Ep. 30 – Social Work and Vicarious Trauma: The Fear of it All Unraveling (w/ transcript)

March 31, 2020 / swdiscoveries

Social workers are walking alongside people dealing with some of the hardest and most traumatic circumstances they’ve ever had to face. Sometimes these difficulties leave a mark.

Join Mim and Lis as they contemplate ‘the fear of it all unraveling’.

Credits:

Hosts – Lis Murphy and Dr. Mim Fox.

Producers – Ben Joseph & Justin Stech

Contact us online at www.socialworkstories.com, follow our facebook page or use the handle @SOWKStoriesPod on twitter or instagram.

Do you have thoughts, want to contribute a story or question for the team, or just say hello? Send us an email on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you!

Podcast Transcript – Episode 30: Social Work and Vicarious Trauma – The fear of it all unraveling (transcript).

To cite:

The Social Work Stories Podcast, 2020, ‘Episode 29: Social Work and Vicarious Trauma – The fear of it all unraveling’ (transcript), accessed online [insert date here], <www.socialworkstories.com>.

Date Published: 31/03/2020

With special thanks to Katie Wicks for transcription.

Photo by Lane Smith on Unsplash

Lis – Don’t you reckon it’s great to be back in the rhythm of life again. Like, these conversations I’ve missed so much and,

Mim – Yeah

Lis – But I thought about your point about sitting around the fire and,

Mim – The tribal fire.

Lis- We can’t even say that anymore.

Mim – Yeah, it’s a virtual fire now Lis.

Lis – Totally virtual, there are total fire bans going on and I just think so many people might be triggered by the whole fire thing now.

Mim – Ok so we’re no longer sitting around the fire at the camp site.

Lis – I liked your, sitting around with a cuppa though.

Mim – Yeah, yeah. Ok so now we’re sitting with a cuppa speaking with our, still our tribe.

Lis – Yeah

Mim – But definitely our colleagues are still out there roughing it at the moment actually, In Australia.

Lis – Yes still, But you and I get to just have these conversations again like we normally would and today’s is another one of those topics that you and I have talked about, cried about, shared our own experience of it, but it is another one of those ones that we’re really going to sink our teeth into.

Mim – I know

Lis – And it’s something we’ve also done some research about.

Mim – It is, but before we go straight in Lis, hey welcome to the Social work stories Podcast.

Lis – Woops, sorry.

Mim – Both to you and all of our listeners. The person over there speaking non-stop is Lis Murphy.

Lis – Thank you, thank you. I’m feeling frisky, I’m feeling very frisky.

Mim – She’s on a roll today everyone.

Lis – I love this topic.

Mm – It’s a great topic.

Lis – You know me.

Mim – I’m Mim Fox,

Lis- Hello Mim.

Mim – Hello Lis and hello everyone. We are talking about a topic today that Lis, we’ve been doing work in for about three years you and I.

Lis – We had started our research on vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue in hospital social workers coming up to nearly three years to the day.

Mim – Yeah, we’ve been working with a great group of social workers in a few different hospitals around this trying to really understand it and unpack it. Looking at the impact of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. And this story that we’re bringing you today is a colleague of ours, really really personal experience of the impact of compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma on him.

Lis – Absolutely, so that is what the focus is about.

Mim – Yeah

Lis- But he, in order to get to that focus, he tells us about a very poignant case, and I just let people know that it is about the death of a baby, um. But the focus is definitely on the impact that it had on this social worker. But I need to warn you, this is one of those social workers that can really tell a riveting story. The detail that he gives about the sights, the sounds, the things he was thinking.

Mim – Its evocative, it will draw you in.

Lis – It’s so evocative, and at times somewhat, I found it a little bit chilling.

Mim – Yeah, there’s a chilling aspect.

Lis – There is. But if this is something that you think, yep, I’m not interested in hearing about the story. Come back and listen to Mim and I talk about the impact on the social worker because that is going to be our focus.

Mim – All right, have and listen and we’ll speak to you again in a minute.

Music Plays.

Social Worker – So the case that I’m going to talk about today, is quite unique in that I wouldn’t frame it as being one of the more challenging trauma cases that I experienced across the grand scheme of things that I’ve been involved with over the course of my career. But it is one that has stuck with me across time. But also, one in which I very acutely became aware of trying to understand what my role is and feeling somewhat helpless or insignificant in being able to effect change for someone who was experiencing such acute grief and distress.

So, it was a case where I was on call. It was a Sunday morning. At about three or four in the morning I got a call to come into the hospital because a baby had become unresponsive and passed away overnight and had been bought into the emergency department. So, I was asked to come in to provide support to the mother who was there with the child. So, I made my way into the hospital, as you tend to do with that kind of work, kind of hypothesising what that might be like when you get there and try to frame how I might approach a situation such as that, and what would I do. That in itself is challenging, because you don’t really have a reference point yet. Or you are out of the context. So, I think often receiving that call can be very daunting because your trying to place yourself in the workplace when you’re not at work. But also, then trying to work out what you might do to support a person in that situation. So, I was going through all of that when I was going into the hospital. I arrived and I was in the emergency department. So, I got there, spoke to the medical staff, doctors and nurses that were involved in that situation. There was an immense heaviness in the emergency department just about this particular case. Just because clearly it was incredibly sad, and staff were quite distraught about trying to support the mother of this baby that had passed away.

