Social Work Spotlight - Episode 92: Dave

Episode Date: September 15, 2023

In this episode I speak with Dave, a senior social work clinician and supervisor in private practice. Dave works from a combined Schema Therapy and EMDR framework in order to meet the needs of his clients.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Schema Therapy Training Online - https://schematherapytrainingonline.com/EMDR Toolbox (James Knipe) - https://www.springerpub.com/emdr-toolbox-9780826172556.htmlPsychiatry and Psychotherapy podcast - https://www.psychiatrypodcast.com/This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1DUySRO9-jwPsdAH-Ed_WJ5d97t_3a7_sHMNzFrCWMIU/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

I begin today by acknowledging the Gadigal people of the Eura Nation, traditional custodians of the land on which I record this podcast, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have an intrinsic connection to this land and have cared for country for over 60,000 years, with their way of life having been devastated by colonisation. Hi and welcome to social work spotlight where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode.

I'm your host, Yasmeen McKee Wright, and today's guest is Dave, a social worker who currently works as a senior clinician and supervisor in private practice. Dave works from a combined schemer therapy and EMDR framework in order to meet the needs of his clients. Thanks so much, Dave, for coming on to the podcast today. I'm really glad to meet with you and have a chat with you about your social. work experience so far. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. I would love to know when you started as a social worker firstly and what brought you to the profession. So I think, you know, that's a very interesting

question because I never really wanted to be a social worker. You know, my first kind of interest in life were very much to do with arts, specifically in theatre. That was really what I was very much passionate about. And I spent a lot of time in theatre, working in theatre, but there was something about, I think, feeling very connected with people and sort of wanting to understand where people were coming from. And, you know, their individual stories, the individual sort of interactions, that kind of thing. And, you know, my mum would say things to me like, oh, you know, I think you could taken care of people and I think maybe that's something you'll do and I sort of push that to the side a little bit. I'm like, oh, you know, I want to do this kind of theatre stuff. I want to do this

art stuff and like I did and I did do that for a while and it was something that I was very passionate about and really got into but you know that was back in Canberra where I'm from originally and then when I got to Melbourne, it was like a whole lot of things really changed for me because I thought that, you know, I'm just going to continue on this same path, kind of going into, you know, doing theatre and being around all these creative people. And a lot of changes, kind of dramatic changes happened in my life, like in my own sort of, you know, circumstances, and that kind of didn't happen anymore. So I had to really sort of take a look at things and go, okay, well, you know, where can I go?

What can I do? Where's the path for me to sort of lead? And it was first, I think, kind of working with children at a primary school, which actually was another sort of step forward to, okay, you know, working with community, working with sort of families, working with other people. That was really helpful. but then also going through sort of my first stage of therapy as well and kind of going, okay, well, you know, you've got these things that you're really interested in,

but you're not really sure what to do about it. So what should you do with that? And I think having a chat with someone and sort of going through a connection with somebody who, you know, is able to kind of give me that guidance and say, well, do you want to go on the same path or do you want to go somewhere else? And I sort of said, well, I've got these kind of ideas, you know, throwing ideas around in a session with him. I've going, well, I could, you know, maybe go into school teaching,

but I'm not sure if I kind of want to deal with that sort of pressure or maybe psychology or maybe social work. And it was sort of this kind of balance of, okay, well, you know, which one do you want to do? And he was sort of, you know, maybe pushing more towards psych and it wasn't quite too sure. So I ended up kind of thinking more about social work and looking into it and reading into it and I decided, yeah, you know what? Like this sounds kind of like a pretty good fit. So I'm just going to go and try my luck, apply it as many different places as I can. And I applied for a few

uni's, you know, for masters. And I think I was rejected for, I think probably three. And then one of them, so Melbourne uni, they accepted me and that was like such a huge kind of, you know, shining moment for me going, wow, like these other places said no and I was feeling really kind of low at that

point like, you know, well maybe this wasn't what I was meant to be doing, but then I got, you know, this letter of acceptance and it's like, okay, well, this is something that, you know, I can do and I'm just going to dedicate myself to it. So like once I got in there, I was just, you know, I was

fully dedicated to making it work for myself. Yeah. So going into the social work degree, did you feel like you were going to be a school social worker? Did you kind of have a good grasp on what the scope of work could be or you weren't quite sure at that point? Well, I think when I went in, I went in in a very predetermined way, actually, because I think I always wanted to do therapy, like specifically from going through it myself. And I was like, okay, well, if I go through and do this, Masters, this will be a way for me to do therapy with people.

