Social Work Spotlight - Episode 72: Lucinda

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

In this episode I speak with Lucinda, a Clinical Social Worker, Supervisor and Manager with 15+ years of varied experiences in the child, youth, family, community development and mental health sectors. She has a passion for early intervention and prevention, young people, leadership and wellbeing for practitioners. She has a vast array of experience in working with individuals and groups in community and clinical mental health settings. She is motivated to lead teams of allied health practitioners and students, and to support and empower staff in working together to grow to their full potential whilst sustaining their wellbeing.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Russ Harris, ACT Made Simple (An Easy-To-Read Primer on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy). Introduction and first two chapters - https://www.actmindfully.com.au/upimages/ACT_Made_Simple_Introduction_and_first_two_chapters.pdfACT Mindfully, resources and workshops - https://www.actmindfully.com.au/Vikki Reynolds, Solidarity, Collective Care and Resisting Burnout -  https://vikkireynolds.ca/Vikki Reynolds, Connection and Collective Care: The zone of fabulousness - https://vikkireynoldsdotca.files.wordpress.com/2019/09/2019-context-uk-zone-of-fabulousness-reynolds.pdfBrené Brown, Dare To Lead - https://brenebrown.com/book/dare-to-lead/Dare to Lead Hub - https://brenebrown.com/hubs/dare-to-lead/This episode's transcript can be viewed here:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JfdwGGvzJuYgENYlp4_6EwZtO-IpOkaSVfwfhbNmdd8/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 Lucinda, a clinical social worker, supervisor and manager with 15 plus years of varied experiences in the child, youth, family, community development and mental health sectors. She has a passion for early intervention and prevention, young people, leadership and well-being for practitioners. She has a vast array of experience in working with individuals and groups in community and clinical mental health settings. She is motivated to lead teams of allied health professionals and students and to support and empower staff in working together to grow to their full potential while sustaining their well-being. Thank you so much, Lucinda, for coming on to the podcast. I'm very happy to have a chat with you about your experience in social work so far. Thank you for having me.

I'd love to know when you started as a social worker and what drew you to the profession. So I started as a social worker officially straight out of uni and I went straight into uni from when I finished school. So I was one of those people that kind of just went straight to uni, straight to social work afterwards. But as like a late school person, I suppose the real. reason why I chose social work originally, it was more that it chose me than I chose it. And I think I liked the degree, the options. I liked the options that it was so many different variety of places that you could go into. But I did kind of mainly go into it because I felt like as a young person, I needed that support. So that's kind of, I suppose, the origin story.

Yeah, okay. How did you even learn that social work was a thing in the first place? So my father worked his whole career at Sydney University. So he knew the ins and outs of all the different degrees. And so he and my mom, it was one of those when you do your train. choices at the end of year 12 and you're like, what's my priority and what do I want kind of thing? And I really didn't know much at that point. Yeah. But if you've got a U-A guide at home to refer to, that's incredibly handy. My dad, my dad kind of said, look, what do you care about and what do you want?

And he and my mum were very much the people that kind of said, oh, there's this thing called social work. Yeah. I also have a godparent. One of my godparents is a social worker. And so that connection was there as well from the beginning. Okay. What kind of social work did they do? So she used to be a hospital social worker and she did a variety. So I've put a lot of her career with hospital social work. And did that type of social work interest you at all? No, definitely not. I've never been in such hospitals.

Never wanted to do that type of work. I did do a placement in a rehab setting, rehab hospital. And yeah, it just didn't appeal to me that setting, the medicalised setting, just really I struggle with that a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. But you studied a diploma, grad dip in counselling initially. Did that have any practical component to it? I studied a grad dip after. I studied a grad dip. my social work degree, actually. Yeah, so I did the Bachelor of Social Work and then I did a grad dip after a couple years later. So that would have been after I had already done a whole bunch of like a couple of years in family support.

