition, so it was about an easy flow, the continuity of care. That's really clever. That's really big focus.

And the other position I got was actually the Greek bilingual social worker for the eastern suburbs. I worked at Maribra Community Mental Health for several years and working specifically with Greek families. obviously I worked with other nationalities and everyone else, but the focus was I was the Greek bilingual. So I got to work with our clients that were of Greek heritage. But most of that work was providing support to the families. Yeah. So again, the family dynamic is very important to understand.

And did you work in their homes or was it in the clinic mostly? A bit of both. So a lot of the work, was I did a lot of home visits, yes, accompanying clients to their appointments and whatever. But the home visits were mostly to support the family. A lot of psychoeducation on mental health, teaching them skills on how to manage their husband, wife, child's mental health, you know, the anger, the anxiety, the depression, a whole plethora of issues, you know, challenges that they faced.

And one of the other things, I'm not very much on the office situation. So I always used to say to my clients, yep, we'll meet in the office and then we're going to go out for a bit. So I used to being in Maruba, obviously take them down to Maruba Beach for walk and talk therapy.

Gradual exposure for those who were nervous around crowds. So we would sit in a cafe quietly and have drink of choice, tea, coffee, water, whatever it was, slowly, slowly. And in there, the therapy happened very naturally. And as an example, one of my clients said, okay, I'm ready now after we'd work together for several months for you to start counselling me. Wow. And I said, well, actually.

I hate to tell you this. I started counselling from when we said, hi, and you said, I'm your, I'm said, I'm your new case manager, right? And she goes, no. And I said, yeah, let's do a reflection on where you were six weeks ago and where you are now. Yeah. And she was stunned. That's such a testament to your approach then that she didn't even realize it was counselling.

That's amazing. And so along those lines at that time, when I came back to Sydney and I was kind of stressing, I hadn't had a job yet, I then actually started up my own process. practice and my own practice is called counselling by the seaside because that's unnatural for me. Yeah. The walk and talk along the beach. And as it panned out, I obviously took that into the organisations I worked with, community mental health. So I was at the River Our Community Mental Health Centre for several years and then I transitioned

over, I moved over to St George Community Mental Health for another few years. where again the same practice framework. Walk and talk along the beach, relaxed, sitting in a cafe, graded exposure, people learning to not grab their coffee and just skull it. So practicing mindfulness basically. So I do a lot of mindfulness groups as well. So within all of that,

I've also facilitated several Greek focus groups which is support for carers of people with mental health or some just DV situations as well, domestic abuse situations. And in there is where we get to do, you know, learn mindfulness and practice, how we respond to those who come at us aggressively or verbally abusive. So a lot of those techniques. So I do a lot of that, yes, when I was working with the service, services but I do a lot of that as well in my private practice and then I had the opportunity to

go to Greece for a few years lovely did you work there as well I did a lot of volunteers so there was some support groups that I kind of just sat in on and just me being me just naturally you know facilitating and just guiding people and was it like a Sydney or a Cairns was it like met It was more of a Cairns. It was an island actually. So it was an island situation. So it was a smaller community. So that was nice. So just providing, you know, setting up networks. So a network of support for women from around the world was one of the groups that had moved to Egyna, to the island of Eginah just off Athens mainland. So starting up that support group, Aririn, Arir, didn't start it. but someone started it and brought me on board and she goes, yeah, Katerina, here you go. And so little things like that, which is just a natural, I guess, like you said, all the training, all the experience, I get to put it into practice in my everyday life.

Yeah. Are you still working for community mental health and for St. George? No. As I said, I was in grace for two years. So when I came back, I decided, while I was away, actually, I decided to focus on my private practice. So since then, I've pretty much working in my private practice. My referrals come from lots of different places, former colleagues, you know, psychiatrists, social workers, psychologists, nurses that I've worked with over the years, referred people, mostly Greek, especially when they find them quite challenging.

