Social Work Spotlight - International Episode 12: Sam (England)

Episode Date: January 30, 2026

In this episode I speak with Sam, a forensic mental health social worker based in a specialist community mental health team in South London, tailored to work with forensic mental health patients, who have additional needs in the context of intellectual disability and/or neurodevelopmental disorders. Prior to this, he was based with an outreach focused mental health team working with people rough sleeping.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:News article about the Homeless Outreach Team, featuring Fran Busby - https://lhf.org.uk/press-release-south-london-and-maudsley-homeless-outreach-team-a-winner-in-london-homelessness-awards-2023/Forensic Intellectual and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (FIND) community team - https://www.autism.org.uk/autism-services-directory/f/find-community-teamWitches film by Elizabeth Sankey (trailer) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwx5350Bj8Notes on the Mind podcast episode with Rai Waddingham - https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/notesonthemind/episodes/Episode-Two---Rai-e13is75/a-a60ohohThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12GeL7BX6Bx9QH3j90QEdRXDr_c3j6fLa3MMByhmhWdA/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Before beginning, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the countries of guests featured in this podcast and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters and community. I pay my respects to the First Nations people, the cultures and the elders, past, present and emerging. Hi and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode, with a 12-month focus on social workers around the world as of August 2025. I'm your host, Yasmaine Lupus, and today's guest is Sam, a forensic mental health social worker based in a find service within South London and Maudsley National Health Service Trust. Finders a specialist community health team tailored to work with forensic mental health patients who have additional needs in the context of intellectual disability and or neurodevelopmental disorders. Prior to this, he was based with an outreach-focused mental health team working with people rough sleeping.

Thanks Sam for joining me today on the podcast. I'm looking forward to having a chat with you about all things social work in the UK. Thank you for having me. I'd love to know firstly what got you started in social work, what brought you to the profession and what interested you? I mean, I had relatively unconventional route into social work. I'm sure a lot of people say that though, but I had a whole other career in another industry for about 10 or so years. I was, broadly speaking, I was in the arts. And if you have anyone in your life who works in the arts, or you yourself have experience, it's freelance.

It can be quite challenging in a different way to social work. And you often have to do other jobs to supplement your income in between gigs. And I did that for 10 years. And I was getting very burnt out. And I was trying to transition my supplementary income to be jobs that, you know, weren't just working in a bar, or working and, you know, being a nanny. I did that a lot, actually.

So I was trying to make those jobs feel a bit more meaningful, have a bit more of a purpose, a bit more of a kind of positive change in the world. I was doing that to some success-ish. And then COVID happened and lockdown in the UK. And like a lot of people that, I should say, I was very fortunate in terms of my first couple of months. Other than being scary for a couple of weeks financially,

I was sort of okay for a couple of months. And I had time to reassess, I guess breathe, not be so burnt out by that career and sort of look at where my life was going. And personal reasons as well, my personal life guided me to think about those transitions I was making to those supplementary jobs that, well, I could just do that

and maybe I'd feel more fulfilled all of my day rather than just the other times when I'm not doing whatever art project I'm working on. and actually I didn't need that other part of my life. And that began a whole journey of looking for what that was. And I'll be honest with you, I didn't really know much about social work for that. I didn't have much contact with social work in my personal life leading up to that. And, you know, there was lots of Googling and lots of contacting services.

And then I'm sure we get into exactly how, but eventually I found a platform in which to study and train and become a social worker, which is what I am now. And it sounds as though you had that fast-track program, which might be similar to what we have in Australia. So if you've done something tangentially related to the arts or to psychology, for instance, you can do what we call Masters of Social Work qualifying. So it's a two-year degree, which is effectively the last two years of the Bachelor of Social Work. So you get all of your hours of placement, plus you get some of the theory and some of that more hands-on opportunity to see this is definitely what I want to do.

do. So was yours the same in terms of the fast track? Yeah, very much so, although I'm not sure if that course has the same thing over here. There's a teaching program that I think is American in origin called Teach First, which is very similar. Essentially, you get paid to study. So as well as doing those two years, you're getting a burst for your first year to do that. So you do actually all your placements in one year. And then your second year where you do your master's, your dissertation, you've got a position, a role. And in the UK, they call it ASYE. It's essentially your probationary year in social work. So the idea is if you get onto one of those programs, unless you perform poorly or it's not for you, these things will be

guaranteed. So they cram all your training into one year and then you sort of learn on the job in your second year. But yes, it's a similar type of program. Okay. While you're doing that first year of crammed training, do you have time at the university where you can kind of connect to the theory and the purpose and why we're doing it. Because if you haven't come from, say, a similar humanity's background where you've got some of those, say, sociology or psychology subjects, I wonder if it's all a bit foreign as you jump into that. Oh my goodness, it was completely foreign, yes. So the way the course, and actually there's, I think at least two in the UK, and the one that I did, which was specifically for mental health social workers, actually has recently not been given a government funding to

continue, at least for the time being. But the way they operated when I was there, and the most recent year is you would do a sort of month, full-time, uni college time, which was actually a bit remote when I was there because it was still coming after COVID. And then you would periodically have uni days, either online or at the university, every month or two. So there was space to get that learning in, but as you said, it was completely foreign in terms of my background.