So, this real kind of almost jarring contrast of the emergency department with sounds and fluorescent lights but this real kind of deep heaviness in the emergency area. I made my way into, in most emergency departments have like a family room where people go, and conversations happen about things that are happening in emergency with families. So, the mother of this baby was in there with the baby and there was also this two-year-old child there as well, looking completely lost and not really clear about what was going on. And there was a nurse kneeling beside the mother who was holding the baby, I’ll call her Chloe. And the nurse was stroking the back of the mother who was cradling the baby that had passed away. And the nurse was also crying. So, I walked into this family room we refer to it as, very dimly lit, there was no windows, it was the middle of the night anyway. But it’s a very dim room with furniture that was just really really well worn. And into an emotionally intense and heavy environment. So, coming I guess from home really into the emergency department that was full of fluorescent lighting and then moving back into this really visually dark, visually and emotionally dark area really. So, the mum was very understandably incredibly distressed. She was clearly grieving the death of her baby that had just occurred. There were moments where she also had lucidity, where she was able to come out of that for a minute and have a conversation, but then would just go back into that acute distress. So, the nurse left that room and so metaphorically handed over the baton of responsibility for that situation to me. So, I was then left to try and work out what was I going to do in this situation. I remember at that time feeling incredibly ill equipped to be able to affect any kind of meaningful change or support in this situation. I mean what could I possibly do in this situation to make anything better. That in itself is very jarring, around I had this responsibility to manage the situation and to support this person through what I assume may well be the most traumatic thing they have been through or will go though in their life, yet so ill prepared and unable to do anything meaningful in this situation.

I was talking to the mother or trying to talk to the mum about what had happened and not really knowing what I was trying to ask her, and not really knowing what I would say to her in those moments where she was incredibly distressed. She kept repeating the same lines over and over. It was “ooh Chloe, wake up Chloe”. And that was a repeated phrase, almost as though Chloe was playing a game with her and by saying that Chloe would wake up and things would go back to normal. And she kept repeating that same kind of phrase, she was stuck in that loop for a period of time where she would say, “Chloe, come on Chloe, wake up Chloe” And that for me was laid down as the soundtrack to that experience, of being in that room at that time And again I recall this feeling of being incredibly insignificant to do anything meaningful to change the situation for this person. But so, incredibly, I would say, overwhelmed by the sense of responsibility for that situation. The doctor came in at one point and did speak to the mother, Chloe’s mother, to talk through the medical aspect of what had occurred and what would happen next. I remember the doctor looking to me, with this look on her face of, trying to get reassurance and kind of checking if what she was saying was ok. I remember nonverbally giving her this reassurance in that moment. But again, it just reinforced to me, that this is all sitting with me, they are also relying on me to be the person who’s holding this together. I spoke to that doctor afterwards, I had taken myself out of the room, and the doctor said was that ok, was what I said ok. And it was, she was very empathic, and it was fine, it was good. But it just again hit me that I was the one that people were turning to, to be front and centre in this situation. And it also struck me that the team collectively were supporting the mother of this baby, and I was supporting the team in supporting this mother. But who was supporting me? I was left as the last person standing, trying to you know hold everything together, but who was my person to sort of go to if I was needing to support the other people in the room. It was a really surreal moment I think to have, that revelation of questioning I think when I understood that I felt very ill equipped to be in this situation that I was finding so incredibly confronting. I remember questioning the profession in the sense that, how did the profession that I know and love and trusted get me to a situation where I am so out of my depth and so uncomfortable really in dealing with what I needed to deal with. So, the organisation was asking me to do this, but I personally felt like I was so ill equipped to be the person dealing with it.

Again, throughout all of those conversations the mother was repeatedly saying oh Chloe, wake up Chloe. I just want to say it again to reinforce that this was a common theme across the conversations that I was having with her. At some point the father arrived in the hospital, in the emergency department. So, he had been out celebrating the birth of Chloe. So, he arrived, and he was intoxicated when he arrived. It seemed to me there was great difficulty for him in trying to land himself in that room. So, understanding that his capacity to comprehend what was going on was impaired because he was drunk. But he was trying so hard just to wrap his head around the fact that he was in an emergency department and needing to try and comprehend the fact that his daughter had just died, and the irony of this is devastating, while he was out celebrating her birth. Some tension arose between the mother and the father, understandably in such an emotionally intense situation. There was some questioning around what had happened overnight and how Chloe had become unresponsive. The father then, he left, he left the emergency department. It seemed to me it was more than he was able to comprehend, he just needed to flee. He just couldn’t be there and try and wrap his head around what was going on.

Again, in that moment, after he left and I was with mum again on her own with the two-year-old, who was still looking lost and had this uncertain role in this situation. There was no one else we could call to look after this two-year-old. But there was this situation of trying to manage this mum and the other child at the same time. And I was very aware of the impact that this situation would be having on that two-year-old. And was kind of not really able to grasp what was going on, but clearly felt something was happening and it was bad. The heaviness was unmistakable. I think that impacted on the child as well. But I still felt like a stranger imposing in this deeply personal life experience for this family and a deeply devastating experience, but still a deeply personal one. And who am I, little old me, like walking up to ED being so front and centre in trying to address and resolve and support them through the situation. It was just so a disconnection for me around what I was needing to do in this situation and what I felt like I could do. The question then came up for around, what is my role here? What am I supposed to be doing here? Is my primary purpose being a support for the mum, am I meant to be a babysitter for the two-year-old? Am I supposed to be the hospital representative in terms of facilitating the processes that happen when someone passes away in hospital? Or was my role to be a support for the staff who were here dealing with it as well. And I realised that I was all of those things at once, but I felt ill equipped to be any of those things in their own right. There was a real, and again I use the word disconnection, between what I was needing to do and what I felt I was able to do in that situation.

Interestingly to me, the part where, the part after the father left the emergency department, is the part where I stop being able to recall, or visually recall what happened in that situation. I either can’t recall it or I’ve blocked it out, I’m not sure which. But that is interesting to me that where my ability to retain information hit its capacity or the situation was overwhelming to the point where I couldn’t absorb any more, or lay anymore of that memory down, I’m not sure. I don’t remember what happened after that situation, after that part of the situation. Knowing what I know about processes in the hospital when the death of a child, there are things that would have occurred following up from that. But I just don’t have any recollection of what those things were.

