Social Work Spotlight - Episode 93: Kristen

Episode Date: April 20, 2025

In this episode I speak with Kristen, a passionate early career practitioner in the children, young persons and families space who in her spare time is also continuing her professional development by completing a Master’s 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 realise their parental strengths. Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Circle of Security International (Early Intervention Program for Parents and Children) - https://www.circleofsecurityinternational.com/Australian Childhood Foundation - https://www.childhood.org.au/Raising Children Network - https://raisingchildren.net.au/This episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/118sNDGkeExij9ilP_ewZEMwWop8v_a4X5gyFwoWa474/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

in each episode. I'm your host, Yasmy McKee Wright, and today's guest is Kristen, a passionate social work practitioner with over seven years of experience in the children, young persons and family space. Kristen's practice is framed by strengths-based, trauma-informed and child protection-focused interventions. Through her work, Kristen acknowledges the unique privilege of being entrusted into the lives of children. 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. Kristen is also continuing her professional development by completing a master's of social work in her spare time. Welcome Kristen to the podcast. I'm so happy to have a chat with you today about your experience so far. Thank you so much for having me. I'd love to know firstly when you started as a social worker and what brought you to the profession. So I realized I wanted to be a social worker when I was in year 11. I was never interested, let alone good at like maths or science type subjects and I tended to lean more towards humanities. In year 11, I chose to study community and family studies as a HSC subject, otherwise known as CAFs. It was a very small. It was a very small

class and not many people had chosen it and on one occasion we'd had an excursion to a youth homelessness service based in Surrey Hills and I met with a social worker for the first time I had no idea what a social worker was up until that point but when I met with this social worker I heard all about her job and her passion for supporting vulnerable people and I just knew straight away that that was what I wanted to do I remember mentioning social work to family and friends and no one really knew what it was. And even though I didn't know a whole lot, I did a bit of research and I felt like I was quite drawn to it. So I enrolled straight from school into a Bachelor of Social Work. And I just knew from my first day that it was the right path for me. So I went to uni for four years and I graduated in

2015 and then I moved straight into the social work field. So good that you had that experience, even back in high school. Just those subjects weren't around when I was at. school and I think I would have absolutely gravitated towards them instead of the more. I guess I did legal studies which has some crossover in biology, which then helped with psychology and the high level mass that helped with the stats in psychology. But it helped you get that grounding and this is what it's actually like and I want to go straight into that rather than doing something first and then transitioning. So the first two years of the degree is like an arts degree.

Did you happen to choose subjects that were particularly social work aligned or were they more interest-based? I remember doing, I know there's a bit of crossover with what the social work subjects are, but I remember doing sociology, psychology, I did some philosophy subjects, and I found them all to be really interesting. And I think it's great that, you know, part of my degree was there was the art subjects and that there was the opportunity to choose other subjects that weren't specific to social work, which definitely broadened my knowledge. and I guess allowed me to meet a whole lot of other people,

not just those that were studying the social work course. Yeah, and what were your placements while you're at uni? So my first placement was at a disability support service. Although they did not have a social worker on site, I was given an external social worker who supported me through the placement. I didn't really find that to be a challenge that was actually not a problem for me. I know that other people might have not appreciated that. So I think other students, if they were offered the placement I was offered at a disability support service,

they may have felt disappointed because it wasn't particularly social work focused, as I said, there wasn't a social worker there. But I was keen. I was eager. I was willing to learn and I was grateful for any opportunity that meant that I was able to help people. So the placement itself was a day service for adults with intellectual and physical disabilities. We ran activities and groups and we took the clients on. outings. I had the opportunity to run groups which weren't your typical, I guess, social work sort

of group. So it wasn't like running a parenting group or a domestic violence group, but we would get the adults at the service together and we'd do a Zumba class or we would play with instruments or we'd do art therapy. It gave me a really good insight into the role of a support worker. And I guess I have great admiration for those who do that kind of work every day. So the support workers work closely with their clients, particularly those that need direct physical support, and it gives you an opportunity to get to know the individual in their unique context. And thankfully, I was offered a casual position at my first placement after finishing up. And I can probably say it's been like the funest job I've ever had because we got to do lots of fun activities with the clients.

