Welcome everyone to the Social Extories Podcast.
Hello, it is so exciting to be here.
I'm Dr. Mim Fox and I am joined with my wonderful friend and colleague, Liz Murphy.
Hi, Liz. Hello, Mim and hello everyone.
As you can hear, listeners, we are in a different environment today.
We are empty. We are not in the cupboard as we were through COVID.
Thank goodness. We are at the ANSWAS symposium 2022.
This is the Australian New Zealand's Social Work and Welfare Education and Research Conference of the year.
It is such an exciting event, Liz.
Look, and I've really liked having a little studio space here and I've had these wonderful conversations with social workers.
I can't get enough. I've got emails.
I don't know Twitter. I know people in the academic space or Twitter, I've just gone for a phone number and your email.
Thank you very much and we'll continue the conversation.
There are many social workers out there that is just like you.
It's okay. I've been to some amazing papers today.
Heard some great ideas, full of inspiration and it is just so fabulous to have the opportunity to do this recording here as part of this event.
So, tell us Liz at this live show we have an anonymous social worker who is here with us to tell a story.
What is this story going to be about in today's episode?
Well, it's a practice piece and it's a story like no other because this particular social worker does home visits in order to work with a young child so that therapy is going on in the house.
There's a great use of games really creative ways to engage with this young person but this is a social worker.
It's a hammock piece. So, this is a social worker who talks about the influence of social work values, the frameworks in which they work from and positionality that I want to start us talking about once we've heard the story.
Fantastic and it's in that child and family space but also in that home visiting space, right?
And both of us have done a lot of home visiting in our practice career and I have to say it was one of my most favourite things to do.
Actually getting out and seeing people in their home environment.
This one's unique because this person is in private practice and I don't think you see too many people doing that in private practice.
That's absolutely right.
So, let's get on with the story and welcome everyone our anonymous social worker to the stage.
So, for this podcast I'll be talking about a little girl named Laura.
In beginning exploring the story I'd like to lead with how I work with children and their carers and families.
Firstly I want to try and explain my positionality.
I'm a colonial settler white middle class woman living on durable country.
I regularly ask myself how does this show up in the way I present myself in the home of a family where poverty combined with social complexities is present.
When I think about how I work I am talking about my social work practice framework.
I consider elements like my values and how they fit with the practice of social work.
I plan to work with children and families from a deeply dignity informed perspective where the people I work with are treated with respect and make a choice to work together with me.
I aim to share power whilst recognising the power that I hold by virtue of the fact that I have been invited in to support a child and their family.
This brings with a enormous responsibility and I don't take that lightly.
I consider my practice from a social justice frame where I hold at the centre issues of access and equity and how to make this possible.
I consider the opportunity to visit a child in their family, in their family home is a privilege and aim to keep this idea present as we do this work together.
I choose to work in the home if this is consented to because I believe it makes possible an awareness of the interactions within the family context more visible and it makes the therapeutic work more accessible.
I use clinical and peer supervision to explore some of my questions and check my thinking about my practice.
For example, what am I doing right or what could I be doing differently?
When I'm working with children and their carers, I'm informed my understanding is informed by trauma informed practice, child development theories, critical social work theory, ecological systems theory, some psychological theories, for example, regulation theory and attachment theory.
And for the child and her grandmother that I'm talking about today, I also use continuing bonds theory in considering ways to maintain a connection with the parent who is no longer physically present.
I'm always aiming to decolonise my understanding of theory and practice and keep an open mind to other possibilities.
Little Laura is an eight-year-old child who lives alone with her grandmother.
Her mother isn't present in her life and her father died by suicide.
Laura has been living with her nan since birth.
Her mum isn't in a position to care for her due to her own complex difficulties and dad was rarely in Laura's life.
Some of the practices that I consider important with this family are being present and showing up with a willingness to be fun and playful.
Keeping open to the concerns I hold about the child's wellbeing, I'm wanting to make it all okay for her and explore ways to make it possible for this child to stay living with her nan in an emotionally safe environment.
It's important about it's important to have consistency in showing up so I'm there on the same day at the same time every fortnight and there's same processes that I use so I keep my hair the same, I have the same earrings, I use the same car and I take the same game so I usually introduce a game at the beginning at the end and when I'm preparing to leave our time together I give Laura a bit of a timing notice so I say something like I have to leave in 15 minutes or often midway through a game at this point and she will say with a kind of sound, sad sort of sound okay then I'll slow down so you can stay longer.
I take this to mean that she enjoys our time together.
This family was referred to me through my independent practice and I'm an accredited mental health social worker and the referral was hoping for ongoing work around Laura and her relationship with her primary career.