My next recollection of that situation would then be on Monday morning when I was back at work. So, this all happened in the wee hours on Sunday morning, while I was on call. So, the next working day, the Monday I was back at my computer just going about my business and trying to organise my day. And one of the senior social workers came up to me and said that she’d heard about the on-call situation that I had had and asked if I was ok. And I absolutely vividly remember feeling this innate and intense need to shut that conversation right down. I remember having palpitations and getting, it made me just so anxious that I was being asked. I just knew that I needed to just not have that conversation. So of course, I said, no I’m fine, it was fine, it was pretty intense but I’m ok. Knowing, well physically knowing but, I wasn’t able to articulate or recognise that for myself at that time. That I wasn’t ok with it. That I felt this need just to not engage with the conversation. And I think the fear of having that all unravel. I think if I kind of said actually no I’m not ok with that situation, it would have spiralled into a whole conversation around why am I not ok with that.

So some time after that situation, I would say a couple of months , maybe three or four months, within that period, I didn’t actively do anything to resolve or address or talk through the experience of that on call situation with the death of Chloe, and my involvement in that. I probably didn’t feel like I needed to, but in hindsight I recognise that I actually did need to. I started to develop auditory intrusions, so I kept, at various times, and at times when I was unprepared for it to happen, I kept hearing the mother saying, Oh Chloe, wake up Chloe, it would just come back to me, at various times along the way. And of course, that would then connect the dots for me to straight back into that dark room with that emotional intensity and the heaviness of that particular on call case. So that happened quite a few times over the course of a couple of months, where just out of the blue, I would just be going about my business with no kind of real identifiable trigger that I could see, that would come up. And then I would just be taken straight back into that situation. So, I kind of look back at that and realise that was an indication that there was something happening for me with that situation that has been left unaddressed.

So, I’ve got to say, that so those auditory intrusions did go away over time. But I will make the point that I didn’t actively try and do that because I wasn’t in a position where I could acknowledge that I needed to. That I needed to address it. I also at that time lived near the hospital that I worked at. So, I would hear the helicopters coming in, and the ambulances coming along to go to hospital. So, if I was at home, I would hear the ambulances or the helicopters and I would just have this sense of anxiety, just the sound of that was a trigger for me that provoked anxiety. Even if I wasn’t on call, the sounds of those helicopters or those ambulances would take me back into that situation as well. Again, that resolved over time and morphed more into a, something is going on I feel sorry for whoever is on call. But I didn’t actively try and resolve that situation and accepted that was a part of the aftermath of the work that I was doing at the time. I think that also manifested into a bit into my next role, so I moved then into a position in an intensive care unit for a couple of years. And although I would never have articulated it this way at the time, looking back at that time and that experience it’s clear to me that over a period of time in ICU and being repeatedly exposed to situations of trauma and supporting people who are experiencing trauma. I became avoidant of ICU and the clinical work in ICU. So that work still got done, still needing to do the work we are being asked to do, however what I became aware of is that it was becoming more and more difficult for me to take myself from my desk when I get in in the morning and down into the ICU unit and I started to favour parts of my role that were not the clinical components. So, kind of would have this dread around having to go down and confront these situations and the administrative parts of my role at that time were just so much less confronting for me. The tricky thing I think is if you’d asked me at the time, do I need to have a break from that environment, I would have said no, because I loved it, and I still do love it. But I wasn’t at a point where I could recognise that something needed to be different or that it was having that impact on me. I knew it was taking me longer to get down into the ICU and there was an issue there, I knew there was something going on for me. But I couldn’t allow myself to acknowledge that or address that, because again there was that fear of it all unravelling. Because I framed myself as someone who really loves working in this space, so if I can’t do this, what do I do?

So looking back to these situations it makes me question what was happening for me at the time, both when I was directly asked I needed to talk through that particular case in ED with Chloe or when I was unable to acknowledge the fact that I was struggling to attend the work in ICU because of the nature of the content of that work, it’s a really curious thing to me that I just wasn’t in the position to acknowledge that for myself. I think it’s amazing and great that someone had asked me after that incident with Chloe if I was ok, it makes me realise that the timing is so crucial because we can ask lots of questions around, are people ok, do people need support and to debrief. But if they’re not in a position or able to have that conversation there’s that disconnection again. I think part of the issue is also around the culture, there certainly was a culture at that time that we didn’t really talk about this stuff so overtly. There’s almost a sense of in relaying a challenging case that you may have had on call or on the ward or where ever you might work, it can be at times be a sense of one up man ship where if I was to say I had this awful motor vehicle accident where someone passed away and the person I’m saying that to might say” ooh yes that reminds me of a case where there was two vehicles and three people died and it was horrendous. And what that says to that person is, you can’t be struggling with this because I’ve had something worse and I’m standing here in front of you. But what it also says to the person who is doing that is, this persons can’t be worse than mine cause mine must surely be worse than theirs. It’s a really interesting problem I would say, in that we need to think about the way that we talk about the aftermath or the vicarious trauma associated with being exposed to trauma. And making sure there is a conversation in our departments or in our work teams or where ever we might work that allows that to happen in a supported way. I think there’s a real cultural element to making sure that conversations about this are happening and that it’s a normal part of everyday conversations in social work practice. I think there’s a lot of barriers to that happening. I think one of them is around being seen as not coping. I think one of them is around questioning professional identity, if I can’t do this what do I do? And if I can’t do this but everyone else is what’s wrong with me? I think one of the challenges is that trauma cases often seem to be worn like battle scars. So I think we all, I’m assuming social workers who are practicing have cases or stories that they can draw upon that were kind of the worst story that you’ve been involved with and we just accept that that’s a part of our work, or like social work history. And so, we with those situations, I think there’s an issue in there around needing to have had one of those experiences to have a place in that conversation. And I think there’s an issue in that around by virtue of our work period we have a place in that conversation. However just inadvertently through the work that people have been doing they may find themselves having cases or experiences where they have experienced some intensity, or some trauma based or vicarious trauma.