Were there times while you're on placement where you then had to refer out to a social worker, were there times when there was that clear distinction in the roles? Not particularly. I mean, the clients had like occupational therapists and like physiotherapists and other sort of allied health workers. I think depending on their capacity, they probably did have counsellors or psychologists, but I didn't really see too much of that, to be honest. But it sounds like such an incredible fun placement. And even though it wasn't a social work placement per se it wasn't labelled as such there are so many aspects of disability that social workers across so we're about health we're about the emotional learning and and developmental stuff that

you would have learned about in psychology so there are so many ways that social workers can infiltrate other systems and show that we have real value there definitely definitely and I know a lot of the clients at the day service in particular they came from pretty significant trauma my backgrounds and a lot of them were quite socially isolated. Like it used to hurt my heart that not many of them would have family or friends that would come and visit them. And like perhaps they had family and friends go and visit them at the group homes. But in terms of the day service, we probably only had one sort of regular family member

come and visit a client. So yeah, that was hard to see. Yeah. And did that set in stone, I guess, what you wanted to do for your second placement? You were kind of already working a little bit in that field. and so you might have wanted something very different for the second one? Yes, I was definitely open to something very different, and I was very lucky to get a very different placement

that was very social work focused. So I did my final placement at a DCJ office. At the time, it was known as FACS, family and community services, in the frontline child protection team. So in this placement, I really felt thrown into the deep end, but again, I was super excited. I was very enthusiastic, as with the first placement, I was just ready to go.

I did a lot of shadowing of the perinatal caseworker on the team, who, if listeners don't know, works with mothers when they are pregnant, and then they would usually hand over the case pending the outcome post-birth, whether that be for ongoing child protection casework or closure or refer to another service or in worse circumstances removal. And I think back now and that doing this work of shadowing the perinatal caseworker has influenced me directly in my current role, whilst completing this placement, I just knew in my heart that I really wanted to do child

protection. And after my placement, I applied for a position as a caseworker and I was super lucky to be offered a role in the exact same team and office that I had my placement. So that was really great. Wow. And I imagine you would have had to stop the work you were doing at the community center with the groups with your adults with intellectual disability while you were doing your placement because it's just a bit too much, right? Yes. And because it was was a day program. It was only open from like nine to four. So I was doing my, yeah, DCJ placement, which meant I might have actually left that job at that time. And I was doing a retail job on the weekends, you know, for money. Yeah. Okay. So you bounced straight into,

probably just felt like nothing changed. You went from a student to being a worker in the same field. How did that change for you, that perception of, yes, I'm still learning, but I've got all this extra responsibility now. So it was a big shift, one that I think I wasn't ready for perhaps, or maybe I wasn't expecting it to be such a big shift. So I spent eight months in my role as a child protection caseworker at FACS and it was fantastic and fast-paced learning. I learned so much in this position in such a short amount of time and that really had set me up in my career in the child and family space. But I think going from being quite a confident and capable student on the team and then moving into the casework position, I was given a caseload quite early into my career at DCJ. So when

you're a caseworker at DCJ, you go and do the casework development program. And during that time, you're meant to hold a very low caseload or not even a caseload at all. And I found that I would go to these monthly sessions with the colleagues around Metro Sydney. And we were talking to about our experiences of being on the DCJ team. And I seem to be the one with the highest caseload, which, you know, it was challenging. And do you think that was just a byproduct of you've kind of already been working in that area, so people just assumed you'd be able to pick it up really quickly? Yes, yes. Even though the dynamic is very different. Oh, 100%. And going from a student who's doing, you know, those manual sort of tasks that are like important, but like going to charities

to, you know, get baby items for a family or going to support a child who's going to have a contact with a birth parent to then all of a sudden holding a caseload where you're responding to risk of harm reports, you're participating in the court process, you're potentially removing children, you could be restoring children. I also had some out-of-home care matters on my caseloads. It was very diverse. And look, I don't want to deter anyone from going down the same path as me, but I have to be honest and say that as a 22-year-old new grad to begin my social work career, this role was so challenging. And I don't regret it.

I really don't regret it because it did give me such a solid foundational knowledge of, you know, the child protection system, which I have been able to rely on quite strongly in my NGO roles. Yeah, so you'd stuck with it for eight months. What made that shift for you? What made you realize it was time to move on? So I had gone away overseas for two weeks and I had come back from Lee. And I think whilst I was overseas, I didn't realize how stressed I had been. And I wasn't really able to switch off.