And they'll ring me, they go, Kathy, we have someone. Yeah. It's a little bit more challenging. The other area that I get referrals is from the church community, from our Greek church community. The reason being, yes, I'm Greek, but I also work within a very Orthodox Christian practice framework

with my social work framework. So it's not only cultural, it's also the spiritual side. And the reason being is a lot of people, especially like from the church or, you know, that have a faith, don't want mainstream because mainstream therapists, counselors, psychologists don't quite understand the nuances of tradition and faith and our practices as Orthodox. any culture really because I say orthodox because I am but any culture which was where working with the indigenous community in Cairns came in handy too because I understood the importance of that spiritual content of their life so it was easy for me to kind of just naturally transition it into what I do here. Are you able to articulate for me just how your personal, professional and

spiritual, I'm just thinking there are these three pillars here. What is it about that combination do you think that lends itself well to social work? I think it's the understanding and awareness that we are not one-dimensional. We are multi-dimensional beings, so all of it comes into play. So when someone is unwell mentally, like their mental health, so they're having, say anxiety, They're getting very anxious about what's going to happen and what tomorrow's going to bring. Then we look at the social work gives me the framework of, okay, this is what our mental health, and these are the therapies we can draw on. The cultural aspect of me goes, well, I really know the family, so I'll look at the family dynamic,

so therein I can draw from, let's look at what's happening in Rock. home, let's look at the upbringing, let's look at all the other impacting factors. And on top of all that, the understanding that, unfortunately, in this day and age, there is still stigma attached to mental health. We're much better at it. I'm always out there, you know, advocating and all our services, everyone's out there, you know, the advertising and that. but there are just some ideas that are so deeply rooted,

some of those stigmas and shame. So a long time ago, I was very fortunate to be a part of a community project with St. George. I was at Maruba Community Mental Health, and St. George, she was the psychologist, the Greek bilingual psychologist therapist at St. George Community Mental Health. They were working on a play that had written by the Macedonian, mental health clinician about, well, the stigma and the fear and the shame.

And that's actually what he wrote a book, that they then transferred and translated into a play. And then we took the play and transcribed it into Greek. So I was part of that project, which was fascinating. Yeah, just making everything so accessible. That's so great. Absolutely. So we had that, I'm just trying to think of the year. It must have been about 2014, 2015.

So we do have that DVD, and I have spoken to a lot of the churches to air it and do another awareness of it. So the play was amazing, the actors with the Greek team in Marifield, the Hellenic Theatre Company. They were amazing. And I got to be a very hands-on in all aspects.

not only the transcribing from English to Greek, but also then being there for the actors to provide them debrief and support, because there's some pretty intense moments. Yeah, the concepts and content. Yeah. Wow. Just when you mentioned the bilingual psychologist and counsellor, are there bilingual social work roles elsewhere in Sydney? That was pretty much it.

Once I left Cogra, the community mental health in Cogra, funding. for that position went to another cultural worker. The Maruba position was still available. After I left, it was vacant for many, many things. They eventually did find someone to fill that role, and then she moved on, and they did keep asking me to come back. But I was overseas.

A little bit difficult. And my understanding is that the position still exists and there is someone there now, but I don't know for sure. Okay. Actually. I guess just because of the huge concentration in the area. So, yes. Justify the funding.

Yeah, absolutely. So to answer your question, Yasmin, there are many Greek social workers out there, many social workers that are Greek and have Greek heritage and background, but funded positions and that actually work as specifically the Greek no. They will, if there's a Greek worker in the wars because I was a Greek worker in the hospital in the wars and they had a Greek patient, yes, they would call me and say, calm because I don't know what she's saying, which is fine.

To an extent, I guess. Yeah, paid positions. Yeah. Which is I guess why the focus for me, I'm very in my niche is that Greek working with, I mean, I have clients that are non-Greek, obviously. But predominantly, my client is Greek. Why not? And that's my niche.

Yeah. So where does the funding come from for these people who are being referred to? Is there some NDIS funding? Is it aged care? Or is it all private? It's a combination. It's absolutely all of it. So if my client has NDIS funding, yes, then it will go through their NDIS funding.