So I had a very targeted view of I can go through, I can work with people doing counseling, but beyond counseling, doing therapy. So I think I had a very, very clear picture in a sense of where I did want to be at the end of it, which helped. I think it did really help coming in with that framework. Yeah. And what were your placements and how did that kind of project you forward? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a really good question because the first placement I have was in disability

and case management. And that was very eye-opening, you know, like being in sort of western suburbs of Melbourne and, you know, being integrated into sort of an NDIS framework and seeing a lot of of people that were struggling very, very hard with a lot of resilience and a lot of trauma to like lots and lots of trauma, quite spirited discussions as well, I think, particularly probably from me and some of the case managers, you know, around some of the social justice of aspects and what was fair and what wasn't fair. And it was very much a eye-opening experience for me in terms of, you know, okay, we've been doing all this study, and now, you know, you're thrown out into the

real world with, you know, a caseload of people, clients that have very significant things going on in their lives, and, you know, you're responsible for helping them in some way. And a very complicated system to learn in a short period of time. Hmm. Yeah. So that was certainly helpful, but I think it also really turned me away from disability. I think I was very sort of clear on that wasn't an area that I really wanted to work in. I know that there are certainly people who definitely want to work in that area,

but maybe it was the placement itself that sort of turned me off it. But yeah, the other placement I had was in impatient mental health, private inpatient mental health, which, you know, fit me really well. That was very demanding in other ways. but, you know, really rewarding because it was like, it was lots of group work, it was lots of psychoed stuff, it was a lot of multidisciplinary work with, you know, teams, with psych nurses, with, you know, other psychologists. And that was a different sort of experience again. And that also led me to get the opportunity to go into the EMDR program, which was a big,

big sort of step for me and that was definitely very helpful for you know my career for where I am now so that was super rewarding what kind of people would end up in the impatient psych ward I guess just for people who haven't worked in a psych ward what's the difference in terms of need obviously it's more acute but for someone who could be managed as an outpatient for instance Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good question because it is private as well, so it's not public. So some of it is really acute and some of it is kind of moderate. So it's sort of long-term kind of chronic stuff. So in this particular hospital where I was working, it was more about they had particular units for particular problems. So they would have like a mood disorder. So a lot of like anxiety, depression. bipolar, then they would have a section, like a program dedicated to, sort of, OCD and EMDR, so for trauma. They have a lot to do with sort of emotional regulation issues, borderline personality disorder,

some stuff around PTSD, that kind of thing. So when you're talking about what things people are coming in with, it's really sort of more intrusiveness and a bit of everything, but not so much around like psychosocial stresses and psychosis, that would be more in public system. And what capacity did you have to follow up someone once they'd left the unit? How do you maintain that support and ensure that they're carried through? Yeah, so that wasn't so much a part of my role. So the majority of my role there was more about doing psychoed groups.

It was very kind of, you know, siloed into a particular area. So I was mainly just doing psychoed stuff and working in like the small groups, so getting to know the patients really well in terms of like the following up with case management and liaising with other things. That was kind of left to some of the other generalized social workers and also the senior social workers that I wasn't so much a part of that, which was just the way that's placement was actually structured, they didn't put me as part of that. But I do know that that is still obviously part of the role of social workers at work there, that there is that follow-up when people are discharged. And group work is such an interesting facet of social work. I've been

fortunate to do, like I did a six-day training thing on group work and have facilitated groups and developed programs for specific groups. But I can imagine in a student setting, you kind of just have to figure it out for yourself and learn on the job. Did you have much support around how that was going to work? Yeah, so I was a co-facilitator, so I had like a main facilitator with me, and we had like manuals to work from or sheets to work from. But there is a lot of different dynamics in the room, so it's being able to work with what's in front of you and be able to change things as you go,

and that is a very rewarding process, sure. And as you said, EMDR came up for you as a different learning opportunity and therapy modality. How did I guess that next step happen as you graduated and moved into professional life? Well, the fact that it happened within the placement itself was luck on my part. And then after I graduated, I had my first job in impatient, which was then just doing group work myself in another hospital. And then leading to like my second job where I am now, which is in private practice in Geelong.