And then I came back and I remember opening my computer and looking at, I can't remember how much it was, but it felt like it was about a thousand emails and being told that I had a matter in court that same week that I'd just come back. I was like, this is just too much. and I'm not looking after myself in this role. I think that was the big thing for me. Yeah, but it takes a lot of courage to step back, evaluate, identify, and then, you know, have the confidence to move on and say,

I need to do this for me so that I continue to want to be a social worker and it doesn't completely drown me out in the first 12 months. Yes, and I think I was really disheartened at making the decision to leave DCJ because in doing that place, and I think I said earlier, I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to do child protection. Like, this is, you know, I want to help children and families. And then, I don't know, part of him was like, oh, you've only been there eight months and you're already giving up. Like, come on.

But yeah, I could just see the effect on myself and, you know, on everything outside of work. So did you start looking for something completely different? Did you want to go back to intellectual disability? What was the next stepping stone for you? No, so I wanted to continue working in the children and family space. When I was at DCJ, we used to hand over matters to NGOs regularly, who would then do the longer term sort of casework. And I met a few caseworkers in those organisations during periods of handing over my child protection matters to them for ongoing work. And I thought, that sounds like more,

I think, what I want to do. Like, I want to see those longer term outcomes. I want to have the opportunity to provide support and intervention over a longer period of time. Because I think I realized that's what I needed to sort of motivate me, because it's really hard in frontline child protection. Like you're in and out really quick. You don't really get to see the impact of, if you're doing good work, basically. You don't get to see that outcome. So I moved into a brighter futures role, which, I mean, it is different to DCJ,

but it's similar, funded by a DCJ, still doing. quite high level child protection work, but without that statutory sort of power behind you and no court work, which was a big relief. So Brighter Fitchers, who I worked for, I think at the time, it's changed now, but at the time, it was an 18 to 24 month program, like it was quite long. So you really had that opportunity to get in there and provide direct casework support for a long period of time. And it sounds like that was something you were missing in the initial role where you just had to respond to things really quickly, pass them on to the best appropriate provider and then hope that things have gone well. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. And were there other step-down services from brighter futures?

So you've got them for that 18 to 24 months. And then are there other services that are funded by DCJ or are there just sort of generic services? then from that point on. Yeah, so I guess, you know, the aim is that hopefully over that 24 months they're not going to need another service and we've been able to build on their strengths and their own personal resilience and maybe bring in other supports, more community-based supports. But if we were to refer on, it would be to just your general sort of family support service

that was considered a step down. Even a referral to like a play group was considered, you know, a step down or ensuring community health was around the family, things like that. But in this role, I was also very lucky that we ran groups. So we ran a play group and we ran some parenting groups. And it really made me value the need for groups for these vulnerable families to be able to come together and share their stories and have the opportunity to know that they're not alone in what's going on for them.

And I imagine you are that much more conscious around burnout and your own capacity and probably, hopefully, able to better use, supervision at that point and just say, this is my plan, this is my development, and having had that experience, this is what I know I need now. Yes, very interesting that you say that. So at DCJ, I had your typical sort of operational supervision with my manager who would check in with me about my caseload at the time, if there was the time to do that. So it was definitely not regular and frequent, but of course, I totally understand

and everyone is completely stretched in DCJ. So when I started, another thing that drew me to the position at Brighter Futures was that they offered clinical supervision. And I thought, oh, great, this is going to be awesome. And so I did get, I got given a clinical supervisor. And the first one I was given, I found it quite hard to connect with her. But I had the opportunity to find someone else, which I'm really grateful for. And so I did find another clinical supervisor who is a mental health accredited counselor.

clinical supervisor, career coach, and she's fantastic. I have had her for years and years now. I've taken her across to my current position as well. Unfortunately, in my current position, I have to pay out of pocket, but at Brighter Futures, it was paid for by the organisation, which I feel like that's unheard of. It was great. Yeah, that's incredible. And so you were able to kind of set the tone and say, this is what I need and this is what I want to be working on. but for someone having that level of experience and dedicating that time to you because it's not just fit me in wherever it's, you know, this is the time my organisation is paying.