One of the challenges I think is also around trying to seek support from managers or supervisors. So, I work in public health and the general structure of support is that you would go to your supervisor who is also usually your team leader or your direct line manager. Which I think is fraught with difficulty if we’re trying to talk freely about some of the challenges we’re having in our work and get support for that by the people who are assessing our performance its fundamentally flawed in my opinion. So there’s a challenge or a barrier to people being able to talk freely if the sense is that we’re not able to talk about this or there is a fear of repercussions if people do talk freely about their struggles dealing with the content of what they are exposed to at work. And I think the important thing is understanding that we need to frame this as a work health and safety issue in its simplest form. By virtue of being at work in this environment we are exposed to trauma therefore it becomes a work health and safety issue in its simplest form

Music Plays

Mim – Oh Lis that haunting refrain, Chloe, wake up Chloe oh my god that kills me.

Lis – That is chilling. I mean we’ll talk a little bit more about some of the symptomology that he talks about. But, that one’s really interesting that auditory intrusion.

Mim – Isn’t it.

Lis – That was his and now has become mine.

Mim – It’s become mine as well. I know, but it is such a feature of vicarious trauma.

Lis – But I have not heard of auditory intrusions described like that. He just described it so beautifully and now it all makes sense.

Mim – The other auditory intrusions though were the ambulance sirens and the helicopters.

Lis – So I get that even to this day and I haven’t done on call, like I do some back up. But the helicopters can still trigger me because where the hospital where I first did on call helicopters coming in that’s social worker call out and never the nice call outs.

Mim – Yeah, I mean we’ve talked about this on the podcast before, about the experience of being on call and having to get up in the middle of the night, you don’t really know exactly what you’re going into and you have to pack your stuff. The way he describes it as going from the outside world and then into the fluorescent lights of the hospital and these dark spaces in the hospital that are so dark.

Lis – That are normally lite up during the day.

Mim – Right, and that’s where the family was. So that’s really very visually accurate I think, I felt like frighteningly I became here with him in that space.

Lis – And the other thing about being on call is that your alone. And he talked about that a lot. And can we talk now about that sense of responsibility that he felt.

Mim – Yeah let’s talk about that.

Lis – And we’ve talked about this on the podcast before not only does the social worker have to deal with the traumatic crisis that they’ve been called in for and supporting the family. But then also that sense of responsibility for the team.

Mim – Yeah

Lis – And so there was that young doctor that was asking the social worker is this ok, like what I said was that ok. And that overwhelming sense of responsibility that he talked about. Like, I’m not only responsible for the mother, and trying to provide support and hold the space for her, now I’ve got the whole team.

Mim – And that sense of, I’m taking care of all these other people who’s taking care of me? And I really felt so much for this social worker when he said, that he felt betrayed by his profession. That actually he had been built up and trained to be here in this moment, but without a safety net. And I would push that Lis and I would say not only is he betrayed by his profession but at that moment he is also betrayed by his employing organisation. Because that is not fair, for someone to feel in that moment in the middle of the night that they are that alone with no one to call for back up.

Lis – Yeah, and the reality is there is, well certainly the hospital where I work with and the other one’s that I know of, there is a backup system where you can call a senior social worker to provide support, workshop ideas about how you approach that particular case. So, you are never alone, however, everyone feels reluctant to ring at 3am the person on back up.

Mim – Do you know what though, there are a lot of smaller hospitals where the person on back up is the manager of the department, so you don’t want to call them.

Lis – Yes, and the other thing that’s really interesting Mim, about the whole back up system, is that no one gets paid to be on that.

Mim – Yeah that’s right.

Lis – So that’s another example of the good will of social work a lot of the time in relation to how our services are run.

Mim- Do you know, the good will of social work is an episode all and of its own. But I really do want to stress the risk that we have when we think about the coping of our social workers in an individual manner. So when we forget about the responsibility of the organisation we only focus on our individual social workers, what comes from that is what this social worker eluded to at the end of the interview, or spoke about in the interview which was a culture of are you tough enough right. That one up man ship, ok. And when we have a culture like that, are you tough enough to do this work what that means is, the responsibility for compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma falls squarely on your shoulders. No one else is going to jump in and support you because you’re now labelled as weak.

Lis – That and also, I think there is probably a whole bunch of wounded healers in that department who their way of coping with a fellow social worker who might be struggling, as I would imagine this social worker was, is to self-reference. Like, you think that was bad, gosh I got a trauma last Wednesday where there were 13 members of the family.

Mim – You saw the one family I saw 5.

Lis – That’s right there wasn’t just one baby that passed away, I’m telling you there was an entire village.

Mim- That’s it

Lis – So, I have a feeling that they can be, it’s a defence mechanism. I can’t go there with you because I am up to here, and people I’m gesticulating above my head, with my own experience of vicarious trauma. And you and I both know from the preliminary research results that we have, is that the on-call system can tip some social workers over the edge.

Mim – Absolutely.

Lis – That unpredictability that isolation, but also, you’ve also just been working a full day.

Mim – You’re exhausted already.

Lis – You’re exhausted already, and we know there is an accumulative nature to vicarious trauma. But the other thing that you and I have talked lots about is that when you’re in the setting of ED for instance with an on call, I don’t think there’s anything vicarious about that at all. You’re in the trauma.

Mim – That’s right you become a part of that trauma.

Lis – You’re sitting in a room with a mother with a dead baby.

Mim – Yeah.

Lis – There’s your trauma. I mean visually and now this auditory experience of it.