I don't have my accreditation. I don't have my Medicare provider number. I do charge on a sliding scale because so many people are struggling. So, yeah, it depends. And those who have, pay those who don't have, still get the service. It's good of you. What do you find the most challenging thing about either being a social worker or creating this private practice?

For me, the most. most challenging is when I have to give someone a bill to pay. Yeah. That is my challenge. Putting a value on your work. Put it a value, yeah. That I guess is the most challenging for me. But otherwise, I feel very, very blessed that I get to work as all parts of me.

Yep. So it's, you know, the social worker, the personnel manager, the training and development. the mentor, the teacher. I taught at JCU as well. Actually, I was a lecturer of it. Just in your spare time. Yeah. And what do you love most?

What is the thing that gets you going when you've had a particularly rough day? Just knowing that people have someone that they can talk to without judgment, without discrimination, without telling you I told you so. Yeah, just knowing that, people have someone to talk to. I'm sure you get wonderful feedback as well from clients and families.

Yeah, pretty good. Yeah. I got a nice letter once from a young man that he was first on set psychosis, and non-Greek actually. and we worked together for a couple of years and it was really nice because and then I went overseas and he sent me a letter saying thank you from the guy who you saved his life that's so beautiful so that was nice yeah so yeah that's one of the rewards you mentioned when you first started there was an amazing mentor I guess when you're a student do you have any way

good now, anyone that you rely on, what sort of support do you need when you're working for yourself? Look, the support you need when you're working for yourself, you do need to have your regular supervision. So your go-to person, so you can, like I said, early, debrief. So if you're struggling, for example, I had a tough situation where the client came to me for anger management, but as it evolved as we started unpacking and looking, all that anger was coming from suppressed childhood sexual abuse. So it's that hard to lie. It's not my area of expertise.

Yes, I have knowledge. Yes, I can do. There are therapies and there are strategies you put into place, but it's beyond my, and I recognize that I, have my own, you know, capacity. This isn't beyond my area of expertise. Yeah. So I have no problem referring clients on.

I don't have ownership. And I feel that everyone deserves the best care from the right people at the right time. So I had my person that I go to to talk about that and get her experience. experience and guidance and support as to which way to go to help my client. So it's kind of you need to have someone. And in private practice, yeah. So it's different when you're working in an organisation with a group of people. You've always got someone to have a chat in the tea room or your supervisor.

But in private practice, you have to make sure you find time to debrief. The other thing, self-care. Self-care is extremely important. But you know when you need to rest, you know when you've reached capacity. You know when this is my time out now to look after me. And putting that stuff into place. And if you can have someone that does your admin, that's great.

But I don't. Do you find time for professional development? Do you meet up with other private practice social workers? Look, I have, I guess, I mean, I have such a broad network of psychologists, social workers that I guess we're always talking. So I'm not shy and I have no pride in saying, look, I need help now. And we have the AASW that's got all the courses and the trainings. So there's always something to tap into there. One of the things now I'm working on is becoming us like doing the training to become a supervisor

to do supervision for other social workers. Lovely. Because that's kind of where I want to focus and look at being there for those who do what we do. That's also a great adjunct to your private practice. Yeah, absolutely. Because you can take on as many supervision clients as you need to at the time. Correct. And you can scale back if, yeah, you've got the control.

And I think that's what I really like about the private practice. I have the control. When I got back from Greece, having been independent for two years just about, and I went and visited, you know, my colleagues at the office and they're all happy to see me and they're like, you know, we've got a position waiting for you. And I looked around and I went, you know, know what, I love you guys, but no.