So it was a little bit, I'm not going to say a little bit, It was overwhelming at many points throughout that year because, I mean, even just the process of academic writing and engaging in academia in a serious way, I come from the arts, you know, although I have a bachelor's and a master's, it's in, you know, practical degrees where you're being creative. It's totally different thing to approach things with, you know, all the different fields and disciplines that come into social work to just understand it, let alone have a critical eye towards it. So, no, it was really challenging and it wasn't the only one of that is the course it's designed for people to sort of yeah come from a different

discipline to this world of social work. It's pretty incredible that you have that bursary though because a lot of people in Australia will struggle with the idea of I've been working full-time in some other field now I have to go back to university not only do I not get paid to go back to university but I pay my tuition fees so that's a real struggle for people especially as they start to do their placements. I can't conceive of how one does that without you know financial support from family or what if you're lucky enough to have that i wasn't in that position either there is no way that i could have retrained in anything unless i got a scholarship or a

bursary to do so i i don't come from savings particularly i've worked in the arts for 10 years of course about savings but i also don't come from a a family background where that was feasible so without that component of it the bursary paying to train element especially for that first year it it would have been impossible. And I think there's a lot of very valid criticisms of fast-track programs like that. And I quite like engaging with it because it's good to be critically reflective of your own journey. However, just purely for the possibility to become a social worker and find people who otherwise couldn't, not having to pay tuition fees and actually getting paid some money a month to pay bills, it was transforming. And yeah, it enabled me to

actually become one. So I'm very grateful that that course existed. So tell me about your placement opportunities and I guess then how that transitioned to your final year and when you then felt, I guess, a bit more confident to step out into the world as a professional. Yeah, well, they really drop you in the deep end, which I'm sure is common for a lot of social workers' experiences. Yeah, so after that first month, it's a nationwide program. So you sort of pre-select what part of the country you could feasibly do it in. And for me, it had to be London because just I couldn't travel. further than that. And it was in South London, which is roughly where I live. But beyond that, I didn't know anything where it would be. So the first placement was when a generalised community

mental health team than an NHS trust. And it was also at that time going through a transformation. So when we started, and there was four other students who were in that same area, when we started, it was specifically for mood and personality disorders. So people, service users who have diagnosis, this long-term difficulties with mood and personality disorders. And it transformed when we were there, like right in the middle of us being there, actually, and it became much more generalized. Okay. So the trust at the time had a separate psychosis-based service, and it merged.

So it became anyone from that area who would fall under a community mental health team would be in the team that we worked in. And the way it worked was not sure if it's the same in Australia, but you would have essentially a supervisor, a consultant social worker, who was Australian from Lena. And she was, yeah, there to support us. She had a much more reduced caseload. So the idea was that she would initially do shadowing with us,

but then we would slowly build a caseload throughout that first placement. Our second placement was just in the same place. And then our final placement, which in the UK is a contrasting learning experience. So most of the time, if you're doing adult social work, it would be with children and families and vice versa. So for us, we had a little bit more. choice about that and I actually did mine in a mother and baby unit within the same NHS trust that I work in so there was both an adult social worker and a children and family social

worker there but yeah so that was my first year all those however many days it is now goodness 120 19 and 30 i think it is was in the NHS and i guess it's slightly different than with your specific program with the mental health focus right so we have the focus on different types of settings and different people that we support throughout the different placements, but usually ours would be incredibly diverse. It might be children and families for one, and immigration and community development sort of thing in the other. So they, or completely different like policy. So there is a big weighting, I guess, on that diversity, but yours would look at diversity within mental health, which is also incredibly interesting. Yeah, and I suppose

within that, the range really was whether you're working within NHS, or whether you're working with a local authority. And it was a fairly even split through the other candidates, the other students, I should say, within the country. And I guess that other than that level of diversity, it would be the different types of teams you'd be working in, but again, still within mental health. I think it's such a great opportunity,

even though there would have been a lot of turmoil and uncertainty for the other people working in the organisation, being able to have that critical lens on a restructure as a student would have been so fascinating because I feel like you go into a placement and the people that are supporting you that work in that placement organization are trying to paint it in a positive light.

They want you to be encouraged and motivated to come into this field. And often you don't get to see the underbelly. You don't really get to understand the machinations of how things work and why they work a particular way, whereas you would have gotten a front row seat to that. Oh, my goodness. It was absolutely fascinating.

It was so beneficial in retrospect. The learning that I took from it at the time, you know, like your question implies, it was extremely stressful. Things are never managed perfectly when these things happen, not to be criticised, but that's just the way it seems to go. And, you know, plans were rushed and some of the professionals were extremely stressed. All very kind and supportive, I should say. But, you know, caseloads being dumped on people the last last minute. I'm saying case loads, though not people, but people who've built relationships for many years with their care coordinators. Oh, goodness, it was chaotic to say the least.

But again, in retrospect value that I experienced that because it was a helpful guiding light for how to, one, how to analyse these processes and these systems. And two, just to, I guess, sort of test your resilience or engage in your capacity to be resilient and not. in that kind of, yeah, extremely stressful situation. It also has the potential to place a lot of additional responsibility on you as a student, right? So you're still trying to find your feet and all of a sudden you might feel compelled to take on a few additional cases just to keep things afloat. So it's, I don't know, I'm a bit of a poliana, whereas I say, great, that's great. I get to learn more and I get to understand more and I develop my networks and all that sort of stuff.

But, you know, I just want to sort of call out the elephant in the room of that would have been for anyone else potentially quite a game changer in terms of maybe I'm not cut out for this. Yeah, and I think that is, I mean, that is one of the criticisms of the fast track courses. You are sort of left to, even though you've been given in theory lots of support, you are left to fend for yourself a little bit in that situation. And I'm similar to you. I actually felt that I really, I learned that. I was good at that and that I enjoyed that process of finding as I'm doing and developing knowledge, relationships, resilient, all at the same time based on nothing. But that process can feel very much like you're the wall of synchromitly in the train tracks

as the train is going. And it's not a good system. It seems about how to broadly critique social work in the UK and perhaps this is true in other parts of the world too is that is sometimes how it feels a lot of the time. And you could have people who are really excellent and well suited to the job, but maybe not as well suited to that without some support and it put people off or they maybe will just disengage a bit from it. So I don't think it's a great system.

But from my mindset and my, yeah, just what I'm inclined to engage with, I felt like I really enjoyed it. Well, enjoyed another right word. I got a lot out of it, I would say. So tell me about then your last year. How did you dive into that? what was your focus and how did that then guide your journey beyond university? Well, it felt very much still new.