So you probably got a lot of attention that you really needed at that developmental stage. Yes, definitely in those early few months of starting at Brighter Futures because I don't think I had a massive break. I think I had maybe a week off between jobs. And I definitely had probably a level of trauma from doing front. line trial protection work that I kind of was able to, I guess, work through with my clinical supervisor while still being capable and competent in my new role at Brighter Futures. And how long did you stay there?

I was there for quite a long time. I was there for four and a half years. And for the most part, I really enjoyed the work. I met a lot of great people. I've got colleagues and connections that I'll consider friends for life now. And of course, I got to meet many amazing families. and experience their journey with them. What was the not so great part, though? I hear a butt. Towards the end of my time,

the organisation brought in a new practice framework. And I mean, there's always a place for new ideas and to try different things. And maybe I'll set in my old ways. I'll try and be quite neutral. But I felt for myself, the practice framework didn't particularly align with the needs of the families.

Right. And I did try and I did work through it. But I also thought, you know what, I've been here for a while. Maybe it's time that I have a fresh perspective in a new organisation and try something different. And what was that fresh perspective way too from there? So I currently work as, again, a case worker for a young parents program. So we provide strengths-based trauma-informed and child protection-focused interventions for young parents who are aged 15 to 24 and their children.

You know, the reason that I keep being drawn to this sort of work is that I feel like it's such a privilege to be entrusted into the lives of children in particular, but also to partner with parents to improve child developmental outcomes, to break the cycle of generational disadvantage, and just overall to help families be the best versions of themselves that they can be. And how long have you been there? I have been with the program for two years. And I feel like any of my friends, family, colleagues,

they'll know that I am so proud of the program. So it's a relatively new program. And we've recently expanded. So we used to be inner west city sort of based. But now we cover most of Metro Sydney, southwest all the way down to Camel Town, banks town, Liverpool, Fairfield. We've recently moved into St. George and Southern Shire as of the end of last year.

And because of our big expansion, I've had a lot of amazing opportunities where I get to go out and meet with other services and other organisations and actually present on the program and talk about how great the program is. And so I've had a lot of opportunity to, I guess, network with other people in the field. and it's improved my, I guess, confidence around presenting and speaking and talking to other professionals, really. And just getting to know what services are around that area because, you know, you can't possibly be a specialist in everything. But if you know the key ones and you can draw on those networks, then it's almost like, you know 10 things, all of a sudden you know 100 things.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So the brighter futures I worked at was in the Southern China. And when I left there, I was like, oh, all these connections that I've, you know, made over my four and a half years in Sutherland and St. George, they're now somewhat worthless, unless I'm going to refer a family into the area or that sort of thing. But now that we've expanded in there, I've been able to tap back into old connections, which has obviously been great. Yeah. Does that mean a lot of travel, though, for you? Yes, it does. For me, I don't mind. I actually quite enjoy traveling out to see my clients. So I have a caseload that has families that are in the, in

the West all the way down to actually have my furthest away client is past Camden. So it's quite far, but it gives me a lot of opportunity to just have some time for myself in the car and to reflect on my practice and to reflect on how things are going for the family. I actually really value that time alone in the car a lot more than I thought I would. Like I remember especially when I got allocated that family in Camden because I'm based in the inner west. I was like, oh my goodness, like that's going to take up most of one of my days of the week. And it definitely does. But it's worth it. And it's worth it to have the opportunity to engage with a young mum who may not have been able to have that support if someone from my service hadn't, you know, picked up her referral.

Yeah. So what would you say a typical day looks like for you? When you're not driving around visiting people, I guess that's part of it. But, you know, do you do much work with people virtually? do you do kind of a real combination of intervention? Yes, so it's a real mix. We do home visits. We meet out in the community. We can take clients to appointments. They can come into our office, which they rarely tend to do

because I wouldn't blame them. Why would a young person want to come into an office? And we also do offer telecare services if needed because I guess we know children get sick. I don't particularly want to go and visit a family if their child is sick. but most of our young people are able to use a laptop or their phone to have a video chat if needed. So for our families on the program, they have to have a range of different vulnerabilities to be eligible for our program. So these may take the form of drug and alcohol use, domestic and family violence, complex trauma.