This isn't my place. This isn't my place anymore. My wings, I've spread my wings, and I need to keep doing that. Yeah. So. So important to recognize that rather than falling back on the comfort. Yeah. And it's also, as a private practitioner, one of the traps that I've heard other clinicians

over the years and many years now from Cairns and here is they have the same client. for 10, 15 years. The first time I heard that, I was very early social workers, very early in my career as a social worker. And this nurse in the multidisciplinary team, she was very proud that she had a client, and she was her client for the last 20 years, right? And I had just been referred to her son

that had a major alcohol dependency problem. And it struck me at that point, if that client is still with you after 20 years and you are saying as the practitioner, she's still the same, my question for me is if that was me is what am I doing wrong? What am I not doing right for that client? Sure. That's stuck in this cycle of 20 years.

now their child is potentially stuck in the same cycle. And now we've got the child, yes. Sadly, that child, if I may share the story, I did work with him for about six months, and he went into, we got to the point where he wanted to go into rehab and clean up and detox from alcohol. Unfortunately, the drug dealers hang out outside of rehab centres. That's just, you know, everyone knows.

So yes, he stopped the alcohol, but he then picked up heroin. And then he stopped seeing me because he was just too ashamed. And it was really sad. And eventually they found him overdosed in one of the streets. So that's one of the sad things. So they're the challenges that you have. What did I not do? But I know that, and I talked to my supervisor and debriefed on that,

and I knew I did whatever I could as a practitioner. It was just circumstances and his life. So it was a big learning curve. And I guess from me there was the learning that you look at not just the person, but the environment. And you are one snapshot in time. So, you know, you could do everything right. And still there are so many other influences.

That's right. So you just don't know. Yeah. And I guess that reinforces, like, people who work in emergency departments get this all the time. Sometimes you do need to treat your work as if it's a one-session therapy session, as if they're not going to come back. Even if you've got an approved six sessions, 10, 20, you want to try to get the most out of that interaction because it might be the last.

Absolutely. And when I was working with Sir George, Community Mental Health, I've worked on the crisis team. So I was case manager for the Greg bilingual. And then when they needed extra help, I was doing shifts with the acute care team, the crisis team. So it's very much crisis intervention on the spawn. Someone's ringing and saying they want to kill themselves

and at the train station and they're ready to jump in front of the train. So the whole team then will snap to and drop everything we're doing. And one will ring ambulance, one will ring police, the other ones talking on them to keep them going. Were you on call as well? No, I didn't do on call, but I did do the shifts, the seven-day roster shifts on acute care. Which can really weigh you down.

Yeah, I guess. Well, yes, and again, you've got your colleagues around, so you have that bouncing board if you want to call with that. It was a buffer. Yeah. So if you're having a tough time and a lot of time they've gone, hang on a sec we've got the Greek worker here and I'll hand over it. Fix please.

And I'll hand over the phone. And it is. And it's very different. It's like emergency fast pace. It's there and then life or death literally. I realize I haven't asked you about your dissertation thesis and I'm very interested to know a little bit more about the research you've done. Oh, okay. So my research, my honours for my degree,

was very much about, well, I guess it sprang from me being, having that new position in Cairns as a priest's wife. So it came about exploring what is the role of the priest's wife, the Presbyterra, within the Greek Orthodox Church in the Australian context. So all of that was around what is my role, what is my responsibilities, what do I do, how am I doing it? So it was very much about unpacking those stories and interviewing other priests' wives and looking at their stories

and sitting in frameworks of perceptions before becoming a priest's wife and entering that world and then, you know, expectations of the people in that your priest, your husband, the hierarchs of the church, the church community, what are the expectations of a priest's wife?

What were our expectations as the priest's wife? What was his expectations of us? And then sitting it in the reality of our life. So that was the finding. So things that came up were, you know, the title, the way we dress and the language was an issue and a barrier. And it was very much a learning experience for me coming from a personnel management background. I needed to know what's my role?