You know, everything was only a year having engaged in this world at all. But I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in social work for sure. And I mean, my only experience was mental health, but I felt there was a lot to learn and that I had something to give in that world as well. So you got a level of choice about the type of role that you were offered. there was an early intervention psychosis team that were recruiting that are typically quite stimulating to work in and I didn't choose that not for any particular reason just because the other team that was looking for someone to come in was what's called an assessment and liaison team is that

a term that is over in Australia you're nodding yes yeah so it's they're changing how they work over here very few places have assessment and liaison any more in the UK as far as I'm aware. But the part of London I was working and did. And just for people who aren't aware, essentially that would be the front door to secondary mental health services. So you would get most of the referrals to that service would be from the GPs, though not all. And it would be a real range of experiences that people are going through. You know, it could be someone's been suffering from symptoms of depression and anxiety, and they've tried the generic counseling therapy that NHS offers.

The GP's tried a couple of different medications. Not really sure what's going on in their person life, but nothing's working. Can you get some help? That's the sort of function of a team like that is to be a bit more specialist than the help it can offer. However, it would then range to people who have had multiple admissions under the mental health

that long-term diagnoses of schizophrenia at all and perhaps are heading towards another admission because of what's happening with them. So you would get a real range of mental health experience with services, I should say. And it was a brief intervention service in theory as well. So the idea would be that you would work with people up to about 12 weeks, and either that work is enough for them to continue maybe therapy in the community or with the GP or whatever that might be, or they require quite a lot longer-term work.

and they would go to a more generalised community mental health team or more specialist fun. In theory, you didn't always work out like that. The thing that appealed to me about that as a team was, one, it was engaging in assessments a lot. I mean, every week, at least two or three different assessments of new people. Some of which you've got a lot of information on, some of which you've got very little. And I felt that was a good skill to develop. Also working through people's journey with that particular service from start to discharge. without the pressure of discharge,

like actually completing an intervention, felt really helpful. And also, because it would usually be the first referral, or first port of call, I should say, for GPs, but for other services in different parts of the country, you know, sometimes it wouldn't be our team that would be the appropriate team to offer that help. But it was really helpful to learn about the networks,

to learn about how mental services work in London and the UK, to learn about how psychology offers work within our NHS trust and the different teams, because there's so many different teams that often aren't amazing at communicating with each other about how they work. So it was a really exciting learning opportunity, I thought. And I was right about that. So that's why I chose that particular role. And I mean, being honest, all services are stretched and lots of pressures.

If someone, because sometimes it wouldn't take that. that long. You know, sometimes you would do an assess that, you know, quite often a quite common presentation that becomes with people is, you know, I've been given this diagnosis, this diagnosis, this diagnosis, this diagnosis. What I really want is some clarity about what's going on with me. And that sometimes would only be a couple of weeks you would need to work with that person. And I wouldn't be the one giving a diagnosis, but I would be doing assessment, working with them, getting a psychologist or a psychiatrist involved. So that might be a couple of weeks. But with the people who know it's going to really take those 12 weeks plus to understand how best to support them.

The next step was the difficult part because the next step, those services are at capacity, or way past capacity. So very often the answer was we can't take them or we can't take them until this, this or this happens. So there were people in our team who would be, I mean, there were some people who'd been there for years, although there weren't people I was working with. Yeah. But yes, even in the perfect world, 12 weeks is a fair amount of time to, you know, get, you know, some understanding of someone's circumstances and the help they might need or the support they might need and the risks they may pose as well. Sure. And it sounds as though

if people are bouncing around the systems, they do have an admission, they might be able to then come back and the clock starts again. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I mean, there was some criteria about the type of admission it might be would dictate that. Sure. Yeah, very much so. And also that is, I mean, you said bouncing around, that's very much a large portion of people we'd be working with are people who, for lack of a better time, bounced around, like being declined, GPA referred, been declined to this team, to line this team. So you're talking with people who've got a very justifiable negative relationship and view of services because of being, you know, declined help.

So when you're stepping in, you're coming in with that baggage as well. So it was a fascinating place to be based for my first role. Sure. And so you would have had psychologists, psychiatrists, as you suggested, did you have nurses, occupational therapists? What was the team make up? Yeah, so my role was as a care coordinator. And again, in the UK, a care coordinator can be a social worker, community psychiatric nurse or an occupational therapist. That team didn't have any occupational therapists at the time.

It was a combination of social workers and community psychiatric nurses. I mean, actually, within three months, I was the only full-time member of staff. So I'm talking about this as if we were a fully funded. team. But the way it should have worked would have been we would have have full-time psychiatrist cover and either a psychologist based in our team or this very close link to a psychology team who would offer us support. And that was really it to be honest with you. By the time I was leaving, we had a neurodevelopmental practitioner attached to the team which was very helpful. But it was quite

stripped, quite bare bones I would say was the offer the team had. Was there an option for you to continue on in that agency if you wanted too once you'd finished. Oh yeah, very much so. Yeah. So the contract was rolling actually. So it was rather than like a fixed term you do this year, it was you've got a contract with us like you would have a normal role with the NHS. And I stayed with them for about a year and a half. And the only reason I left wasn't because of the team itself. It's because I'd sort of felt like where I was at in my relationship to the team. I was either ready to take a more senior position within that team or to broaden my experience, broaden my horizons, working with a different team,

perhaps a more specialist team. And I chose the latter option of those two. But no, I mean, there's another world in which I could have stayed within that team. And then if a more senior position became available, applied for it and still be there now. That's totally possible. Yeah. But you wanted to further your experience and not, I guess, be too comfortable in what you were doing. So where was that not too comfortable? Yes. So I saw a post. for a team that I was very excited to join and it didn't disappoint, which was still within the NHS, still within the same trust. So there was a level of familiarity in terms of the clinical systems and how the team, you know, a community mental health team works. But it was with a team that

worked with two populations of homeless people. So one of those populations were rough sleepers, so people who are rough sleeping at the point of referral. And it's for a mental health team. So rough sleepers who are suffering, or at least suspected to be suffering. with severe enduring mental illness. And then the other cohort people, the team supported, they had funding for five years. And I think they've actually just had it again, which is great, is working with people who think you would classify