Maybe they've been in the out-of-home care system themselves, mental health issues, financial issues, housing issues, disability, basically any sort of vulnerability where they may need a little bit of extra support from, I guess, a family support service that may also risk them ending up in the child protection system if an early intervention program doesn't jump in first. So the families that are referred to our service are deemed as engaging voluntarily with our casework team. However, at times, there can be the underlying pressure of the statutory child protection system. that may be insisting on them engaging with an NGO or a community-based organisation. And I guess overall, we just want to make sure that we're keeping as many children as

we can safe and maintaining the family unit. And reducing child protection risk and increasing child safety has been the core of my practice since day one as a social worker. Yeah. And what does your team look like? Do you have many other social workers? What does that look like? Yes.

So I'm pretty sure that everyone on my team is a social worker. I think it is a criteria of the role, which I think has, we've had some recruitment challenges. I think a lot of organisations are experiencing recruitment challenges, but making sure that we're getting the right people and getting social workers is really important to our team. So we have, I think we have six case workers at the moment, and then we also have a group worker. So the group worker is a new role. She's only been with us since the beginning of the year. Because of COVID, we weren't running groups.

but now we're able to start running groups again. So she's currently running two playgroups, so one in the inner west and one in southwest Sydney to be able to service all of our families. And she's looking at running Circle of Security next month. And we're also considering doing a cooking class to see if any of our young people would be interested in coming to that. And then we also have an education and employment specialist.

So I think that's a real point of difference with our program, particularly being young parent focused. Often a lot of our young parents have not finished school or have left to have their child or other complex reasons that have gotten in the way of their education. So we really try to down the track. So obviously if they've just had their baby and there's complexity is going on,

we're not jumping in right there. But throughout intervention, we hope to eventually bring in our education specialist so she can have a chat with them about education pathways or maybe supporting them with gaining some employment. which I think is really great as well. It sounds like such a well-rounded program as well. You've got people from people who have all different interests professionally

and they're able to bring those specific specialties to the people that you support, which is really great. Definitely, yes. What's the hardest thing for you, though? What do you find most challenging? So the biggest challenge for our young families, I think overall is the stigma of being a young parent. But second to that is housing, which I think housing is a big challenge for a lot of people at the moment,

let alone the vulnerable members of our community. So as most in the field would know, there are many criteria to be eligible for social housing. And even when they are made eligible, it still can be an incredibly long wait to be offered a social housing property. And particularly for our young parents who have either left their families where perhaps it's been an unsalienable, situation for them to be there or they've been an out-of-home care and are now sort of stuck. Trying to access, I guess, the private rental market is near impossible because they don't have a rental history or anything behind them. And it's daunting. They're not sure what to do, so they need our support. And I guess if we think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs,

without that physiological need of safety, security shelter, it's quite difficult for me to be able to work with mums on perhaps addressing their trauma or working towards their parenting goals. So often a lot of our referrals come in and the main issue is this young family needs a house. So yeah, that's probably the biggest challenge. So you'd probably develop really good relationships with the local housing offices. But again, even as you said, once you get someone onto a list, there's no guarantee when their number might come up. Definitely. And they're not the type of people who can just share a place because they've got at least a kid.

and, you know, they can't just have a room most of the time. That's exactly right. So I guess what I enjoy most about the role is I keep saying young mums because we were originally when I started two years ago a young mums program, but we're kind of making the shift to young families. But I do think I just really enjoy supporting young mums to build healthy attachment with their babies. And I love trying to create a space.

of safety in that relationship and to provide opportunities for play and provide opportunities for mum to delight in her baby that they may not have really ever done before or not really realize what it was. It's quite interesting. A lot of the mums won't actually know how to play with their baby or how to like engage with their baby. And we'll say things like, oh, well, you know, baby just sits on the floor and has toys around them and I'm like, oh, you know, you've got to get down on the floor and let's play

together and I can show you and teaching those really crucial relationship type moments is super important in amongst, you know, all the chaos. Yeah. Do you have many young dads in the program? Yes, so my caseload at the moment, I think, is around 12 and I think I have two engaged dads. So it's quite rare to have a dad be super engaged. I think just the nature of, you know, the age. ages of the clientele being as young as 15. But of the dads that I do have engaged, they are to the older end, so more like 23, 24. And they engage as equally as mum. We'll do our family visits together. One of the couples at the moment, I'm doing a parenting program one-on-one with them, which has been really good to see that dad's engaged because, you know, at the end

of the day, dad should be having equal responsibility. It shouldn't all be falling on mum. So I do try to engage the dad as much as practical, but at times, dad's just not around at all. Are there any single dads? So the dad is, say, your main cohort? So at the moment, no, we're definitely open to working with single dads. We just haven't ever had a referral for a single dad. And it could be because perhaps our perception in the community is still that we are a young mum's program because it has been quite a recent shift. And maybe that's something I need to be drilling down more into when I speak with other organisations. Because I can imagine young dads have exactly the same needs as the young mums.