Mim – So actually the social worker is traumatised as well.

Lis – Yeah

Mim – It’s another layer of trauma.

Lis – Yeah

Mim – And this social worker really talked very acutely about his symptoms, right. He spoke about the fact that he lost his memory and there was a whole period that he simply just cannot remember. He talked about the auditory intrusions, the haunting refrain. He talked about how he became avoidant of the ICU intensive care work and he started favouring the non-clinical work. So, he started favouring the administrative managerial work. Got to tell you that’s a familiar concept Lis.

Lis – And I , it absolutely is Mim and I thought the way in which, he’s a perfect case study in some regards to you know, people who are saying, I’d really like to know how I can gauge if people in my department maybe struggling.

Mim – Yeah

Lis – Some of those behaviours that he was demonstrating are classic but they’re not the ones that are articulated. Because you can bury yourself in good admin work or a QI project or putting your hand up to take on more students. But what if the underlying driver there is because your traumatised or experiencing vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue.

Mim – Yeah

Lis – And so I want us now Mim to be able to talk about that whole scenario where he’s sitting in his room right, I don’t know if it was a supervisor or a manager, that comes in and says “are you ok, are you ok?” And remember he said “yeah, yeah, yeah I’m fine because I was so frightened of unravelling at that moment”.

Mim – That’s right, he brushed it off.

Lis – I’m really curious, I think in some regards it’s like, who hasn’t experienced burn out in the social work profession. So, I know that when I burnt out people outside of me saw it more clearly than what I did. But I’m really curious about what that person could have said or acknowledged to him to let him know that it was ok to be able to talk about what was going on for him.

Mim – So the way he said it, was that he was sitting at his desk just kind of starting his day, getting his head back into things and someone came over stopped in quickly and said ‘hey I heard about that call out , how are you?’

Lis – Right

Mim – Yeah, so what are we thinking that actually, because I would say that is a very well meaning, well intentioned person, who is probably also starting their day at that point. And probably thinking about the million things that they also have on their agenda for the day. So like, when we’re trying to really articulate what it is that that person could have done are we thinking some of the more classic social work relationship building techniques, taking the person aside, sitting in a more quiet space, having a more in depth discussion, making it less flippant. What are you thinking Lis?

Lis – Yes, I think you’re right in a number of those points in that it’s about choosing the right time, the right place, and I guess having the right relationship with that person that they can talk about the impact that it’s had. And you’re probably right Mim, as I’m listening to you it possibly was too soon at that moment.

Mim – I do think it was too soon.

Lis – Yeah

Mim – And that’s what I’m trying to get at. That there’s a limit to what managers, team leaders, senior social workers, whatever the role is in your organisation, there is a limit at that very close point in time to what can be done effectively. What my instinct and coming out of the research as well from what people have talked about was helpful, it seems to me is actually is the ongoing relationship with the person. So, it’s not a quick check in, it’s actually a quick check in plus a follow up in formal supervision. Plus, another quick check in, plus a come and have lunch with me, do you know what I mean?

Lis – Yes

Mim – That it’s more than just that.

Lis – And is that the supervisor or is that the manager, or the colleague or friend or is it a combination of all of the above. That the culture is around how we regularly check in with each other and that it’s not just the onus on the social worker saying I’m struggling here, but an acknowledgement of what we do in our work is hard and that we do need to create an environment in which people can be held in the work that they do. And I think that’s the other thing that you and I have often talked about how often the emphasis is on the self-care, but how much responsibility is it of the organisation to create a safe workplace for our social workers. And how do we know that there is a safe place. When we go to apply for a job.

Mim – Yeah

Lis – How do we check that stuff out? You know, is it enough to go what’s your supervision like here? Is that enough? What’s your work health and safety policies around vicarious trauma?

Mim – But also all it takes is one manager to change and the culture will change, right. So, we know how tricky and fickle a culture can be. That’s the reality for people. You go to somewhere and think, wow I’ve landed somewhere amazing and then something shifts and when you think back to what it was that shifted, it was a crucial staff change usually that did it. And so my feeling is that, rather than continuously trying to build armour for ourselves as a profession, around making ourselves tougher in many ways, My feeling is that we actually need to just get a bit real in this profession about the impact that our jobs have on us. And being able to create a culture in the profession that says, it’s ok to be vulnerable.

Lis – We go Brunei on this one.

Mim – Absolutely go Brunei, we always do. But absolutely that actually to be able to say it’s not that it takes strength to be able to do this job, it’s that it many ways it takes vulnerability. And if you’re going to be sitting with other people in times of vulnerability then you need to be ok with your own vulnerability. And that means being able to put your hand up and say , I’ve had a really hard call out, I’ve had a really hard week, I’m really tired, and I need my colleagues, and I need my friends and I need my family and I need to get outside at lunch time and see the blue sky and do something a bit different for a minute. Because what struck me with that conversation when the social worker was saying that he was getting in on that admin, I mean that happened to me Lis, it happened to you, right.

Lis – We wouldn’t be sitting here right now, would we, if we hadn’t burnt out.

Mim – That’s one of the things that we connected on was that we both burnt out. And when I burnt out, I then sunk myself into education. When you burnt out.

Lis – Same

Mim – It was education as well. Like this is the most common thing that happens, right. And one of the things that’s come out of our research is actually that having a variety in your workload helps to ward off compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma. So, one of the things that we need to look out for each other is, is it time to do something a little bit different. And if it is, that’s not about betraying your colleagues, it’s actually about taking care of yourself.

Lis – Because I think if everyone was doing that then there’s not a sense of shirking.

Mim – That’s right

Lis – I’ve got to carry the load, and probably, I can hear you, I can hear you the people listening in the podcast going, that’s all well and good when your fully staffed.

Mim – (laughs) Yeah that’s a lot of you out there.