And that is more or less we get lots and lots of referrals for EMDR work. And the fact that I've been in the placement and knew the person who run the inpatient unit of EMDR, it definitely got me in the door. Plus I'd done the training, like the extra training for EMDR. So it's sort of, it all kind of just got me there. And similar to most training, my understanding is EMDR is really one of those modalities where you have to have regular updates and ongoing learning. So you do become a lifelong learner using that modality.

Yeah, yeah. But I guess being in a central hub in Victoria, you probably have more access to that than someone who would be in a regional area, which is great. Yeah. Can you tell me a little bit about your current role then and how you do use that in your therapy work? Yeah, sure, sure. So my current role is senior social worker where I'm working now and working with, you know, have a full caseload.

So see up to six clients a day, coming in with multiple. different presentations, whether that be, you know, anxiety or depression or PTSD symptoms, trauma-based symptoms, and we will get a lot of referrals for EMDR treatment, but it could be other things as well. They'll also provide supervision, clinical supervision, to the team too, and that also involves EMDR as well, so whether that's doing sort of upskilling or sort of just seeing where people are at and that's definitely part of it. So in terms of the EMDR aspect, it's about people are coming in generally. If they're coming in with a referral for EMDR, they're coming in with very high intrusive symptoms generally. So that could be things like

flashbacks, nightmares, and they want that stuff to go away. They want to feel better. So the first thing that we do, any of us who are working there, myself included, is, you know, we're going to do a thorough assessment to see how they are, to see sort of what level they're at. So that will involve, you know, doing some PTSD-related assessments and then sort of going into doing some establishing kind of safety work. So we want to create a safe place for them. We want to make sure that they're safe outside of the sessions before we actually go into any of the actual, you know, looking at. the memories, doing any of the trauma processing, anything like that, because it is still an eight-phase

therapy. I think there can be a bit of a misconception that it is just, you know, people come in and you do the processing and then they get better. But there is like a full process to the therapy happening. Yeah. But it is a full-fledged process and it can bring very satisfactory results to people. That's really good to see. And where does the funding come from? Do you get to see people from a wide variety of support structures? Yeah. The majority of my clients have been private paying clients.

We also get NDIS clients, quite a few NDIS clients, some orange store clients too, so domestic violence. And we would get some TAC as well. So there's a bit of a variety of funding. sources. Yeah. And we're always kind of looking to kind of broaden that and try and expand it to get more. Some people have been speaking with recently are saying there's a huge gap in people providing support for victim services. So, I mean, that's potentially something that can be because they've got waiting lists for like a year. So there are opportunities to pick up additional work, I guess,

here and there. It sounds like you've got plenty on your plate already. Yeah. Yeah. How big is team that so you've got some social workers but it sounds like you've also got different professional backgrounds yeah so we've got a counselor we have two accredited mental health social workers this myself and another social worker and a provisional psych so we have a few people on the team yeah so mainly social workers that must be refreshing yeah yeah And how do you divide your time between supporting your staff and doing the actual therapy? Do you find you get a good balance? Well, it's all very calculated in terms of, you know, set up in the calendar and Halixie.

So in terms of supervision for me, it's monthly supervision to each of the team. But there's always that room for if somebody needs to, you know, come and talk to me or there's a crisis or something. then it's about, you know, making a time or sending me a text or something like that. It generally works pretty well. Everyone is generally pretty independent and can hold their own. So it's not a huge issue in that sense. What do you find most challenging, though, about doing this work? Is it the content?

Is it the helping to run a business? I think it is a bit of kind of everything lumped into one. So it's doing the supervision, it's doing client work, it's then doing admin work, it's kind of doing a whole bunch of things, and then some days it's fine and other days it takes a bit of a toll. So I think it really is just a combination of different things. I'm very fortunate, to be honest, to be in a space where most of the time it goes really well. I feel very, very lucky about that. What support do you need to make it sustainable? Do you think what keeps you going? Well, a lot of my self-care, you know, around having a fantastic partner,

good home life, maintaining good sleep, healthy eating, those kind of things. It's like really needing to keep on top of things mentally and physically and the basis and having semi-regular breaks, you know, holidays. Yeah. Have you got anything coming up? Anything planned? I just had one, actually. Nice.