as multiple exclusion homeless. So people who are based within homeless hostels who have had rough sleeping experience, maybe even quite recently, but aren't at the time, but have, you know, multiple complex needs on top of that. So likely mental health, likely quite serious physical health, you know, probably some forensic difficulties, although they're not in a forensic team, you know, alcohol and substance misuse, lots of times immigration issues. People who, for all those

reasons I just listed and the way that our mainstream services are set up, aren't equipped to help and support. So it was with these two cohorts of people that this team I worked in. Yeah, we're based, and that was my next role was, again, as a care coordinator, but working with that specific cohort of people. I wonder if that second cohort might be more challenging to support because it's harder to recognize and it's harder to see a trajectory because in Australia at least we would kind of categorize it as primary being rough sleeping definitely you know you see on the street homelessness sleeping in a car for instance secondary would be people who maybe were bouncing in and out of homeless shelters or had some support or some some security for some of the time

and then you'd have tertiary, which might be people sleeping on couches or short-term leases, that sort of thing. So I feel like your people fell within that second camp, perhaps. Definitely. Yeah, that's a really good way of describing it. And you're right. I think in some ways, you know, the first cohort people that that team supports are at, you know, the real far end of being, you know, an outskirts of society and are really difficult

crisis point. So it's really challenging and it's very scary for them what's happening. But there is a method of supporting that person, even if that method is that person needs to be in hospital to get treatment, like immediately, and that's difficult to navigate when someone's rough sleeping. There is a journey where someone can be supported and it is quite clear actually. And it was fascinating how many times you would see someone really do extraordinarily well based on getting that support at not the right time, but at the time that it was most critically needed. Whereas the second core people, it was much complex as you might expect and there was lots more difficulties in terms of building relationships with those people as well but also being flexible in terms of the support that they need you know i was

fascinated by dual diagnosis when i was a student that's the first thing that when i started studying i was really gripped me even though i'm not a fan of the term you know you'd see people being excluded all the time from my previous role psychology offers if they have a little bit of you know substance misuse even if it's relatively minor in the scheme of things where this cohort almost everyone had quite serious substance and alcohol misuse and there is no your function is there to support them within that and understand that you know and navigate the difficulties of you know someone contributing very directly to the lack of support they're getting not through choice through all the trauma and difficulties that they've experienced which has led them to rely on you know whatever the

substances were but it was really chaotic and shableness challenging environment you would find the service users in. And that was part of the job. And that was part of the fun. And I think you're either very much suited to that kind of work or you're not. And yeah, I really love that role. It was brilliant. Yeah.

I wonder if you have anything similar. I back home volunteer for an organization, a charity that it's all around Australia and New Zealand now, but it's called Orange Sky. And we have bands that are kidded out with washing machines, showers, and we park the vans in areas that have high homeless populations within, well, I do two shifts within Sydney in different locations. So the idea is that it's providing someone with companionship, an opportunity for a conversation, a chat,

something familiar, routine, but also just the dignity of having your clothes washed and being able to have a shower without any sort of judgment. Is there something similar that you're aware of, that you've come across through your work? Yes, it is. So it's slightly different. The way that London works,

and anyone who's worked in services in London will recognise this, it's all separated by the boroughs, the boroughs of London, and they're different councils, each of them, and different local authorities. So it's very different. The reason I bring us up is it's very different borough-to-but-what is available for people, and usually it's very borough-specific. It feels like you're talking to a totally different country sometimes

when you're talking to a different borough, even though you're like one step, I'm in the other one. But the borough that I was based and I worked in did have some of that type of offer. I think the most clear example I can give is the homeless day centres that were in the borough I worked in. And our team would be based in all of these as well. So we would run clinics and all of them have quite good relationships with them. So the one that I would do weekly sessions in, they offered showers, you know, clothing, as well as, you know, there'd be a different homeless charity that would come and help with like applications for things. there'd be meals of course, there'd be also kind of grocery sort of set up for them.

And that particular one, they would have key workers there and develop really, really good relationships with the people who would access that service. But there's multiple versions of that in London, as well as sometimes more niche services that do drop in health checks, you know, do drop in clothes drives. There's often charities that are based primarily not like a homeless day centre, but I guess more like a community space for people to make active. of different types of things like that. And again, even if it's just the dignity

of developing relationships being talked to like a person, and most of the time our team were quite aware of those different services in the burrows that we worked in because for both the cohorts of people that were talking about, that's sometimes how we would make those connections, because if these things exist, people find them, you know? Yeah, word of mouth is such a strong thing in that community. That sort of organizational sense,

center reminds me a lot more of we have something called Wayside Chapel in Sydney, which I was fortunate enough for the podcast to speak with their CEO and Pastor John, who is also a social worker. Just an amazing human and I might actually send you a link to his episode because I think you'll be very keen to hear what he has to say and how he got into it. But I took a big tangent there, but that's really good to know that those sorts of supports are there to supplement, I guess, what the NHS is able to provide and what the networks are able to give people that have diverse needs and those needs will change. So you can't just say this person should have this service because that's not going to fit them at every particular point in time that they need an

intervention. And so you've had that crossover, I guess, with the psychosocial disabilities, but did I read that you also were supporting people with developmental disabilities? You did. I'm wondering where that comes in and whether that leads to or whether you see a a high correlation between neurodevelopmental and homelessness in the UK? Very much so, yes. So this is more my current role. So I'm now in my third and hopefully for the foreseeable only role within mental health services. But I can talk about the team I'm working in currently in a second, but about the homeless population, yet very much so. Certainly, I mean, I'm thinking about some of the people that I worked with without being someone who could give a diagnosis.