Lis – Flu season hasn’t hit, or you know half of the department have been seconded over to elsewhere. I do hear that. I do hear that. But despite all that how do we create a culture that moves beyond just self-caring and the yoga class and creating something at departmental level as well. Like I absolutely agree with you about the management issue, you know a great manager makes a hell of a difference, like a principal of a school.

Mim -Absolutely

Lis – But Mim, I think that wouldn’t have been the case, yes that would have been the case with our miners, using the metaphor of a mine and all the work health and safety stuff that went on to create mines as a safer work place, or building sites. They have worked long and hard and the unions have been involved in creating work health and safety guidelines. And somewhere in there I think we can learn from it. What constitutes a safe workload, and it will look different in different clinical areas, but why aren’t we having those conversations?

Mim – Yeah

Lis – We know that there are always going to be beds that need to be, you know people have to be discharged, they’ll always exists. But when do we come to a point where we go, and that’s all I can do today people, I have reached my limit. And I think there needs to be more discussion around safe workloads for our social workers.

Mim – I would agree completely with that Lis, and we get a bit side-tracked about thinking through the impact on our patients and our families and our clients in non-health settings. And what happens when the social worker walks away and they’re the only one holding this case. We need to think smarter about being more collaboratively responsible for the vulnerable people that we work with so that we can take care of ourselves as well as providing continuity of care for them.

Lis – Yes

Mim – So, Lis this is one of those topics that you and I have been speaking about for the last minimum three years if not longer. From the day we met and could continue to do so.

Lis – I think we should Mim and I think closer to when the results of the research comes out.

Mim – We’ll talk about them.

Lis – And there will be articles that you’ll be publishing on it, and I think it needs to be a constant theme. One of the things I’m really interested in is sometimes when we do those interviews with social workers, they do talk a little bit about some of the things that they find really useful in their work around caring for self or what makes their work safer. And I think maybe every so often we include a bit more of that in their story.

Mim – Yeah. I think that’s really valid. I think this is a really pertinent issue for all of our listeners. Whether you’re a social work student thinking about how you can survive in this profession. Or whether you’re an experienced practitioner who’s made it this far and is needing more inspiration and more strength behind you to keep going. Like I think really there is a collective responsibility that we have.

Lis – Or whether you are the social worker that went off and opened that coffee shop or florist.

Mim – Yeah

Lis – Like you’d always thought you would, whether you’ve actually done that. Because that was my barometer. I needed a bit of a break when I’m fantasising about running my own coffee shop or bookstore.

Mim – Yeah. One of the moments when I realised that I was exhausted was when I went to visit my cousin years ago who was a jeweller, and I went and stood in her store and looked at all these beautiful gem stones, I thought how is it that you are surrounded by all this beauty all day every day and I do the work that I do? That was one of the key moments when I realised how tired I was. And I think that’s the stuff we need to start clueing into.

Lis – Mmmm

Mim – And then taking those moments of revelation and going to our colleagues, going to our managers, going to our friends and family and saying I need to be proactive now.

Lis – Right, you know lets Segway again, and encourage our listeners to talk to us about those very issues.

Mim – Yeah, that’s exactly right.

Lis – And Mim, how do our listeners do that?

Mim – Everyone hit us up on twitter or Instagram @SOWKStoriesPod or send us an email, we’d love to hear from you directly on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com Thank you so much to Ben Joseph and Justin Stech our producers, Katie our social work student who has been out there doing interviews for us. And we’re about to welcome a journalism student as well onto our podcast series Lis. So, it’s an exciting time. Stay tuned listeners speak to you next time.

Lis – I’d just like to add a big take care, you’re doing great work. Look after yourselves.

Mim – Yeah, you really are. See you later Lis.

Lis – Bye

Music plays

Ep. 29 – Social Work and Group Work: Where the Magic Happens! (w/ transcript)

March 17, 2020 / swdiscoveries

She put her hands on the table and said, “You girls have saved my life, and I’ve even put mascara on for you.”

Come and listen alongside Lis and Mim to this magic-filled episode that looks into the world of an anonymous social worker and the group they are leading. We wish you all a very lovely and safe World Social Work Day!

Credits:

Hosts – Lis Murphy and Dr. Mim Fox.

Producers – Ben Joseph & Justin Stech

Contact us online at www.socialworkstories.com, follow our facebook page or use the handle @SOWKStoriesPod on twitter or instagram.

Do you have thoughts, want to contribute a story or question for the team, or just say hello? Send us an email on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you!

Podcast Transcript – Episode 29: Social Work and Group Work – Where the magic happens! (transcript)

To cite:

The Social Work Stories Podcast, 2020, ‘Episode 28: Social Work and Group Work – Where the magic happens!’ (transcript), accessed online [insert date here], <www.socialworkstories.com>.

Date Published: 17/03/2020

With special thanks to Katie Wicks for transcription.