Just recently, yeah, which was super, super helpful. Yeah, good. And it is hard, especially when you're in private practice, I can imagine, to justify taking the time off and, you know, what happens to your clients in that time. So even just juggling time off must be challenging. Yeah, it can be hard. Yeah. What do you find most of?

What do you love about the work? Being up to do really long-term work because clients are private paying clients most of the time. And generally the work that we do is longer-term psychotherapy. And my sort of style as a therapist, I guess, makes that happen as well. It creates more for me and for them than just kind of bringing down kind of symptoms and feelings. And you sort of, you get to a deeper cause. So it's like whether that's kind of making somebody really change, sort of, you know, like internally or really just kind of bringing like transformational change sometimes. I think that's the most rewarding thing is when somebody comes in and they're like, you know what?

Like I really feel different. Like things are really starting to shift for me. Yeah. Which often you don't have the opportunity. for in a public system. No. Just cannot see someone for such a long period of time. Resources are scarce.

Yeah, yeah. Do you find working with, you mentioned TAC, which is the Victorian equivalent of New South Wales, CTP, it's people who are injured on the roads. Do you find that things are good in terms of them understanding that this work takes time and that you can justify additional funding where you need it? Can be tricky. But I guess that's the same with him. D-I-S as well, like any insurance model potentially has its fallbacks.

And I mean, when it comes to that, it really is about what the client wants and what their goals are. But then I would also say if there's a long kind of complicated history or there are multiple traumas, but you have specific, you know, restriction in funding, then it's about, okay, let's just work on the one thing. Let's get one thing done. Right. Let's just really try and focus on getting one thing done really well rather than doing 10 things and not getting them finished. And ideally by that point, you've got outcomes that you can demonstrate this is working. Please provide more funding, more approval.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Have you seen many changes over time in this field, whether it just be how social workers operate in private practice or those funding models? has there been any change for worse or for better? Well, I think that social workers are in private practice more now. I think EMDR is used a lot more now, both by social workers but also other clinicians. Like it's being brought into other kind of mainstream services like in CASA and stuff like that, which is really great. But in terms of sort of funding restrictions, I guess I kind of think that social workers in a good place.

place at the moment based on all the kind of changes with Medicare and the shortages of psychologists, it sort of gives the social work field more opportunity to, you know, be seen and bring their clinical skills into awareness that I think often people don't really see or don't know about. So I think that it's a good time for that and it is shifting. I get the sense that it is shifting. And what would that shift look like in an ideal world for you? What would you like to see happen? Probably more social workers just within general psychology practices,

with more standard rates of pay, I guess. And yeah, just sort of being treated as more of an equal clinician. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Given that you've had a varied background before coming to social, work and even when you were working in the schools, is there any other form of social work that interests you? Obviously, it's early days and you know, you're very interested in this therapeutic work at the moment, but what would you love to try out? I think what I'm also interested in maybe expanding more is doing more supervision and maybe possibly kind of teaching at some point

as well. Wonderful. I've spoken with a few social workers. who have used theatrical or drama backgrounds as a form of social work or advocacy as well. Like they've created stories, narratives, plays that help to educate people around what's happening in their community. So I even wonder if that might be an avenue for you in future. Yeah, perhaps. Were you more front or sort of backstage in your efforts? It's a combination. Yeah, definitely a combination. Like when I was very young, I liked acting and all that sort of stuff.

I was never a very good actor, which is fine. It was something that I liked doing, but I was not the best actor. But I definitely got very much into writing and sort of being just in the theatre. So, you know, being in the theatre, being around actors, being in rehearsals. So I started more just in that process kind of part of it. And I think that's very applicable to therapy because sort of it's being in a space with somebody and kind of waiting for moments to happen, waiting for things to happen and sort of getting reactions from that and feelings to that and then responding to it.