what I felt was very clear ADHD, several people that would work with who'd been managing their ADHD with different substances and alcohol. And you could see that certainly autism presented itself as well. I think one of the challenges was at the point that we were working with some of these people, they'd already had the failure of support for those needs for like sometimes decades. So, you know, the person I'm thinking of who very likely had, autism, we did actually have a psychiatrist and a psychologist who could go and engage with an assessment for him. In terms of his autism needs, they wouldn't have been high enough to then instantly qualify him for specialist autism support. It would have been more, that's good for you

to know, which at that point might have been helpful for him, actually, but nonetheless, it's like in terms of like the, you know, hierarchy of his needs, you know, it's not for me to say what should be on that hierarchy, but nonetheless, it wouldn't have changed the circumstances immediately. And similarly with ADHD, I can have very clear thoughts about a gentleman I was working with. He was such a charming guy, but he was living a very chaotic life. But the support he could get from getting an ADHD diagnosis and maybe even some medication for that, he wasn't in a position to access that. And the only way to access that would have been through mainstream services. So I guess having an awareness and understanding that these challenges exist.

and it might adapt your communication style or adapt your support for someone certainly is useful. And I think it's a huge gap in terms of services ability to support people in those situations with that level of understanding. But in terms of our day-to-day work, it didn't really present itself in terms of offers we could have. You're thinking about someone like who really struggles in a hostile environment. Well, if you're rough sleeping in the UK, that's what your option is unless you're someone who would manage your your own property. You know, if you've got sensory difficulties, that's going to be really challenging. But I mean, is that person met a walk around with a community patient passport to let people know? Like, really, what should have happened is that intervention should have happened years ago.

And then that would be built in terms of how to support this person. So I don't know what the solution to that is other than I know that there's a gap. And I know that's an issue. And I know that the service leads in that team is very thoughtful. I recommend looking her up, Fran Busby. She's worked in this area for a long time, and it's something that she's aware of also. Okay.

But yeah, I'm not sure if I answered your question properly other than agreeing with you. That's good. That actually helps, I guess, with the transition then to what you're doing now, tell me about your team, the program, and it's relatively new, so how are you growing it? Yeah.

What's sort of the focus now? Sure. So I left that last team, not through needing to leave. I was on a fixed year-long contract and it was looking like that we might not get funding. And my personal circumstances, my partner was pregnant with our first child. It was a bit too much of a risk to sort of wait for that. So I had to sort of seek another team. And again, I was a bit broad about what I was looking for other than I just wanted it to be a really specialist team.

I didn't know what, but I wanted to be specialist. And I ended up getting in contact with the team I'm working in now, which is a new service within our NHS Trust, although it's not a new service in the UK, and I believe there's an international offer of this type of work also. So it's forensic work, first of all, so I suppose technically I'm a forensic social worker now, and I work with a cohort of people. I'll get onto our team in a second, but I work with a cohort of people who would meet the criteria for a forensic mental health team at the same time as having an intellectual disability

and or a neurodevelopmental disorder. Yeah. So the idea being that mainstream forensic teams and mainstream mental health learning disability teams aren't necessarily equipped to deal with either those forensic risks or the needs arise from someone who's got a, you know, moderate learning disability, say, or autism and has quite significant needs because of that. So this team's called find exists to sort of fill that gap to meet those needs. Like I said, there's different fine teams in different parts of the UK. but in our part of London, there was a fine service that offered basically consultancy and maybe bespoke interventions for people who are in one of those teams and they could come in and do a bit of work with them. The feeling was that actually it needs to be its own operational community mental health team in each part of London. So we work within this NHS Trust, like I said. We're still quite new, like you mentioned, and we're recruiting. The way our team will work will be,

like a community mental health team, we'll have a cohort of a smaller cohort of people we work with who meet the criteria that I just explained. But within our team, we'll also have a speech and language therapist, an occupational therapist. We've got one psychologist a minute, an assistant psychologist, but we're hoping to have more of a psychology offer, actually. Social worker, which myself, consultant psychiatrist, and then, you know, team leader and other people to help the day-to-day running of the team. Where we're at the minute, because we're not recruited fully, or even I'd say, yeah, maybe about a third recruit at the minute. So we're not in a position where we can just be up and running and taking on the sole

responsibility for working with people. So we've got a combination of, we've got people identified to absolutely meet the criteria for us. Brilliant. We've started meeting them, developing relationships, developing our understanding of their needs, etc. And most of the time, they're going to be, for the meantime, in another team with us either offering very, very direct for sport or us co-working, essentially. So that's sort of where we're at

at the minute. But it's not ideal and we wish we were further ahead. It's just, it's been a challenge to get recruitment started, basically. Yeah. And it sounds as though you've had to take on a leadership role quite early in your social career. I'm wondering how you feel about, because a lot of people take that on because they don't feel as though there's any other choice. Was that always something that was in your plan? Was that something that you wanted? I'm just curious as to how you see leadership within social work, especially within that multidisciplinary team. Yeah, I do, I do see that as a role that I'm growing more comfortable in, the more experienced I get. I mean, my background, I mean, I worked in theatre, to be more specific about my arts background, and by the end,

I was working and trying to work as being a director, you know, which is the lead. artist for a project and whilst I was doing that I was also a tutor and a university so the senior acting tutor at drama school for a foundation course and I found that a lot of our discussions with my superiors in that role and also other directors was about leadership and teamwork and had that as effective how you can be you know an efficient and collaborative we rather than an enigmatic eye how can develop and robustly function kind of on their own, but not really, because it's everyone making it function. And I find that fascinating. And in my roles, I've had to sometimes take on

maybe more than I probably should have, and then learn, oh, actually, maybe you should have enabled this other person to do this or even be thoughtful about that. So I am thinking a lot about that within this role. At the same time as, you know, I'm going to be, I'm the only social worker in the team by profession. And there's social work, functional. that are new to me through working for forensic mental health that I'm needing to learn and also get comfortable with as well. So I guess it's a balancing act of trying to enable ours as a team to be, you know, that I just said, you know, that we, that collective we, whilst also trying to develop my skill set and my professional comfort with what is being a forensic social worker. I have to say I'm quite fortunate is that the team members in place already are very collaborative, very community.

and we engage in quite healthy debate and conversation and I think I'm grateful for that fact. I was in a position before where I found that sometimes, I'm not sure if you found this, it can be a culture of just senior people talk and it's something I don't like. So I'm looking forward to our other team members joining where we can sort of try to promote that from the start. And I think that's maybe it's perhaps easier to start that with a new team with that in mind rather than trying to transform an existing dynamic, which can be much more challenging and take years

and sometimes rely on an individual. So it's very much in my head how to develop this and how to display and model professional leadership as well as taking on more direct leadership roles. We'll see is the answer to that, Yisman. Yeah, and I think that's a luxury to have the opportunity to think ahead and to plan as opposed to just having to do it on the fly.