Photo by Perry Grone on Unsplash

Justin – Welcome to the Social Work Stories Podcast. We wanted to let you know that this episode was recorded several days prior to Australia, the US and many other countries declaring states of disaster due to COVID – 19. With each passing day we continue to learn more about the gravity of this unprecedented pandemic. Our thoughts and care go out to all of our social work tribe around the world, you families and the people you work with who have been impacted by this virus.
Music Plays
Lis – Good evening Mim.
Mim – Hi Lis.
Lis – Welcome to the Social Work Stories Podcast.
Mim- Thank you, I am so pleased to be here.
Lis – Come and sidle up beside me, because it’s only a few more sleeps till when?
Mim – This is exciting. So next Tuesday its World Social Work Day again. You remember last year,
Lis – I do
Mim – World Social Work Day. Not only did we record a really interesting episode where we talked a lot about World Social Work Day, but also together we went to some World Social Work Day events.
Lis – In fact you and I have spent World Social Work Day together for the last five years I think
Mim – I think your absolutely right
Lis – We are coming up to our five-year anniversary
Mim – In so many ways. And this year is kind of a weird year for World Social Work Day. It’s the year when I feel that social workers around the world, around the globe should be coming together in unity.
Lis – And, wouldn’t that be good, except I can’t promise. So, the conference that I’m organising that you’re going to speak at,
Mim – Yeah.
Lis – We still do not know whether it’s going ahead.
Mim – I know, I know.
Lis – Because of the good old Corona virus.
Mim – COVID-19 has really effected us in so many more ways than we could ever have predicted. And the hysteria in Australia, I mean I’m sure our listeners have heard about how hard it is to get toilet paper in our country right now.
Lis – And toothpaste now.
Mim – And the other day I was at the supermarket and there was no oil Lis, like what is happening.
Lis – It’s when the coffee stops, that’s when there is going to be rioting in my street, I can tell you.
Mim – (laughs) I know, I hear you loud and clear, and I. It just really concerns me that this time when we have just had bush fires, and floods and every event under the sun. We should be coming together, and actually, thanks to this lovely virus and it’s hysteria, then actually we don’t. And we have already had some of our colleague’s events next week for World Social Work Day, another conference, has already been cancelled. And I was planning on going there as well. And then the one that we’re supposed to be doing together next week is on the verge of being cancelled.
Lis – Look soon it will get to a point where even our little podcast crew can’t be in the same room.
Mim – That will be a sad, sad day my friend.
Lis – Because numbers keep dropping. It’s going from no more than 100, no more than 50, I hear that at the children’s hospital no more than 10 can meet in a room.
Mim – No more than 10 in one room.
Lis – Yes.
Mim – Ooh my gosh!
Lis – Mmm
Mim – Well that just throws any social work meeting out the window.
Lis – A game of cards is virtually thrown out the window.
Mim – If you’ve got 10 people speaking at the exact same time.
Lis – Yes, yes, so fingers crossed. But in any case, our thoughts go out to all our Social friends and colleagues.
Mim – Our tribe.
Lis – Our tribe.
Mim – And the fireside is that much more virtual.
Lis – And I will pop a glass of champagne to celebrate.
Mim – World Social Work Day?
Lis – World Social Work Day.
Mim – Absolutely, me too. Hopefully we can do that in the same space this year Lis, (laughs).
Lis – And what better way to celebrate World Social Work Day than a good social work story.
Mim – Absolutely.
Lis – Which I think we have one.
Mim – We do. You know with all the social work interventions that we do all the time in our profession, do you have any favourites?
Lis – Like I. Ok, So, So, all of them. But, you know I do like a good group.
Mim – I know you do, and we’ve spoke about groups a couple of times on this podcast. Because both of us have run groups at different points in our careers, right. I tend to think that every time I am in a social work class, I’m running a group. But, absolutely. We’ve both run therapeutic groups, psychoeducational groups. Have you ever run a purely educational group, that then didn’t turn into a psychoeducation group?
Lis – Ooo! You know I nearly said a cancer survivor’s group, but of course not. I mean yes you might be talking about nutritious food or sleep, but invariably the stories come in, and the connection goes on within the group and the group dynamic becomes a therapeutic process. So, I guess not really.
Mim – Yeah, so that’s right. I think it’s the bi-product of running groups with vulnerable peoples, with issues that have bought them together, yeah. That then, when people start telling their stories it does actually become therapeutic in nature and in the dynamic. So, this is a really interesting story today that we’re going to be discussing. Where a social worker is running a group for women who have come out of domestic violence relationships. And it sounds like there actually in a bit of a transition phase these women.
Lis – Yeah, I got that impression too. I have to re-listen to it, but my impression is that mostly they have newly left or are thinking about leaving the violent relationship.
Mim – It is a space for really strong social work skills.
Lis – Ooh yeah.
Mim – Yeah, so let’s have a listen and then come back.