They're having some struggles together, Laura experiences difficulties with managing her anger and is living with complicated and ambivalent grief after the loss of her dad.
I'm also aware there is significant grief in the family unit having both lost to father and his son.
There are also some concerns about psychological, emotional and physical health decline of nan due to several health problems.
These problems are acknowledged as complicating nan's capacity to support Laura with her difficulties.
Laura has an older sibling who attends school and is working part-time.
She provides Laura with extra resources as she needs them.
I haven't spent any time with Laura's older sibling because she hasn't been home when I visit.
Nan is a single parent career.
She has some family support and some community friendships though doesn't socialize very much.
Her own health issues are impacting her energy levels and patients in supporting Laura with her needs.
She's tired and she sometimes yells a lot especially at Laura.
Nan struggles to find language to describe Laura in a positive way and often links Laura's difficulties with her mother's drug use in pregnancy.
Sometimes Nan has said these things in front of me.
This has created some discomfort and challenge for me where I've had to think on my feet in responding to Nan's words whilst also maintaining a warm relationship with her in order to support both of them.
I've been home visiting fortnightly.
This was a choice on my part because while Nan is driving she isn't driving far and I thought it would make it more possible for Laura to have access to a service if I committed in practicing in this way.
We regularly sit in her play room where we play games.
Each time I visit a show up with Bobby Roger.
He's a big big pink fluffy stuffed rabbit who meets with her Teddy, a big fluffy stuffed bear and they sit together and Laura and I get to playing.
Laura sets the scene with parameters established by me.
I bring the Teddy, a bag of paper, pens, textures, games and some smaller toys.
We begin with snakes. We originally began with snakes and ladders and then moved to large jenga and then most recently she's been enjoying rubbing cup.
Playing these games has enabled me to carry out a biopsychosocial assessment with Laura by observing her and chatting with her.
I found myself really liking Laura.
In my assessment of Laura I learnt that she is a delightful child.
I've learnt that she is intelligent, quick-witted, a good problem solver, a good shareer and turn taker and quick learner.
She has a keen interest in all kinds of things like maths, movies, puzzles, running ball sports and special kinds of foods.
I've learnt that she holds big worries.
She's very worried about her nan and finds it difficult to express this to her.
This makes sense to me because Laura is very fearful of nan no longer being around.
She's been in hospital several times so this is a realistic concern for her.
I think her anger and sometimes violence is in response to her worries and grief where she is struggling to find words to express her feelings.
She has been exposed to nan's ways of responding to anger by yelling and feeling out of control.
I can see that this is confusing to Laura.
That grown-ups can yell and be intimidating but when she tries to express herself in this way she is called naughty and has more and bigger yelling responses by adults in her life.
Nan thinks we don't do very much together.
She has said a couple of times, I want you to tell her how naughty you've been.
I found myself in a dilemma between responding to Nan's negative words and working at maintaining a rapport with Nan.
To manage this I aim at reframing some of the language used by Nan towards Laura, for example.
I wonder what's been happening for Laura to be having big feelings since I last saw her.
Using diatic developmental psychotherapy ideas of reframing and making sense of how Laura's brain may be making sense of her world I explore my thoughts with Nan.
Laura listens in and my hope is that both Nan and Laura hear another story of possibility about what might be happening for her.
I notice Laura will redirect or appear to be distracted when the conversation focuses on her in this way.
I think about this as maybe shame and confusion.
I find myself making guesses, though these guesses are informed by the training and supervision I've had.
I'm informed by whose work in parenting using diatic developmental psychotherapy to help me think about the possibility that Nan is experiencing maybe blocked care due to her own experiences.
But currently I can where we're at at the moment I continue to visit Laura fortnightly with the aim to be an adult who connects through play and offers her an enjoyable adult connection without expectation.
We do some chatting but mostly we play.
She leads the play and I follow using language that supports a strengths-based approach to her sense-making.
I don't add words to our conversation that I think might be too challenging for her to experience.
I use words that I've identified she's comfortable with, for example, wow you're so great at maths.
She's told me she's good at maths and then I've witnessed this with our games.
Or you're such a great shareer.
She takes turns and often smiles when she does this.
Or I really appreciate your patience when she waits her turn in a game.
Well gee you're great at kicking the ball when she's clearly confident in how she maneuvers the ball we're playing with.
I do these activities and say these words with Nan listening in with the aim to model different ways of talking to Laura and exploring what she is good at rather than focusing on the perception of negative experiences.
So some of the things I've been thinking about.
Laura's never had the experience of a grandparent and this needs to be taken into account when thinking about what Laura has missed out on in her short life.