And then after that I started that grad dip. I knew upon finishing my Bachelor that I was thinking about mental health social work and working in more the like counselling side of social work, I did kind of think of that, but I did want a gap after finishing my degree. I was kind of rejoicing at the end studying. Ready to work and get paid for it. Yes. And, you know, after those long placements at the end, you're really kind of keen to get paid.

Yeah. But also just get your teeth stuck in to actually doing the work. Uh-huh. But I had that kind of on my mind in the horizon, going into counselling, getting more skills because I didn't feel. feel the actual degree gave me enough of that counselling skills that I really wanted, more of the mental health side of things that I wanted to go deeper into. Okay, so apart from your hospital placement, what was your other placement? Did you have one or two? And what was it about those that

perhaps ignited your passion to go into the area that you are now? It was more my passion for young people. I suppose throughout my career, when I reflect on all of the areas that I've been working in, it really is young people, is kind of the flavour throughout all of them. And young people's mental health and wellbeing is kind of that added part from a social work point of view that I really have focused on. But my second placement was at a family support service. for a NGO and I ended up getting a job there afterwards and it wasn't necessarily the area that I definitely wanted to be in but the team at that organisation that team was really good quality and I am still actually really close to my then manager this many years later and I think that's

really that taught me a lot about what a true social worker is that placement very grateful for that particular supervisor. Sounds like she was an incredible mentor as well. Yeah, and I mean, you know, she's now one of my close friends and we're a peer supervision group together, which I really value. And I think that really was like true kind of the family support,

those years that I did family support, I did, even back then I was like wanting to work with young people. So she used to kind of pick the ones that she would allocate to me that they would have a younger person, like an older sibling, as well as the one under the age of eight to support the parents and that because she knew that that was kind of my thing that I was super passionate about. But I think that that team really taught me about case management, really good quality case management and really good client land service provision. and what it is to be a good social worker to your team as well, because I think the well-being of your colleagues, your manager or your team that you're leading is also a really important piece of kind of the work that we do.

I think at the moment in particular, like I've been thinking about that quite a lot, just post-pandemic, we're all a bit burnt out. And I've been thinking a lot about what it is to be the social worker for my team. That idea that it's really important to be there for your team and you'd be there for them. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Do you work with a lot of other social workers at the moment,

or is your team kind of broad in terms of maybe nursing and other allied health professionals? At the moment, yeah, my current role, we've got a mixture. We've got a couple of social workers, a couple of psychologists, a couple of nurses. We've got probably more social workers at the moment in the makeup of our team, but it's really broad multidisciplinary team where I'm working at the moment. And I think that what I love about that about multidisciplinary teams is just the quality service provision that you can provide because you've got all kind of aspects of all different disciplines coming together to support what the individual needs because, you know, we're all taught

slightly different things and from slightly different lenses and a nurse background has different elements. They might focus more on the physical body a little bit, you know, because that's the bulk of their training. But as we know, physical body and now mental health, are very closely aligned. So that gives a really good kind of angle to the picture when you're looking at an individual who comes to a service for whatever goal that they've got. Having it from a different perspective, I think is really just a really good holistic picture. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think it is then about social work, whether it's you personally, you as a professional, maybe our training that lends itself well to that sort of leadership position.

Yeah, really good question. I've been thinking about this a bit lately, actually, about how I've noticed the best managers that I've had been social workers, and I think social workers are good leaders. I think it's that idea that at its heart, social workers are about focusing on, the individual. So for a team, that means focusing on each staff member or each aspects of the service delivery. So it's that individual making sure that it's focused around the client, but also that team approach, the collaborative care element, the holistic mindset. it's almost like focusing on the individual but having lots of different circles kind of

broadening out and that kind of system's perspective of social workers that I think makes a good leader because they've kind of got that ability to think about the individual but also the bigger picture and all the pieces of the puzzle that fit together all the circles that yeah yeah all the contextual stuff yeah Did you need to do any additional leadership training or have you since sought out that training since you've been in this role? I did a lot of leadership training because I've always wanted to be a manager. I've kind of seen that as something that I wanted to get to in terms of my career path. Always felt that leadership kind of strength in me and my ability to see that big picture and help other people with big picture things.