Maybe they're just not as confident coming forward and asking for help. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. And I have found actually with one of the dads, so the one that I've been doing the parenting program with, when I first met him, he would be in the home, but he wouldn't really sit down and engage in the conversation. And I think he thought, oh, this is a thing for mum.

Like, mum needs to speak with her social worker. And so I was making attempts to draw him in and bring him into the conversation just by asking him, like, how do you like being a dad? What's your favorite thing about your son? Like, things like that. And over time, he started to be sitting on the lounge when I would arrive and he would stay there. So I think little things like that and really affirming that we do work with both parents. Yeah, nice. And on top of all of that, you've gone back to study.

So you're doing an MSW. Can you explain to me how that's different in terms of, I understand in terms of you've got the MSW, which is the qualifying social work, but you've already got your Bachelor of Social Work. This is more advanced practice. Yes. I guess how is this enriching the work that you do? Oh my gosh. It has been such a big leap for me, but something that I definitely don't regret.

So I started my, it's called a Master of Advanced Social Work practice, Master of Social Work. I started it at the beginning of 2022. And the reason I started it was a few, well, a few different reasons. Part of it was I felt like I'd wasted a lot of time during COVID lockdown when I could have been using my brain. And I also thought, I mean, I loved studying. I loved doing my undergrad degree, particularly when thinking about studying at uni compared to school, it was just completely different for me. Yeah.

So I'd always vaguely thought, oh, yes, I'd like to go back to study. I don't really know what I want to do. Like, should I do something more counseling-based or, I don't know, psychology-based or something? But because I'm so passionate for social work, I was like, there's no reason I can't just go and study social work again. So I signed up. And I guess another reason, like I really wanted to do it to make sure that my practice

is still current and that I'm still learning and I'm still using my brain. Not to say that I'm not doing that in my current role, but as I've said, I've been in the case work, case management, child protection space for seven years, doing very similar work in just different kind of settings. So I signed up for that and I'm now three quarters of the way through. And the thing that I like about it the most is, I guess when you go and do your bachelor's,

you don't really know much about anything. But with the Masters, I get to directly apply my current practice to my assessments, which makes them more engaging. It makes me want to do them. It makes me critically reflect on my practice. It makes me think about theories I hadn't thought of since uni. It really brings me back to those core social work values that I have. And it's great.

I mean, it's hard working full time and studying part-time, but it's awesome. And I can't wait, I guess, to have that paper to say that I did that. It sounds as though that's almost an extra form of supervision in the sense that you do have that fixed period of time where you have to focus on a case or you have to focus on how you're using your skills or your experience to apply that to something and then putting that down on paper and being accountable for it. I think, yeah, incredibly brave in the first instance to say, yes, I'm dedicating my time to this, but it sounds like it's so incredibly worthwhile and I feel like

more people should be knowing about this course. Yes, yes. And you're so right. I mean, I'm submitting my assessments to very amazing social work practitioners who have so much knowledge and so much skills and then I get feedback from them on really what I'm doing in the workplace, but them sort of seeing it externally through my written reflections, which has been really incredible, like really great learning. Do they have to be really careful to not give advice, though, as part of that feedback. I can imagine there's a real boundary issue there potentially. I think that, yeah, they do. I remember one of my very first assessments, I had to sort of create, like, my own critical reflection model and then pick a few different

theories to sort of look through that model. And I had a case where I spoke a bit about domestic violence for a young mum that I was working with and that I was really struggling with trying to engage dad. And I just remember looking back on some of the comments. And it was like a very small comment, but she'd kind of spoken about how, like, I needed to put more onus on dad and bring him more into it. And although she was critiquing, like, my writing, she'd also put that, like, slight comment in there. And I'm like, I didn't disagree. I was like, yes, you're exactly right. Like, she probably couldn't help herself either. She saw an opportunity to provide a bit of advice. I think I'd take it to. Yeah. Given that you've got so much on your plate,