So it's obviously going to be different when you're actually doing it. But I think the opportunity to think more about it and understand the different dynamics as you get to know the people in your team. I think it's an incredible position to be in. It's also worth saying, I think, that I think my professional background prior to being a social worker has helped in a couple of different ways. And one of the ways, and I bring this up a lot in supervision, is that, In theatre, you know, particularly this, which was where my background was, specifically as an actor, criticism is so necessary that even the most talented, exceptional actor, wants a director or another actor to say, why don't you try this?

Maybe I'd try it this way, let's have a go in a totally different way, try a new idea, whatever that might be. Now, there's ways to be constructive with that and disruptive with that, but nonetheless, right? that's something that's just considered a basic element of Adei's work in theatre. And I found it really interesting moving into a totally different professional field where sometimes people are amazing at that and naturally just really good leaders at being an encouraging reciprocal criticism and development. But often not, and very often I found it observing, especially when I was earlier in my journey, quite a lot of confrontation,

largely to do with poorly delivered and poorly received feedback. So it's something that I'm quite conscious of when I'm, I try to be quite reflective of it in the moment, when we're having case discussions now, because this is the modelling that we need to go forward, that the way this works, the way a multidisciplinary team works is the multi-part of it. It needs to be a plethora of voices that have challenge in them

and challenge being okay, and it's not feeling like you have to be a bombast to make your point, nor feeling that it's just a dictatorial team ran by whatever professional that team happens to have running it. But yeah, it's an ongoing thought I have about, and listen, there's lots of actors who are terrible giving and taking feedback. So I'm not saying all actors are wonderful communicators or not. But it's an key element of that profession that I think could be better implemented in other fields. Certainly social work, I found that. Yeah. And maybe something you can work on with your social workers.

supervisor as things progress is that balance of what is my caseload if I'm supporting a team and that can be really tricky. So figuring out where's the sweet spot if I've got too many cases and I feel like I'm not doing either one particularly well. How do I kind of divide the workload? Do we need another social worker? So I guess that's for further down the track, but just good to think about as well. I'm trying to keep that thought very alive in my mind, yes. You have a supervisor. I imagine they're external if there are no other social workers within the team or are they still within your borough, your service as such? So my supervisor at the minute who offers my regular supervision is she's essentially the senior social worker for forensic services. And so she is external to the team, but she's very much been a part of the team's journey and, you know, I've gotten to know them quite well.

That might change as our team develops. So it's possible that it might be someone a bit more directly involved in the team, but it's unclear at the minute. So that's where my supervision comes currently. Okay. Well, sometimes it's good to have that external eye and someone who's not part of the dynamics. So, yeah, other than great supervision and willingness to do this work and a passion for it, what support do you need to, especially as there's a lot of uncertainty around the next few months?

months, how do you keep motivated to keep doing this work and what support do you look for? Yeah, it's a really good question about the being motivated thing because I think there's a sometimes bad habit within NHS social work of expecting someone just to sort of do that themselves. And I think it's a necessary aspect of the job. And it's something that one of the reasons I think I was hired is because I do seek a learning opportunity. myself. I do sort of seek to find and understand connections and relationships. But sometimes you can only do that for so long if you're not getting any guidance. So I benefit from having, I guess, like being able to check in that I'm on the right track with something, even if that's a very

quick yeah, or sometimes a more guided, thoughtful intervention from someone more senior. And so that's something I need. Going forward, I think, I think I just really, really benefit from a communicative team. So just as long as there's not unsaid things in the air with me and my colleagues, I mean, I'm not talking about personal issues. I just mean about the dynamics of the team and how it's working or not working. I like things to be open if possible within reason. And so far that is the case.

And I hope that continues. What else do I need? It's hard to know what I need, you know? I mean, obviously like life outside of work to be going, you know, lovely and being stimulated by that. as well also helps a great deal. And I need to feel like I'm learning something, I suppose. And to feel like it's like I'm engaging with something new and learning to understand it. And thus far, as I said, this is my first forensic social work job.

There's been a lot of that. And long may that continue. So yeah, that also helps. Do you get to be involved in theatre, in live performance? I'm thinking there's another wonderful Australian social worker that I've spoken with who he's engaged in community theatre and musicals and both front of house and back of house. And that's kind of his way of disconnecting a little bit

from the significance or the seriousness of the work that he's doing and he can kind of step back into something that's familiar and fun for him. Yeah, you know, once I stopped acting, it wasn't, I didn't miss it. So acting and performing is something of, I mean, goodness knee, I stopped that coming up for 10 years ago now. and I loved it when I did it, but I'm happy it's done.

In terms of being creative, I guess, is something that's still something that I connect to and feel I get joy out of. I get that in different ways. So sometimes I teach acting of an evening or the weekends, not the whole weekend, just to be simulated with actors in a room, it's a nice feeling and it's a rewarding feeling, and it's quite easy for me to do. And sometimes there's money with it, which is lovely.

And then other than that, if I feel motivated, I do some writing, but it's not really with much intention to produce anything. It's more just to like fill that creative verge. And my partner's an actor. Okay. So all the stimulation that she has and gets and all the stress and the worries I get without having to take on that stress. So it's hear about all that world all the time. And most of my friends still come from that world as well. So I get that level of engagement.

But no, I'm not like your person you mentioned doing community theatre. I think that would probably be a bit too much for me, I think. Light little touches here and there and that's helpful. Well, especially if you have a kiddo at home now, you've got a lot of different responsibilities. Yes, I don't think she would tolerate me going away, working on a play at the weekend. I think I'd get some complaints from her and her mother.