And I think that is something that I really kind of love about it, I think, which is sort of translated over in a way, which has been like maybe that wasn't quite the right space. but this is the right space, but there's similarities in it, I think. Yeah, and also that realization that you can do so much preparation, but at the end of the day, sometimes you just need to wing it. You just need to improv a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Are there any projects or programs that you're working on at the moment? You have an interest in education. Do you get to develop any group work models or maybe training packages for your team? The other therapy that I'm very interested in that I haven't spoken to about is schemer therapy that I could talk to you about for hours. Maybe for people who aren't familiar with it, maybe just like in a nutshell, what's that about? Yeah. So schemer therapy is kind of a similar therapy to EMDI in that way.

It is a integrative therapy, so it combines CBT, psychodynamic, attachment theory and emotion-focused therapy. So it kind of combines a bunch of different things, and it's sort of a long-term therapy. And it really ties into a lot of the things that I've been talking about, you know, like looking for deeper change rather than just, do you feel better now, have your depression symptoms gone away? It's not really wanting to do that. It's sort of more on that, tapping into more of like a psychodynamic way of looking at stuff. And yeah, schema therapy is definitely something that I've been interested in, you know, very passionate about for probably the last three and a bit years, probably more.

And it's something that I work with clients with all the time. So a way to kind of think about it, like the easiest way to break it down, is when we have unmet needs in childhood, we might develop certain ways of looking at the world. So you have glasses on at the moment for the people that are listening. You have glasses on because I wear glises too, but I don't have them on right now. And we see the world a certain ways. And you can go, okay, when we see the world of certain ways,

that's kind of like what we call a schema, which could be a little bit like kind of a core belief, sort of in CBT kind of language. But the difference is instead of CBT, this is sort of more like an emotional kind of connection. So it's got like memories attached to it. It's got images. It's got kind of feelings attached to it.

So if we think of a positive example of a schema first, the best way to describe this is to think about, okay, if you went to after school care when you were a kid and you had a great time every afternoon, You know, you met your friends, you, you know, had yummy food, you had great time with the educators. And, you know, then when your parents came, you're like, no, I don't want to go. You know, I'm having such a good time. Then we could say, well, you know, you kind of have this schema of, you know, after-school care,

which is like a way of looking at the world, of it being really, really, really positive. And then maybe there'll be certain points in your life where something will. happen and it will feel the same. Like there'll be those positive reactions to it. But then if you think about the same thing, which is, okay, there's a kid at after school care, the same after school care, but they have no friends. They don't get any food. They have problems at home. Their parents come late. Their experience of it is going to be completely different. So now after school care feels like loneliness, abandonment, deprivation, all these things. And so then later on in their life, when something like that happens, maybe somebody doesn't arrive on time or somebody forgets their

birthday or something like that, it triggers back that same feeling of after-school care. And so we would say that's like an early maladaptive schema. So you can see the inverse between the two of when it works, but then when it doesn't work. So with Schemotherapy, we would say those kind of things that happened, it would be like a long theme of that happening, like a chronic theme of that happening. And when that happens in your life, you probably become quite depressed or, you know,

develop sort of ways of feeling about yourself, feeling about the world. And you have to kind of cope with that. You have to sort of cope with those feelings. about yourself and those schemers. And so we would say that those are essentially coping strategies, coping modes. So for that kid that felt so alone at after-school care, maybe they just had to learn to shut off all their feelings. Now fast forward, 25 years when they come into therapy and they're coming into therapy because they're still shutting off all their feelings. They've

don't know how to access them, they can't, you know, feel positive about themselves, but they don't necessarily know why. And it's like going back and going, well, you know, all these things have happened. There's a legacy to all this stuff. And we need to kind of understand that, heal it, and get to the bottom of it. But I imagine oftentimes people aren't going to identify that that is the schema that's being developed or that's where it came from. So a lot of your work would have to be supporting them to dig back and see what happened. Yeah. And I mean, we have ways of doing that through, you know, various assessment methods and, yeah,

different things. But it's a really, like, it's a really beautiful therapy of, you know, connection and working through things and effectively changing what happened in a way. Yeah. And with your EMDR work and the schema work, I expect that they're not separate. You don't go in saying this is the approach I'm going to use. If you need to pivot, you can build, you can draw from that other experience. Yeah.