So I did do quite a lot of short courses. I did professional supervision courses. I did kind of management courses from a more management perspective. I did leadership courses. So I've done quite a lot of training. Yeah. From like a social work lens and then just a management lens and then a leadership lens. Yeah.

It did help. Yeah. Can you tell me about your current role and what the day-to-day looks like? Yeah. So my current role is pretty. busy actually. So I'm manager of a youth mental health service and I have probably up to about 30 people on my team, 20 people probably that I directly manage and within that team I've kind of got a primary clinical team of clinicians and that's those allied health practitioners that I was talking

about earlier that come from nursing, social work, counselling, psychology, O.T. And then I've kind of managing a team of vocational specialists. So supporting young people to get jobs and career pathways and reducing their barriers to employment. Then a whole bunch of kind of relationships that the organisation connects with in the community. So it's kind of like partnership development is kind of, it's also that the key piece of my role at the moment.

and day-to-day really, because of the service demand, really high demand of our service, really large numbers coming through, lots of people needing mental health support. We saw quite a huge spike in referrals and numbers this year. And so some of that is clinical oversight, so making sure that we're supporting the young people with a good quality service from an evidence base. Part of that is supervision of all of those stuff. Part of that is strategic level stuff like thinking about gaps that we have in our service and trying to develop a relationship to meet that gap.

Yeah. And, you know, at the moment, a lot of my work has become about making sure that that balance of supporting clinician or like a staff well-being and ensuring that our service is still quality and kind of the accountability side of my role as a manager as well as the supportive well-being self-care empowering side and just. and trying to help the team, you know, not burn out. And it sounds as though your team are experiencing the same sorts of difficulties that your target clients are experiencing in the sense that the last two years during COVID

have been incredibly difficult, but it sounds as though things have really ramped up now. Are you able to maybe provide any sort of ideas to how those two timestamps are different and why things might be different now than they were during sort of the height of the pandemic. It feels like an aftershock, although it's still happening, kind of like an earthquake. You know, you have the major earthquake, and then there's aftershocks for a while after that, and you're still kind of trying to work out where everyone is and what's happening. And if everyone's okay and breathing. Such a good analogy.

So like it feels like that. And we've all gone through it, but also we're supporting people who have gone through it. And to that element of where I am also talking to myself when I say, you really need to look after yourself. And you really need to focus on, you know, practicing your breathing and practicing stress management. And, you know, saying no when you need to say no. And, you know, all of those things, we often, as practitioners or, like, clinicians, when it comes to mental health, the things that you are suggesting to young people, particularly, like, those in a kind of early intervention setting, oftentimes they're coming for things that you've experienced or you are experiencing, you know, stress related to family situation or, stress related to studying or whatever. Do you have experienced that in the past?

And so sometimes you kind of telling them things that are evidence-based and, you know, true for recovery that you can also take on yourself. Yeah. I know there has been some additional funding for counselling in the community, but in terms of how your organisation is structured, is there additional funding for you? you to support these people with their mental health crises. What does that look like from an organisational perspective? Yeah.

So the government has put out quite a lot of COVID-related funding for mental health, particularly in the area of South West Sydney, because of the impacts of the pandemic. So we have received a number of grants, actually, on top of our normal funding. And so we're doing a lot of different things to. boost our service capacity and manage demand. So one of the things we're doing is groups. One of the things we're doing is adding resources, so extra staff on top of what we normally would have. So we've probably got double the team now almost because we've got extra grants. So I spent a lot of last year doing recruitment and the fruits of my labour has come this year. It's more

team people, which is why there's so many people on our team. Because of those grants that have come through. Yeah. But recruitment does take a lot of time. And even just applying for the grants, right, and going through the process of really understanding the funding and being able to demonstrate your capacity as an organisation to meet those funding objectives.

Yeah. I feel gratefully that the organisation they work for is quite a large one. So we've kind of got people that support the grant application process. Great. And my role in terms of the management of the service is around reporting on those grants. So a lot of my job is reporting on the outcomes and the service stats and things like that and trying to make sure I keep track of all the different grants. So I don't forget which one's which.