Yeah. What's the most challenging thing for you that you found at least in your social work career so far, and it could be about social work in general, in general or it could be about the world of mental health. You know, I thought about this. I think the biggest challenge that I find, and it's something that at various points,

I'm actively frustrated and confused by and at other times resigning to, is the way that services and selves, not run in terms of efficiency, I just mean operate separate from each other in the UK. You know, the type of service users that I'm working with now, as you might imagine, have lots of different stakeholders in terms of services. And the way the UK works for lots of different reasons that we could get into a different

day, they're just not often united unless they're really supported to be so. And that's great when that happens. But very often it doesn't. So, you know, and it's not one services at fall, it's everything. It's including the NHS. It's the health, local authority, police. housing. And then as I said earlier, different boroughs feel like they're different countries in the UK. And it's really challenging when you're trying to organise quite a complex offer of care and support for somebody when, you know, sometimes only information is called a general inquiry line to said, you know, whatever borough it is. Also because people often get placed out of borough is quite a common practice. For lots of reasons, some of them legitimate. But then that adds a whole other dimension of how does this other stakeholder now engage with this person and how do we stay actively connected?

When I first worked, was a student actually, I was working with a young woman who had quite complex mental health needs. And I think I counted that she, for all the services that were being offered to her in terms of the support that she needed, it was five different boroughs in London that were offering those things for her. none of them was where she was living and none of them were talking to each other and it blew my mind that was possible now that's an extremely bad example of it and it's not always like that and

you know there's certain interventions that bridge that gap especially for people who are in hospital who've got a learning disability or autism but nonetheless it shouldn't need that much of an intervention to bridge that gap and you know this is an ongoing problem and I don't see

it getting better so I think that's the most consistent and seemingly unresolvable challenge that I can think of. And what do you enjoy most about social work or about the work you're doing now? I am minded of, I've got an example of that, so okay, forgive me for going on a tangent, if that's a right. But it's hard to express this in a term, so I have to tell the story. My previous role, like I said, I was working with people with homelessness and multiple conflicts needs as well. And I was working with this gentleman who, you know, he'd had just extremely challenging life. And he was about the same age as B.

And he, you know, was in care. He was very young, foster care. And then he was in care placements after that. And then from his mid-teens to when I met him, he was either rough sleeping tertiary. I think you said no fixed-de-board. You've been to people's couches or in prison. a combination of those same things. And throughout that time, he was seriously misusing all sorts of substances,

but alcohol was his dependent substance. He was really, really drinking an awful lot for years and years and years. And by the time that I met him, that had taken its toll to quite a serious degree with his physical health. He was extremely well known to people in life, to work in homelessness, I should say, in London. He's a very charming guy, very likable person, which shouldn't matter, but just as a fact of what this guy was. He was very likable. And he, it's a much longer story,

but fundamentally he ended up going into hospital. He'd been in hospital many times, but managed to stay there to get the help he needed. He'd been in hospital about six to eight weeks. He'd abstained from drinking that time, kind of just out of his own energy. Like he wasn't engaging with any support to do that. He just chose not to for that period of time.

It's quite amazing. And I should say this is a guy When I see his physical health I mean they were talking about end of life care at one point with this guy Like he was really unwell He kind of recovered He still had lots of physical health difficulties

But he'd recovered to the point Where he was able to leave hospital And the hospital social work team Had found him a place now You know, he was getting ready And one of the things that he wanted To get ready was get some clothes Because all his clothes were dirty

And he didn't have them So he asked me to go shopping with him And I had quite a good relationship With him at that point and we went into central London was the easiest place to go it's not where he was based but it was just the easiest place to go and I didn't think about before I went with him

that that's where he spent most of his time as a young man where he do a lot of his socialising you know a lot of his sleeping would be done there as well a lot of his begging and a lot of his thieving you know that was his lifestyle was in central London

and he was aware of that obviously and he wasn't telling me as in trying to confide in me he was sort of seeing it out loud and I happened to be the witness to him speaking of him remembering things and he was remembering you know that's the shop that we used to rob because they didn't have security guard there until 11 o'clock and you know that's where we used to get food from the people at the church or that's where my friend was doing a handstand and fell over and he was telling me these really fun exciting sometimes quite scary stories and as I said, he wasn't telling me for any kind of therapeutic benefit, but he was needing to say it.

And as he spoke, it became clearer, you know, that most of the people he was talking about had died, you know, that all of his friend group from that time were no longer with us. And he was expressing that, and he was expressing about how, you know, at a certain point when his physical health got bad, he became the decoy for robbing alcohol of the shop. And the sort of shame and the fear of that and the low mood. that he had with this. And I just, as he was speaking and he finished and he was definitely moved by remembering

what he was remembering because it was clearly at an important point in his life, I felt what an absolute privilege that was to be a witness to that. And my role in that moment wasn't to be a counselor or a therapist. He wasn't seeking that from me. It was just, I think, to be there, to let him be a witness to him go through

what he was going through. and it really had a profound effect on me and as I was going back and took it back to the hospital I was like I don't know how I document that I'm not sure if I could someone told me what was that intervention what did I do I listened to him to talk but it was important and I could see it was important for him and I know it was important for me

and there's little moments like that that happen in this role and every role I've had in this current role too where you feel like oh that was really important that I was there for that although I struggled to define exactly what that was, I was there during something that was profound or meaningful to this other person. And I think that's the thing that I enjoy most about social work and it's the thing that consistently delivers and reoccurs in this role. And yeah, that's why I think I don't think only social workers have those experiences, but I know that it's

something really special about being at social work. I think it's that moment where you step out of the clinical space and allow someone, I guess, normalize their experience to an extent of just, I know that used to be your go-to or the way that you would hold yourself in this environment or, you know, you're worried about going into this place, but you're just there to help him go shopping, help him to walk into a store without fear of someone's going to recognize me or it's just a very normal thing that he probably didn't have the opportunity to do for a long time. Even if he had the confidence too, he probably didn't have someone there with him saying this is okay to do. So yeah, I feel like it's those golden nuggets that happen when you least