I'm aware that Nan is living with this situation 24-7 and that's tough.
I know Nan is under a lot of her own pressures and caring for a child who has a complex trauma history can be a difficult role.
I keep in mind the level of stress carers can be placed under when caring for a child in out of home care.
So some of my reflections in considering some of those challenges.
So doing good clinical work in this context feels difficult because I want to want to do more than I can in my role.
Keeping at front of mind, child protection and well-being.
Laura is physically safe in her environment, though I do reflect on her psychological well-being regularly.
Ethically, I'm challenged by considering another service because I'm limited by the nature of my role.
One hour per fortnight, though this sometimes often extends to one and a half hours.
The counselling support of one hour per fortnight is an adequate.
I'm not in an agency where I can provide case management and can see this family could be supported by increased services or networks, but there are gaps in this area.
This family has already had intensive family support in a six-month program and is now working with me.
I feel it's a dilemma to consider another family support referral, whether service will only provide short-term intervention and will be yet another set of practitioners for NAN and Laura to engage with.
NAN's health struggles are impacting on her ability to reflect and change her parenting approach.
And then lastly, managing NAN's expectations of my role after having a family support service providing support multiple times in a week.
Thank you so much to our anonymous social worker.
Where to begin? I know. There are so many things to say.
Well, can we just start?
Is it my imagination? This is the first social worker we have ever had who has articulated positionality?
It is, isn't it? It absolutely is.
There was a very clear positionality statement at the beginning of that story, right?
Now, I'm used to that because coming from the social work education context, students nowadays are taught to identify a positionality to then inform their practice framework.
But back in the day, we were never taught that.
Hold on, not even back in the day, my friend.
That does not happen in the clinical space.
And I'm thinking, what would it be like to encourage that in say supervision session?
Let's explore your positionality and, similarly to what this social worker said, and how it impacts on the work that I do.
How comfortable do you think the average practitioner would be with that process?
Well, I'd be hoping that in a good supportive supervision space, you could kind of be talking about, let's explore this.
It's the thing that's happening in the tertiary sector at the moment.
It's the fancy thing to do right now.
You're going to have a student that will want to have this conversation with you.
Yeah, I could see it in that way.
What I loved about the positionality statement and the fact that we're here now in the ANSWAS symposium is that there's been a framing around social work education and particularly field education at the moment that's in line with the code of ethics.
So there's been a framing that sits around respect, social justice and professional integrity.
Yeah, it's been kind of a running theme.
And what I loved about starting that with the positionality statement is it quite clearly then position the practice within that frame as well, right?
Like for me, there was no ambiguity about where the value stance of this social worker was throughout then the rest of the story.
And I really, really enjoyed that and appreciated that.
I said it, I. And of course, you talked about the social work values and well, I didn't count how many, okay.
The theories. So I lost count at eight.
Yeah. And I'm going to put a challenge out there to all of our listeners, pause the episode and actually write down the theories and then see if you can identify where in the story that theory played out.
Love it. Because it was very clear, very, very clear.
So the challenge is out there, the amount of theories and how they then directly related was beautiful.
See, I think there was a subtlety to the way in which this therapist worked too.
So I think, yes, it's very layered.
Yeah. But it was done so subtly that, you know, you've got Nan in the background saying, you know, I would have thought she was a lot more, you know, fixed by now.
Like, like, I think it's slow, subtle, beautiful work that is being done, like even down to the details of what this therapist chose to wear.
Yeah. The games, the routine in which they, they, they, I guess, the ritual of their home visit.
That's the trauma informed space.
That's a trauma informed space.
So there's a consistency and a safeness to it.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
And like, I love the game.
Like, I have this very strong image of this therapist and little Laura on the match playing this game.
And the information that this skilled therapist is pulling out in relation to Laura and how she exists in the world.
You know, I don't know, was it snakes and ladders, but she got a sense of, you know, the good at maths, good at following rules.
Yeah. But also, what about that conversation that would have floated above it?
The conversation that kids can have when they're doing something else with you.
Yeah. And maybe that's when Laura discloses that she's a bit worried about Nan because Nan is in hospital on the weekend.
And so this therapist is, is again able to get a sense of where she is at the moment.
But it's also that child-centered approach, right?
Just even in the language used, which is, these are the things I've learned about the child through my experiences with her, right?
And that's actually centering the child in that space.
And for that to then be the framework to come from later on with conversations with Nan, which are sort of resisting that B-faster approach, right?
And so I guess I want to coin the phrase slow social work that actually we're slowing right down in this story.
And we're taking all those details one thing at a time.