Do you feel as though the outcomes are sensitive enough to really pick up what you're doing? Is it restrictive in any way? Or are you just kind of looking at occasions of service and not really getting into the context? Yeah, it's tricky, right? When you think about like numbers versus a story and trying to report on that stuff, unfortunately, grants and reporting, or fortunately, I don't know, it's kind of, I could tell both sides that the story, I could argue both ways, you know, numbers are really helpful. because they are really clear.

And if you get lots of them, then that's a good thing. It looks good. Like it's fairly easy. We have a lot of structures in place and kind of background software that happens with our service to keep those stats and stuff. So that's really helpful. So it's fairly easy to get some numbers in terms of data-wise. And if you think in terms of I need. to work out how we can put a number on this when you're setting up the program or when you're

applying for the grant, how are we going to report on this? It can be helpful to have that foresight that people do want numbers because that is something helpful. But as well, there are spots in those same reports where you can say here is like a more qualitative story as well, This is the outcomes that we've seen based on surveys that we've done as well. But it's usually helpful to have both. Yeah, sure. And that's really clever, being able to have that foresight to say, this is what we're probably going to be able to track.

Therefore, this is what we're going to put into our funding application to say that we're going to track it instead of trying to chase your tail at the end of the funding period. Yes. Yeah. I'm all about kind of thinking ahead and planning. so that you can then thank yourself. Thank you past me. Yes.

Yeah, that's kind of my secret superpower. Nice. One of many, I'm sure. Given you've got so many amazing allied health practitioners on your staff, do you have many students? In my head, this perfect scenario is where you've got an OT student and a nursing student and a psychology student and a social work student and they're all having this amazing chat together about what the service is and what they might contribute.

Yeah, we do have students. And one of the amazing grants that we've got is for a clinical educator to support the kind of student capacity development. With the idea that if we invest into students when they're about to graduate, then we can invest into the next generation of workers, allied health professionals, because as we all have been kind of realizing recently, there's a bit of a gap in the area of allied health professionals that are to be qualified for all these jobs that have come up. So there's more jobs than people.

And so, yeah, so we, and I mean, even before that, we had a really huge focus on supporting students to have a really good quality placement. I kind of have always said that our, service is kind of like an educational mental health service, like an educational hospital that you know, it's similar because we've always got students and it's just expected that we'll have them. Usually it's a social work student or a couple in the year and in clinical psychology students as well. But yeah, we've looked into nursing and OT. It's just as a matter of having that

supervision and you don't want to commit to too much and then not provide them with the best quality placement because it's not worth of them or us either yeah sure it must be really nice for you though from on a professional level to not only be able to support your staff but to support staff who are supporting a student because that's a next level of leadership yeah and that's what I love at the moment is supporting staff and kind of that empowerment piece is really yeah I love it yeah it sounds like there's a load of capacity to influence as well and provide a lot of development and growth within the organisation yeah the cool thing is that there is flexibility in an opportunity And as I said before, part of the role is to try and see a gap and what can we do about that gap or that need.

And that's part of that kind of high-level strategic planning as a manager with your team. We get together and team planning regularly and try and do a SWAT analysis and see what are our areas of, you know, opportunity that we can really try and meet those needs as well. Yeah. Yeah. What do you find the most difficult part of your role, or maybe even something you didn't expect to be difficult going into it? Probably recruitment. Because we don't get training on that.

I feel like I'm a recruiter now. That's unexpected just because of we got a whole lot of grants all at once and then needed to recruit all at once. And then there was kind of people moving on because they either got promotions or, you know, kind of lots of different things that are changing in the sector as well. And so I found myself doing a whole lot of recruitment and trying to get good quality clinicians, good quality team. Do you miss the face-to-face work?