you've got the work, you've got the study. What support do you need? It's also, it's also, you've also really heavy work. You know, you're dealing with violence, you're dealing with complexity, you're dealing with complicated families. How do you make sure that the work you're doing now is sustainable? I would say that I pride myself on having a pretty good work-life balance. I'm quite strict in keeping to my hours unless, you know, a crisis comes up. That can sometimes skew things, of course. Things have to be done immediately. But yeah, for the most part, I've got pretty strict boundaries with work and home life. I would say that I look after myself quite well, like I go to the gym. I try and eat relatively well. The clinical supervision is a big part of it. So I meet with her

monthly for an hour to an hour and a half. And I'm so glad that, you know, as I said, I've had this really longstanding relationship with her and she's seen me through a whole range of things, you know, in my professional career. Definitely that work life balance is so important, as they all say, but, you know, you need to make sure that you practice it. And I honestly, I think I do. Yeah, nice. Would you say you've seen many changes over time in this area, whether it's to do with the way that social workers practice or policy funding, any of that sort of stuff? Look, I can't really speak too much to the broader picture, but I guess in terms of my practice across different organisations, I went from a government organisation to then a DCJ government funded organisation to now an organisation, which is philanthropically funded. we have private donors. We do get a very small amount of funding from New South Wales Health. But in that it means that my work is very flexible. In my current role, we are sort of able to

decide what sort of framework we use, what assessment tools we use, and it's very different to those more DCJ-funded roles. And we don't at the moment have reporting obligations to DCJ. The plan is at some point that we would hope to get some early intervention funding, some DCJ funding, but for the time being, as we're now an expansion period, we just rely on, I guess, donations, our philanthropic funders, those sorts of things, which I think is very unique as well. Yeah. And also one thing at a time, you've just had this expansion, you kind of want to let the dust settle before you then go looking for other roles. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I know you've got this passion for group programs, and you get to run a little

bit of that and you mentioned the cooking group, which is really cool. Are there any other exciting programs or projects that are coming up for you in the future? Because we had COVID and we weren't running groups, I have done a lot of delivering parenting groups individually. So I have been going out and seeing a family. A few families at a time, maybe delivering the same program, but we haven't had the opportunity to bring them together as a group. So it'll be really exciting when we do start circle of security and hopefully can get some of our young parents out of their homes and meeting other young parents

because I think that's really important. And I'll continue doing my rounds to organisations and services talking about the fantastic work of the program. And in this role, I've also had a couple of chances of doing some acting up, which has been great. And I guess my long-term goal is to eventually move into leadership but at the same time I'm worried that I'll miss front line because I love it so much. So maybe that's further down the track.

Maybe you'll have an opportunity for a hybrid type role where you have part case load, case management, plus the actual supporting the team. Yeah, that would be the dream. Do you get a chance to supervise students where you are now? Yes, I do. I supervised a student at my previous role at Brighter Futures. and then in this role, I've also had two students. So that's something I feel pretty familiar with.

I really enjoy. And again, it sort of brings me back to those social work theories that we forget about. And I find it really interesting to hear about, you know, what they're learning in their undergrad degrees and what might be different from when I did my undergrad degree. And it definitely keeps me enthusiastic in the work. And this role sounds like such an incredible combination, like a fusion of the first.

stroll you had plus the disability placement which gave you work as well plus the family work the crisis stuff is there any other and I know that you were saying that throughout your placements and early career you've really enjoyed those types of work but is there anything where you've thought oh that seems really cool I want to come back to that maybe later in my career like are there any other types of social work that you've really wanted to explore honestly I don't know I think I'm just so set in the child and family space. So I think I mentioned earlier that when I was at my placement at DCJ, I got to follow the perinatal worker,

which I think has really supported my current work because we work with mums from 20 weeks gestation. So I have a lot of opportunity to do that sort of work. And I always wonder, I'm like, would I ever go back to DCJ? You know, now that I have lots of experience and knowledge behind me and I've done a lot of frontline work. Like, could I go back there? Would it be different?