And it's like a tapestry of a safe environment, which is child-centered at the APCOR.
Slow social work in a hall of mirrors is how I would describe it because there were, like my head's just going, okay, right, she's reframing what Nan is saying about Laura, whilst Laura is watching on.
So she's helping to role model and reframe behaviour in the conversation with Nan.
Yep. And also working in a way that doesn't damage the relationship with Nan, because she's got to keep that connection, right?
She loses Nan, she loses Laura.
Yeah, absolutely. It's a hall of mirrors.
My head was just kind of, and then there was the understanding from Nan some of her concerns about Laura as well.
Like there's lots of things going on in this one hour.
It totally turns that idea of what are you even doing there with the kid when you come on its head, right?
Because actually on the surface, it may not look much to the untrained eye, but the complexity that you've just stepped through is enormous, absolutely enormous.
Can we talk about the home visit?
Yep. As a site of this wonderful therapy, we, in the intro, we said, look, we don't see home visits happening in that space.
And I'm like, I truly believe that.
I've never heard of this before and I bet you any money, she bok bills.
I do, I do. I absolutely do because she's talking about, this is an access and equity issue.
Yeah. I'm telling you, Mim.
I bet you're, this is not going to be a therapist, it's going to make millions of dollars in a practice.
Oh, very sadly, Liz. Very sadly.
And so she should. Yeah.
I completely agree with you.
I think there's, it's such a unique space to be sitting in and that acknowledgement that there are other services that might provide time-limited case management for this family at certain points, but that actually this is where the family is at now, right?
This is the most that they're going to be receiving.
And the limitations and challenges of that, right?
Like just sitting with that sense of responsibility that for the hour or the two hours a week or whatever it is that you've got to pack so much into that in order because there's no wraparound support now.
And I think that's the real limitation that we have actually in terms of what's available through our services through the public system and then what private practitioners who are coming from this clear ethical base can actually provide.
I'd love to ask her about what are the plans around terminating?
Like what, what, what is the next step?
Yeah. I mean, because this would be someone who's thinking about that the minute they engage.
Yeah, how do they, how do they actually come pull back from this relationship where you are the only person that's working with this family now?
I think that's a really challenging space to sit with.
I do. Yeah, really fascinating work, right?
That really engaged trauma-informed work in the home environment, coming from private practice position, but sitting within the limitations and constraints of our public system.
Hall of Mirrors. Hall of Mirrors.
It's a hall of mirrors. I don't know where you're sitting, but I think we're rounding up in a minute, but I mean, I do know where you're sitting, but as does everyone in the room.
Now, there was one quote that stood out for me.
Yeah, yeah. And it was in relation to the beautiful narrative work that this person's doing with Laura and Nan.
My hope is that both Nan and Laura hear another story of possibility.
Yeah. Yeah. I know. I just think it's a really incredibly positive and child-centered, but also relationship-centered base of this work, right?
I think that just was really clear.
Yeah. Fantastic. All right.
Look, that was just such an awesome story.
And you're right, a hammock piece.
The social worker has stepped us through it and we get to just sit back and bask in the glory of the work, right?
I've yet another beautiful social-exstory.
Absolutely. We want to really thank our audience who are here with us today.
We want to thank our fantastic anonymous social worker.
And thank you to the, thank you to the Anzwa Samposium as well for allowing us to have this moment, Liz.
Actually, it's been fantastic to be in this space.
Everyone, thanks so much.
We hope you're all taking care of yourselves out there in the heart every day work that it is and we'll talk to you soon.
Bye, Liz. Thanks for listening to the social work stories podcast.
All of the stories that we share are de-identified to respect and protect the people involved.
We create this podcast because we're passionate about building the global social work community and strengthening our practice, no matter the context.
If you want to help us grow the podcast tribe and continue the work that we do, we would love it if you can subscribe or follow the podcast in your favorite podcast app.
That way you'll be sure to get every episode as soon as it's released.
While you're in your podcast app, if you can leave us a five-star rating and write a review, it would mean so much to us.
If you happen to be listening right now or in a live audience, you could even do it right this very moment.
You can connect with us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, where you can share our posts with your friends to help spread the word.
And you can always find us at our home on the web, socialworkstories.com.
Thank you so much to Georgie, Sam, Mark, Jesse and our anonymous social worker for your contributions to this episode.
Socialwork Stories is a podcast made by Social Work Media, a production company run by Dr.
Mim Fox from the University of Wollingong, Dr.
Ben Joseph from the University of Western Sydney, Justin Stash, Liz Murphy and Matty Stratton.
Thank you so much for listening.