What's my responsibilities? What do I do? How do I support my husband in his ministry? How does that work? So it gave me within the social work framework of being able to unpack, you know, and looking at that. And I'm a very phenomenal logical researcher, so it was all about the stories. That would be such an amazing resource for anyone new coming into that realm, I would imagine. I must say, and I will be a little bit proud about this, that thesis, it's still in thesis form, has traveled Australia and overseas pretty much for the last almost 20 years, has been handed out by our church hierarchs,

sent around priest's wives that new ones are emailing it and then we've at meetings and they're meeting me and they're going oh presbyterna you're the one who wrote that so nice to meet you yeah your reputation proceeds so it's our work in progress to turn it into some kind of a book but it is a work in progress I have so many other things happening you're also doing so much volunteering and I guess in context of what you've just said I'm wondering how much of that is the expectations of the presbyterra or how much of that is you being a social worker and not being able to kind of you know untile that look it's me I can't untire I really love being there and I guess it's my ministry and my social worker advocating serving giving you can't switch off

It's my natural. I wouldn't say it's the, the Praswitera or the social worker. I would say it's Kathy. That brings it all together and is that person that is happy to, yes, definitely cook meals and pack them and take them out and give them to the homeless, to those less fortunate, recruit volunteers to help. So there's my personnel stuff. So there's no, I guess, Yasmin, for me, there's no delineation anymore. One of the things in doing some self-care and self-reflection and all that self-growth and looking at who I am, I am all of these things.

Yes, I have title, yes, I have a professional, you know, title and a spiritual church title and that. But at the end of the day, it all comes together. and is given out as Kathy, Catherine, Gaterina, Presbytera, whichever. It's me. Yeah. Perfect. If you weren't doing, I guess, the private practice, are there any other areas of social work that you might like to go back and explore,

like maybe the youth work, the drug and alcohol, the legal? Would you want to work overseas again? Definitely want to work overseas. And I guess the work overseas. And I guess the work. way I work, it would be the same similar. It would be those support groups. What I'm aiming to do now is I've done some mindfulness along the beach, just small groups. The other things I want to start up and projects for the future are, you know, support groups for women, you know, that

are grieving, support groups for men that are grieving. Doing these little support groups for people in different, you know, teaching people how to be better communicators because communication skills are very poor, especially with our younger generation. So going to your question, youth work, I work with so many young people across the board, whether it's the volunteers at the church or clients that come to me because I work with all ages. I don't have age specific. Like I work with the parents that are having difficulties with their children and through working with the parents, I work with the children. So that's where going home visits is very important for me and for the holistic, you know, sitting at the table with them and having dinner together

and watching manners and then how the parents interact with their children and being able to then provide a very specific and appropriate therapy framework. Do you have any other research interests, anything you might want to branch off and do if you had time? One of the things, and it's been an ongoing project, stemming from a thesis, sending from that dissertation, is the support network for the Presbyteris within the church

and pretty much whoever, like people that work in the church. So that's kind of been, I do have a support group. I am the go-to person, if you want to call it that, not for all priest-wives, but quite a few. And because it's all confidential, the second, the bounce off for my masters of that was exploring the roles of married clergy in the church,

but not the marriage per se, the ministry combination of the marriage couple. So how, what are the priest's expectations and the wife's, you know, her role, how to see. So it's a spinoff of the role of the Pleistveter. And what I found when I was doing the research, again, interview very much about their stories, I thought everyone said, oh, press I'm going to talk to you, Gilmos, but really they did. They were very, very happy. It's all confidential, so they were free to speak.

speak and share. And again, I feel very, very blessed. Which you couldn't have done if you hadn't built that trust within the community. That's it. Which is, again, why priests themselves are referring people for that extra support to me because they know that, a lot of care and compassion and understanding. Yeah. And not sharing.

That's right. in what you're saying i'm hearing a lot of like cognitive behavioral modification theory stuff there's a lot of strengths there's strong counseling skills you've mentioned mindfulness are there any good resources that you would point people to if they wanted to know more about these things look the way that our world is now you can google everything and you can get resources i'm loath to just say there's one because there are many you know our libraries are full our resource our social work association you know they have resources as well and they have good links but I would look at you know developing your strengths based therapy giving you know like you said I do a lot of