expect them and when you definitely can't put in your statistics of something that I, yes, I did one of these 10 things that are on my list of things that I can allocate towards my statistics. Yeah, it's such a powerful and beautiful example of the heart of social work, I think. Yeah, and that we're working with people and people matter. Yeah, goodness, that was a, big day. I can imagine. Given that you've delved straight into a very specific type of social work, is there something else that you have thought about or have, I guess, come in contact with social workers who do something else? And you've thought, maybe at some point in my career, I'd be keen to go down that path to. Yeah, I have to say, I don't think I would,

necessarily be best suited for this role but when i did a placement on a mother and baby unit i found that to be a really special place i felt really i was staggered but how therapeutic and how important that work was there was a documentary that came out a year or so ago that actually interviewed the psychiatrist for that word and yeah i found that and also it was a combination of children and families work with adult work as well that was a fairly unique offer but if i'm I'm being honest, in the UK as part of the Mental Health Act where someone is detained in hospital or sectioned, the decision maker and organiser for that is called an AMP. So an approved mental health professional and it's almost always a social worker who does

that. And to do that role, you know, you have to be accepted but you go through, I think it's like nine month training or something like that and you then have that, you know, as part of your role at least once every couple of weeks or something. And I feel like that would be something I would be interested in, being involved in that decision-making process at a very critical point in someone's life, which I've had experiences of, but fundamentally, I wouldn't be the decision-maker. I would be the person trying to get a decision-maker involved in that.

So I think that would be where I think would be the next step in my career, but not yet. I'll see how this team goes first, and then the thing about that role is you can be based within any team, So I could easily be in this team and do that, but we'll see. Okay. Is that documentary available somewhere? Do you think I can find it and pop it in the show notes? Absolutely.

I think it's just called Witches. Okay. Yes, it is. It's called Witches. And it's made by a director called Elizabeth Sankey, and she herself, I believe, had a mental health crisis around about the time that her child was born. And it's about, it interviews a lot of women and mothers who've been through that same experience, as well as some professionals who worked in that field. So it's highly recommend. Yeah, brilliant.

I'll find it and I'll pop it in there. Are there any other resources? Anything that you watch or listen to or read about that you think would be helpful for other people to check out? Yeah, I try if I can to engage with front-facing people with lived experience who are needed to be involved directly in how services are ran or needing and changed. And there's a woman called Ray Waddingham who had a terminal experience of psychotic illness and is, I think, goodness me, I think she does a lot of things, but I've seen some lectures she's

done that I found interesting, but I would recommend finding her, and there's a good podcast that she did where I first heard of her called Notes on the Mind. She was interviewed by two social workers, two men and other social workers, actually, called Notes on the Mind Ray, so R-A-I, which is her first name, and she talks about her experience of becoming unwell, getting treatment, and leaving hospital, and it's fascinating. and I'd highly recommend. Perfect. I'm always trying to diversify my knowledge as well

because I've had longer term experience in a very small amount of things to do with social work. So, yeah, I'm always trying to listen to other podcasts or read widely and, you know, that's something you can do passively at least. You know, you're on the bus or you're going for a walk or something. So I think those are a great shout-outs.

Oh, great, thank you. Is there anything else that you think we haven't touched on before we finish up, anything else you want to mention about social work or your experience? No, I mean, I'm conscious to reiterate that I'm still relatively early career and I'm aware that you can have very bold and what you think are very useful thoughts about profession or career at the start and then catch me in five years. I might look back and go like, oh, I'd rather not listen to that. But nonetheless, I'd highly recommend people if they can getting engaged in social work.

As you said, there's such a diversity of roles available. And that story I said about the gentleman with the shopping, I think I can overstate how precious those moments feel and what kind of job can give you that. Helping professions widely can. But not everyone's suited for becoming a psychologist or a counsellor. And I think actually there's a nitty-gritty element of social work that is really up my street.

And therefore, I'm assuming it'll be up other people's streets too. Yeah. I appreciate you taking us on this journey from just the desire to provide meaningful support to communities to people. I love that you have that scholarship available to be able to return to your studies. I think without that, so many people just wouldn't. And so that's a great help to the helping professions. I think they should have that for teaching and a few other things as well, but they might in the UK. I don't know. But you've taken us on this journey, I guess, through your mental health, social work, learning, and the diversity of the supports that you've been able to provide and really quickly developing relationships in a small amount of time.

So you've had to develop networks and develop your confidence to bring people together within a team, whether that's your immediate team or whether that's within the services that are also supporting your people. And then building your own team as a leader is a different learning thing altogether. So I look forward to hearing how that goes and how that further develops your social work identity, I guess. And my takeaway from this is that more services involved with a person does not necessarily mean better services or better outcomes. So it's about the quality and the communication, the collaboration that services have with each other that ultimately makes a difference for the person that they're seeing. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of wasted resources.

thrown on the wall and you know you see what lands yeah i would echo that i'd echo that yesman thank you so so much sam i've loved meeting with you and loved hearing about your journey so far and look forward to seeing where it takes you and just so appreciative that you could share all of that but i'll find all of those resources as well so people can get a bit more of an idea about the context of some of the things you're talking about yeah it's all good for my own learning as well and it's like fly on the wall supervision for me. Oh, thanks. That's great. A unique way to get supervision, but yeah, great. Well, well done. Yeah, take it where you can, right? Thank you again. Thanks, Sazin. Bye. Thanks for joining me this week. If you would like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either

myself or Sam, please visit my anchor page at anchor.fm.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight. podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Next episode's guest is Yelena, who has over 13 years of experience in the public sector, international organizations and civil society in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her work focuses on research, advancing social policy, protecting the rights of vulnerable groups, evaluating programs, and supporting the European integration process, having collaborated with UNICEF, the EU, and various government institutions, and has published more than 39 scientific and professional publications in social work,

criminalistics and human rights. 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 then.