Here and there, yeah. I think when I stepped up into this role, I was really ready to kind of step away from this face-to-face stuff. I'd been, you know, 15 years in direct stuff and really keen to do more leadership, supervision management stuff. But yeah, every now and then I kind of a shadow, a clinician or a student, and I go into the session with them to support them. And even that is still supervision.

But it's like, oh, this is good. It's good stuff. Yeah. It's just, you know, seeing a young person realize something or seeing them open up after being really closed off. That's kind of the gold nugget stuff that can be really reinvigorating almost. Sure. Yeah.

You mentioned you're part of a peer supervision group. Is there any other sorts of support that you need in order to do your job well, do you think? Really good boundaries. I think when you get to the level of leadership or kind of management, the to-do list is never-ending. and actually this is the case for any social work really. The to-do list is never ending and sometimes you get to a point in your career where you've kind of become the expert or the specialist

in that field of area of interest after like eight years. It's a really kind of key point, I feel like, in your journey. Anyway, and the to-do list is never ending. And you really could and people kind of also the requests for support and the request for, you know, your expertise or experience or attending a meeting or whatever, you could work forever if you allowed yourself to, but I think it's really important to pick the priorities for your role, for the organisation, but also for yourself and what you are passionate about, because otherwise you burn out.

And yeah, I have the experience burnout and it was probably about that at you, Mark. And that was kind of when I said yes, lots of times because I felt like I needed to at the time in that organisation that I was in at that time. So I've learned a lot from that experience. So now I'm really kind of fiercely boundaries even more so than before. I feel like social workers are drilled into. Always saying yes. I feel like I did a degree in what boundaries are some ways,

but then it can be tricky because you're also kind of, you go into it because you really want to help people. So it's that hard push-pull. Yeah. Yeah. Given that you have had the opportunity to be in this area of work for a long time, what changes have you seen in the field, whether that's maybe stigma, whether it's,

funding resources, increased collaboration, what's changing for the better? Interesting question. I feel like youth work and social work in the community is almost not changing. And that's a good thing, because at its core, young people and adolescent development and the needs in that time are the same as they were 20 years ago. Sure. But what probably is changing is at the moment, the realization that young people's mental health is actually really important to focus on.

And so that kind of the funding for young people and mental health and focusing on not just young people, actually, you know, adult mental health is actually another thing that I think is getting a bit more recognition. at the moment, which is really important because need for mental health support doesn't stop at 25. It still continues, you know, 26, 27, 28, 29, just keep going. You still need support and you still have issues and still talking to someone can be helpful and emotions are a human experience for the rest of our lives. So I think that support and that focus on mental health and well-being as a country is really important. And I think social work is starting to build its

emphasis and recognition. I think that's a positive thing. Yeah. Definitely have a bit of a way to go, though. Sure. In terms of mental health, social work. Where would you like to see things heading if you had your magic wand out for the next five, ten years, what changes would you like to see? It would be great for mental health social workers to be as recognisable and understood in just day-to-day lay terms as a psychologist. That would be really great.

I think it's not there yet. At the moment, even our parents don't understand what we do. so, you know, it's a large hill. That's something that could definitely, that would be great. So it was going to wait for magic wand. Yeah, it's hard to think that far ahead, really. Thinking that far ahead, what are your grants looking like? When I worked in community and was applying for my own role every year,

it was a one year at a time. How are you ever going to do any sustainable development or challenge? change, right? Do you get a decent period of funding to be able to make some sort of sustainable impact? Yeah, yeah, to have a sustainable impact. Yeah, so, well, it's a variety. So some of them are a year, which is not great. Some of them are three years, though. So a three-year grant is really good because you've got that time to develop and build upon and then review. Sure. And probably recruit maybe a higher calendar. of worker because they know that there's something more secure.