CVT but it's a combination and I'll do a lot of you know that interview style therapy which is the talking based that. So to say that I would say there is some resource one specific, not that I kind of look at them all and pull out what's appropriate for each client. Yeah, that makes sense. So, you know, we have the good old textbooks that we go back to every now and then. So one I would say, again, reflective practice is very, very, very,

important too so we need to be doing a lot of our self-reflection as how we are as practitioners so you know what happened how could we what could we have done differently how could we have responded differently could i have referred better so if things don't go quiet or you get stuck so reflective practice is very very important yeah right throughout our discussion the cross-colds. cultural skills have just shone for me. You've talked about the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population in Cairns. You've talked about the work overseas. You've talked about the work in Sydney and the identification of those nuances to try to better understand someone's experience and also using that faith-based approach, which is free from judgment. You've also, in your

professional practice, you've just kind of gone with the flow, which I really love. You haven't sort out one specific area you've gone, well, this is the experience I've had in my placements, this is what I'm interested in, this is where the wind is taking me and I'm just going to go with it, which is really fantastic. And throughout your practice, you build on a person's strengths, but also building in that spiritual framework. So as we were talking about, there's those pillars. And I think you said working from all parts of me, which I really love. Bringing yourself to your practice and I guess expecting to a certain degree that someone would do the same in opening up and sharing a little bit about them so that you can better support them. And I love that you

reiterated the importance of recognizing the limits of your expertise. So again, referring out, working with your community, which you've had the opportunity to really build through all the different roles that you've had in community, in hospital. I think that's really got. you to this point where you can just have someone say, oh, I think I have someone who Kathy might be really helpful for and they've reached out to you, which is really lovely. It's really flattering, I think. It's very nice. Yes, again, I feel very, very blessed that I've had these opportunities and that I can

be there when people need me to be there. So very much about one of the first things we learn in personal management is the right person, at the right place at the right time. So I think that encapsulates everything we do, being that right person at the right place, at the right time, regardless of what we're doing in life. Yeah. And people come and go out of our lives for a zillion reasons.

We all know the typical, you know, to learn, to stay, et cetera, et cetera. So there's a zillion reasons people come and go out of our lives. at any given point. It's been incredibly interesting and it's obviously not finished. You've got so much more to offer the community and hopefully as additional funding comes about and policy changes and all these things,

people will hopefully have greater access to your supports. I guess one of the things I'm exploring is want grants and funding support there is so that I can provide this service for those who, have struggled or struggle financially. I guess what we haven't touched on is the last two years and the struggle of the change of lifestyles,

the lockdowns, the loss of jobs, the coercion, the bullying, all that stuff that's happened and the impact it's had on people and their lives personally, professionally, spiritually, psychologically, emotionally, on all levels. So I guess a lot of, lot of the work I've done, particularly in the last 12 months, has been providing that support

to people to just get through day to day and not, you know, end up wanting to commit suicide because we know our suicide rates have gone up even though the figures aren't public. We know families are falling apart. We know domestic abuse has increased in the homes because the perpetrators have been. haven't got anywhere else to go on. Yeah. So. There's a lot of work that still needs to be done.

There's a lot of work. So again, one of the perceptions people have, when you say you're a social worker, has been, wow, you must be you are so busy now with all these things. You must be making so much money. And it's like, yes, I am busy and God provides it's not about the money. Yeah. Oh, thank you again so much, Kathy. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you.

your experience and I look forward to seeing how your practice flourishes in future. Thank you, Yasmin, it's been a pleasure. I think what you're doing is amazing and it's touching a lot of social workers' lives out there and giving the opportunity for those who aren't heard. I talk a lot, so a lot of people know what I do, right? And I'm pretty sure my kids will hear this and go, we've heard it all months. but no giving opportunity for those who aren't out in mainstream aren't that vocal to how do they say and share their stories and their experiences it's amazing good on you

well done thank you i appreciate that thanks for joining me this week if you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or kathy 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 Lucinda, a clinical social worker, supervisor and manager with 15 plus years of varied experience in the child, youth, family, community development, and mental health sector. She has a vast array of experiences in working with individuals and groups in community and clinical mental health settings, leading teams of allied health practitioners and students, supporting and empowering staff in working together to grow to their full potential while sustaining their well-being.

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.