I mean, I'm sure it would be very different, but would I manage it better being older and more experienced? But yeah, I don't know. There's nothing sort of on my radar. I'm quite set where I am. Yeah, that sounds like nothing off the cards as well. Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

That's true. Are there other learnings or development that you want to explore? Obviously, you're just going to get through this next, you know, three to six months of the course and then you're going to have all this time to your hands that you didn't realize was there before this. But what's next for you in terms of your learning? Are there any leadership courses that you could do perhaps? Yeah. Well, when I was considering doing a master's, I thought about doing a leadership master's. But then when I looked at the subjects and they were very like businessy and organizational and I'm like, oh, I'm going to find this so boring.

Like, I'll just stick with social work. And if I want, I can pick some leadership subjects in my masters of social work. Not that I have, because they haven't been drawn to them. But I do think at some point, you know, it will be important to do some training in management, in leadership to make sure that I have, I guess, that really solid baseline if I was to ever move into that. Yeah. And that's really clever planning because so many people I've spoken with who have ended up in leadership positions, they've just ended up in leadership positions instead of like maybe it was on their

professional development plan for a while but all of a sudden they're thrown into that situation where they're not prepared they don't have the experience or the training and they find it really challenging whereas if you've got that time to build yourself up then as you said when the time comes you'll be that much more prepared yeah yeah exactly right are there any resources or you mentioned you drive a lot so I'm thinking when I'm driving a lot for work, I listen to podcasts. Are there any resources that you'd like to shout out that people might like to get their ears on or their eyes on that relate to this work that you're doing? Well, I guess in terms of podcasts, I don't really listen to podcasts related to the work.

I'm very into my true crime podcast. Nice. But as an accredited social worker, I maintain my accreditation every year. And I think it's super important and super relevant for us social workers to, keep up to date. Check out the AASW website, check out some journal articles, check out the practice standards, make sure what you're doing is current and relevant. And I guess for my work in particular, I rely quite a lot on the Australian Childhood Foundation and the Raising Children's Network. So they have lots of great resources on child development, working with children, engaging with parents,

working with families, lots of different helpful things. Nice. Those are great resources. I'll find. all of those and I'll pop them in the show notes that people can go off and do their own reading if they want to. Christen, before we finish up, is there anything that we haven't covered? Anything else you want to say about the work that you've done? I guess the only thing I want to recognise, especially in my work, is coming from a feminist practice lens. I always question a woman standing in the overall system and I guess the overwhelming pressure of her position and existence as mother to a child, which is obviously very prevalent in my work, especially when, I guess, comparing at times to the position of the father,

who often, I guess, de-identifies and seems to face less societal pressure and parental judgment. And I guess I always want to keep that at the forefront of my mind when I'm trying to work with mum and dad. Yeah, that's a really good point. Yeah. I'm so grateful that you could take this time to chat with me. I loved hearing about the progression way back when, you know, You were doing the groups and the activities for the adults with intellectual disability

and how that then progressed to you being completely thrown in the deep end in a very challenging role where people just expected you to be able to pick things up really quickly because you'd been there as a student. But you managed to identify those burnout symptoms really early. You were able to reflect on what was important to you and you had the courage to put yourself first, which I think as social workers, we're not so good at. So that was incredible. You're really clearly drawn to this important work.

And you're able to partner with other stakeholders, which includes the parents themselves, but also these other services and supporting the young families and providing them with opportunities so that you can give them the best chances in life possible going forward. And the fact that you're doing this additional study and you're clearly one of these lifelong learners who wants to be making sure that you're up to date with things, that you're current, that you're drawing on these different perspectives through study. I think it's really set you on a fantastic trajectory. And I look forward to seeing you finish the course,

but also look forward to seeing where it takes you because you've got your whole career ahead of you. You've got so much passion and excitement for what you do. So I think it's really lovely to see. Thank you so much for saying all that. That was really nice. Makes me sound awesome. So thank you. This has been really great.

I think all of us are awesome. We're just not very good at showing people how. So hopefully this is a good avenue for that. And hopefully it helps you just reflect on, yes, I am fairly early in my career, but I've had all this amazing experience. And you can take that into whatever form of social work you want. It doesn't have to be a social work role even. You will make it a social work role just by value of you being there

and you having this experience and this passion. So yeah, I think very excited to see where you go from here. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a privilege. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Kristen, 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 email.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 Callum, an accredited mental health social worker and psychotherapist

with 10 years of experience across specialist mental health services, both in Australia and the UK. Callum also runs a small private practice Stowa Therapy and is undertaking further education in family therapy. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you're notified when this next episode is available. See you next time.