Exactly. That's the downside. And that's why I said earlier that recruitment is hard because sometimes it is that year and people want security. So, yeah, I think long-term funding is something that really needs to change. I think our main grant for the main service is, still only on that similar cycle, but there's an expectation that it's going to be long-term. So it's kind of that interesting thing where they're not willing to, you know, the government,

it would be really silly of them not to commit to the mental health and well-being of young people. And they do, but having that more long-term would be really helpful. Absolutely. Yeah. When I started in community, just finished uni, and it was at a point in time where the Department of Immigration had just stripped back all of its core funding for migrant resource centers. And so it became that let's try to find money from other places. So instead of just doing migrant settlement and refugee support, it was let's do multicultural age care and other things that get us more money and have more opportunities for staff. So it is really hard.

to be able to say to your staff, let's work on you, let's develop a team, let's try to build on your capacity and develop real relationships with the communities that we're supporting when you just, you can't guarantee anything. Yeah. And that's, I think that's the hard thing about the smaller NGOs space is that social workers kind of become a caseworker slash grant writer slash marketers slash admin person slash everyone all in one person and then the direct work that you're really there for is only 50% of your actual time you know and that's that's the downside sure are there any programs or projects that you get

to be part of at the moment because I assume the role provides opportunities to oversee development and evaluation of these programs which would then give you an opportunity to reflect on and maybe do some research within the organisation? We're doing quite a lot of groups at the moment, which is a bit of my baby because I'm quite passionate about groups and the connection between people in that kind of social space. And there's one group that we're running at the moment and kind of evaluating,

focused on young people who might have disorder eating or like a tricky relationship with their body or food. So that's definitely an area that has been something that we've been focusing on in general, the eating disorders area. And that group is a bit of a pilot. So we'll see how that goes. It's exciting. Yeah.

And I think the numbers in terms of people who are getting diagnosed for experiencing eating disorders have increased quite a lot. this year in particular, which is concerning. For sure. You've obviously found an area of social work that you're really interested in, very passionate. Is there any other area of social work that you haven't tried out that interests you? I've thought about corporate well-being. It's so random, completely different to youth mental health.

Yeah, I've thought about, you know, well-being for adults. in a workplace setting, the kind of EAP style organizations out there. It's counselling for work-related difficulty. So I've thought about that space. I've thought a bit about going to just supervision, social work supervision, private practice from a supervision point of view. I've really worked hard on building this team up, recruiting a really good team, really good quality people.

And it's funny because I've actually finishing up in my role soon. So I'm not going to be here forever. So it's interesting you said that. Getting a bit of sea change moving out of Sydney is the main reason. But I also kind of feel I've accomplished a lot in this role. I've been in this particular organisation for six and a half years. I've kind of pulled on into it and I'm leaving a very good team. I feel like I can check that off the list and feel confident that they'll be okay.

And I've set out to what I wanted to do and I had done it. So I wanted to manage the service. So it feels like a good chapter. Good time. Yeah. What are your plans? Do you have work lined up? What are you wanting to do?

Yeah, so I'm actually moving into, so moving down to Wollongong, I'm going to be a senior clinician for a primary health service. So similar, similar, just not focused on youth in particular. Sounds like a smaller group as well. Smaller, yeah. Smaller, although I do, I'm going to miss the big stuff. It's just ready for a bit of a change of pace. and I'm kind of just making sure that, you know, my other part of me, my family life is not

completely ignored. Absolutely. So, yeah, stepping back a little bit and we'll see where it takes me. Yeah, well, sounds very exciting. But from what you've told me, I can see that your practice has really focused on the well-being of young people and families at the core of everything you do. and you're wanting to be a good social worker to yourself, to your team, to your colleagues. So you've kind of kept that person-centered, strength-based approach to round out

and keep at the front of mind making sure that everything you do has that real strong purpose. Are there any resources, any media that you might recommend if anyone wants to know more about this type of work? I mean, there's a few key people that I personally connect with from like a mental health therapeutic point of view. I connect a lot with Russ Harris and the act approach. And so a lot of his books are really well worth reading from a personal point of view as well, from like a really practical as well. And the other one is Brunay Brown. Well, obviously. But yeah, she's particularly her data lead book and the resources that she's got on her website

are really good, particularly for leadership, those people and leadership. Yeah, so that I've used them a lot. Yeah, those are the kind of things that off the top of my head that I can think of. Yeah, brilliant. And if you think of any more, just send them through and I'll pop them in the show notes. Yeah. You've built this team around you, this organization. You've built the reputation of the team as far.