And I mean, sometimes you're not going to name it necessarily unless someone specifically come to you because they're being referred as an EMDR patient. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's super interesting. Are there any other resources maybe that you would recommend people check out if they're interested in learning more about EMDR or schemat therapy or approaches that you mentioned? Yeah, so for anyone interested in schemer therapy, a great resource just for your own personal training as well, Schema Therapy Training Online, which is sort of self-paced training that you can do. There's a whole bunch of courses up on there from sort of introductory courses that sort of explain the whole module and the whole therapy a lot more than I have to sort of advanced kind of master classes. I definitely would recommend that.

For EMDR, I will just look up the book. There's a good book to read. The book is called EMDR Toolbox, Theory and Treatment of Complex, PTSD and Dissociation. And the author is Jim Knipe. Yeah, nice. I can track down that resource and pop it in the show notes. Yeah. Do you absorb other media?

Do you listen to podcasts? Do you watch videos? whether they're slightly serious or sort of slightly on the wacky side. Are there any that you would recommend? Because for instance, I absorb a lot of stuff that's to do with social work, but not necessarily something that I'm going to build into the way I work, but just kind of for my own interest rather than my own professional work. Yeah.

Yeah, so there's a great podcast called The Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Podcast, which is from a psychiatrist in America. And it's very, very informational. He has lots of guests on there. It goes a lot into, obviously, clinical kind of stuff, also psychodynamic stuff. You will learn a lot, probably find it interesting, whether or not you take it into your own practice, like you're saying, or whether you just sort of find it kind of intellectually stimulating. Recommend listening to that.

He's a very good presenter. Yeah, it makes it easy to listen to. And there's lots of free resources with his stuff as well. Yeah, great. I was really interested to hear about the interest that you had in therapy from very early on before you even, I guess, knew what social work was or where your place might have been in it. And you were able to harness some really great learning opportunities as a student, firstly figuring out what you really didn't want to do,

and then working out what you were very passionate about and interested in learning more about. and you've had the opportunity to work in multidisciplinary teams, which is invaluable. At least in my experience, you get to see how people with different backgrounds can all come together and work towards the same passion and goal. And I absolutely love anyone who has had options to do group work experience in a placement. I just think that's incredibly valuable. And what a great option for you to be able to do that and build on your interest in running groups potentially in the future.

But you've showed a really clear understanding of how you like to work. So not just who you want to support, but the ways that you like to work and the modalities and therapy that you use and really demonstrating that social workers can work in such diverse areas. And really what we're needing is a bit more recognition and understanding of what our background and experience and training has provided. and being able to, yeah, slide our way into, which it sounds like you've done a few times now, slide your way into a practice where perhaps they didn't realize how much they needed you

and now they're very glad that you're there. So that kind of sums up social work, at least for me, is just, you know, infiltrating a system and understanding how it works really well and being able to make that difference for someone. Yeah, if I could say anything from my experience it's been about, I guess, in some ways there have probably been specific barriers or things that have said, you know, maybe you shouldn't do this training or you can't do this stuff. And I've kind of just gone ahead and sort of asked to do it or do it anyway and, you know, approached people just purely based on passion. So it's like, I really want to do this or I believe I can do this.

And I think that's honestly what has gotten me to the places where I've gone to. And I've been incredibly fortunate that that is what has happened. But, you know, that's what I think, you know, I would pass on to anyone else listening is just give it a go. It might not happen, but it might happen. So just go for it. Talk to the people that you probably feel you shouldn't, but just do it. And strap in. Enjoy the ride.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, apply for the chops. Amazing. Thank you so much, Dave. Yeah, I've absolutely loved getting to meet you and learning about that experience and really look forward to seeing where it takes you. You've got so much more ahead of you. So, yeah, really cool to see.

You're welcome. I play it out. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything available to myself or Dave, please visit my anchor page at anchor.com. 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 a few or another person you know would like to be featured

on the show. Next episode's guest is Kristen, a passionate early career practitioner in the children, young persons and family space, who in her spare time is also continuing her professional development by completing a masters of social work. Kristen uses relationship-based practice to work alongside young parents in supporting them to improve child developmental outcomes, breaking the cycle of generational disadvantage, and to empower them to realize their parental strengths. 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.