far as I can tell with this addition of funding and working with industry partners as well. You mentioned your networking and I think that's just so important to be able to provide that holistic approach to people and to be able to get your name on the map and say this is what we do and this is how we can demonstrate that we're doing good work and that we are evidence-based as you were saying. But also having the capacity to influence government's response to that increased demand, I think is really incredible. But you've also stepped outside of your comfort zone quite a bit in terms of mitigating burnout and developing professionally, which takes guts. It's hard in the first place to recognize that you might need to move on, but also then to

actually take that step, which now you're doing for a second time after a second long period of work. And I think people can learn a lot from that. just saying it's okay actually to bounce around and to develop experience in different areas. And also to know when you've left a legacy, you've built up, you know, you're leaving something behind that will only flourish because of the impact that you've had. So I think it's really important to think about that. Going into a role throughout your performance reviews, thinking ahead about what you'd like to be achieving and thinking about what resources you need and how the organisation can meet

you halfway if that's what's needed in terms of maybe funding additional opportunities for you. So I think in my experience at least, organisations want to know how they can support you to continue doing good work. It's not just there to scrutinise what you're doing. Yeah, totally. And I'm the kind of person and I think I try and encourage my team to do this too. I'm quite upfront and I'm quite direct. If I think something I'm going to tell my manager, I've become very good at managing up. And I appreciate that in people, in people in my team that are managing up. It's actually really good, I think. It's not a bad thing at all. And people that are saying, well, I think this and I see this and being assertive with what they want for themselves and their

development and what they're passionate about. I appreciate that. And I think the service and their work is all the better for it because you're using something that they're actually passionate about. And that's so much better for the quality of someone's work, but also for the quality of the team and the organization because they're doing something they're passionate about. It's less exhausting when you're doing something you're passionate about because you don't have to try as hard. And it gives you energy rather than leeches it out of you. So, yeah, I think sometimes people are bit nervous in those meetings that, you know, the performance meetings, a bit nervous about saying, I want this and I would like this, and this is

not happening in my current role. And how can I get there? Yeah, in my experience, leaders really appreciate that. Yeah. It's really refreshing and lovely to hear about a social worker who is leading, who is managing, and using all of the social work training and skills, but also having developed quite a lot of other skills that we don't get through either clinical work

or through our studies. So, yeah, there's always an opportunity to, as you said, do social work-led training or look at training from a social work lens versus do training that's outside of the social work realm but still is translatable within. Absolutely. like if you have good social workers around you in your peers or you develop,

I mean that piece of vision that I've got in my piece of vision buddies, you know, you can always do training and then you can go and reflect on it from a social work lens. And then your team benefits from the training you've done. Exactly. You just integrate it into your practice. I think that's the good thing. Yeah.

Amazing. Thank you so much, Lucinda, for chatting with me. I've loved hearing about your experience, and I'm really excited to see where your sea change takes you. Counting down the day. It'll be nice. It'll be wonderful. All the best with it.

Christian sidewalks. Oh, yes. I've actually spoken with a couple of people now who do counseling by the sea, sort of outdoors, no overheads. Let's just meet in a place that you're comfortable in. and we don't have to make it so clinical. So, you know, why not? Little side hustle.

Good idea. Thank you again, Lucinda. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Lucinda, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm. slash social work spotlight.

You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, or you can email SW Spotlightpodcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Please also let me know if there is a particular topic you'd like discussed, or if you or another person you know would like to be featured on the show. Next episode's guest is Rebecca, who has 25 years of social work experience in child protection, legal aid, and more recently in private practice. Rebecca has extensive skills in risk assessments, counseling, and complex case management for young people,

although the majority of her career has been as a criminal consultant for legal aid and supporting high-risk young offenders. More recently, Rebecca has moved into part-time private practice, where she continues to specialize in family group conferencing. 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.