Music Plays

Social Worker – My area of social work is predominately as a group facilitator. So, I work in a number of organisations where I facilitate or co-facilitate groups. One type of group is a parenting group, with parents who have been in conflict for a fairly long time often. And they are either court mandated or there voluntarily, trying to get to focus a little more on their children. And the other groups that I run, are with women. One is a self-esteem group and the other is a group for women who are currently in violent relationships, so, domestic violence relationships. Or who have recently left a violent relationship, or have a history of going back to numerous relationships that aren’t healthy. So, they’re not therapeutic group, they are educational groups. However, when there’s a lot of emotion in those rooms they tend to have a little bit of a therapeutic touch to them.
So, one of the trickiest parts I think of facilitating those women’s groups is that there is a lot of emotion in the room. And people, depending on their personality, where they’re at with their journey, often want to share their story. And as a facilitator we need to ensure that all members are safe in the room. And we don’t know , I am certainly powerless in knowing, where they’re at with their journey or whether or not I’m even going to have any impact on them. And in fact, that’s one of the things that I love most about group work, is that it ends up being the group members that do all of the work and bring about the biggest change rather than the facilitator themselves. So, the job as the facilitator is to establish safety and if somebody is about to over share and potentially compromise that safety in the room, it’s the job of the facilitator to stop them. However, that can be tricky because I think as women one thing we don’t like to interrupt, and also I want to be respectful to the person who is wanting to tell their story. But I think you’ve got to support the majority of the women in the room and stop them sometimes before they say things that can be potentially upsetting or make the entire group unravel.
And I think often of this one particular group that I was running, and there was about a dozen women in the room and this one particular women. She was small in stature but had a very big presence in the room. She was currently an addict, she was using at the time and was quite aggressive. This group went for eight weeks and she was quite aggressive in one way or another. Sometimes before group started, during group. It was a really challenging group to manage. But she was very big on punctuality and so I worked that out pretty quickly. And when you’re working in a women’s centre, it’s difficult to start things on time because stuff happens. Women come in and they’ve got an immediate issue, and sometimes you’ve got to be with those women at that time, rather than starting the group on time. And usually people will understand, but this one particular women, I don’t think she had a lot of control at the time over many parts of her life. And perhaps being punctual was the one thing that she did have control over. So, she let me know that and she would regularly point to her watch as we were talking or when the group was about to start. And one of the most essential parts in setting up a group in my opinion, and having a successful group where people continue to come back each week, is safety for everybody in the room. So that means that, especially when there has been violence, when there may have been yelling or physical violence, isolation and I was very concerned with this particular woman because things would happen in the group. Like, we would put out mandalas for the women to colour in and one of the group rules that the women had established was that one person spoke at a time. And this one young women in the room asked another person for a mandala, and then the group member that I was talking about sort of fired up and said “only one person is allowed to speak at a time here”. And very quickly there was risk of, well the look on every bodies faces said it all. She was quite terrifying and there was a real risk of people not turning up week after week because of this particular women’s behaviour. So I had to at that time, say to this woman, in front of everybody, we need to ensure that we’re respectful to everybody and I appreciate that you don’t want people to speak over the top of each other, and absolutely that is one of our rules. But I think we need to be a little bit flexible around that to ensure that everybody feels comfortable.
And I think that’s one of the main learnings, and one of the things that I carry with me into each group, is that you really need to appeal to the mass, to the majority of people in the room. Over and above the needs and wants of one person. And that doesn’t always work, because this particular participant, I got the sense that she absolutely didn’t like me and didn’t want to be told. Because she was right, that was a group rule, that we don’t talk over the top of other people. And I did say that to her, that she was correct. But also it was kind of just really disruptive through-out the weeks.
This woman had a really strong trauma background, an incredibly big background. She would start up each week walking through the kitchen and as I would be kind of getting the fruit and things prepared, she would say things to me like, ”hurry up we need to start on time”. Just like that, and I kind of, I have never come across anything like that before. And I felt that I did sort of have to put her needs ahead of some of the others at times and it was tricky. And what I ended up doing was taking some of the other women during the break, the break is a beautiful time during group work I think, where you can have that moment where you’re not quite so guarded. And I would say to them, are you ok with what’s going on. And one of the magical things about what happened in that group was that the women were really compassionate towards this particular participant. And even though she yelled, and I think she yelled at someone pretty much every week, usually me, but she yelled at everybody. And it would come out of know where. But they were really compassionate towards her, really kind. And that’s the beautiful thing that I love about group work. I was watching this thinking, well I might be having a bit of sweaty palms here and you’re not really sure where it’s going to go, and how am I going to contain it. But the women didn’t seem to be like that. And as I took them aside, rather than this participant, and said are you ok, are you alright to come back, is there anything you need. They were all sort of, no it’s fine, I think it’s ok. And they would actually make this participant cups of tea. It was quite fascinating to watch, when these very vulnerable and frightened women stepped up to help somebody else. And that’s the kind of magic that can only take place in a group setting, I think.
One of the things that was really interesting about this, was that this participant didn’t really contribute. In fact, when we went round and spoke about, even did a check in to see how people were going, she would either pass or just not answer me. I thought that she was really unhappy at the group. I took her aside after the second week and we spoke, and I said, “Are you ok” and she said “Nah, don’t like it” and gave me very little information about where she was at. And I said to her, “I just want you to do one thing, and I just want you to keep turning up. If you can just keep turning up that’s all I’m asking of you. One foot in front of the other”. And she did, she kept turning up, she was certainly very punctual, and by about the fourth week there wasn’t as many aggressive comments coming from her, and we were making sure that we started on time. So, she had very little impact in some ways on the group at that stage because she was saying less. But then, by about the sixth week, which is when I often think the magic happens in group work, every bodies got to know each other a little bit better, and the facilitators are certainly saying less and the participants are working harder, and you’ve got through that storming stage of group work. And she just very calmly put her hands on the table, both of her hands on the table, and she was a very big presence in the room so everybody kind of looked around and saw that she was going to say something and she said “ I just want you all to know that, eight days before I started this group I attempted suicide and you girls have saved my life” and she said “I even put mascara on for you”. And it was one of those beautiful group moments where I think the women were validated in their kindness to her, and they felt like they had a real worth, that I think some of them probably hadn’t felt in a long time. And she kind of validated all of that for everybody with those couple of short sentences and showed a beautiful vulnerability in herself that she had certainly not shown before, she was quite terrifying. So, to be able to say that, and the short sentence about the mascara meant a lot as well, because we had talked a little bit about self-care and that was obviously important to her. She cared enough about herself to do that. And even if she felt like she was doing it for others it was just a beautiful moment in group work, that I think couldn’t ever happen in any other setting. And that’s the magic I think of group work. And that coming together and validating one another and learning that you’re not alone. And particularly with domestic violence where women are often isolated and the only messages that they are being given are often from a perpetrator that are telling them that they’re not very good at much, and worthless, and got no friends and isolated and all those horrible things that happen. And here was this woman who had been shown a little bit if kindness and had come such a long way. And it was just a really lovely moment to know that these women had been told they’d saved her life.

Music Plays

Lis – Picking up the last bit of our conversation, your question about can a psychoeducational group be therapeutic?
Mim – Yeah
Lis – Well, I’ll flick that question to you first.
Mim – Ok
Lis – Was this psychoeducation group therapeutic?
Mim – I would say absolutely.
Lis – In what way?
Mim – Look, we touched on before whether women were at different points in the leaving the relationship journey, yeah. And I think what this social worker demonstrated was being able to speak to the women at their different points. As they needed to be worked with. So, she talked a lot about the magic that happens, and I love that she used the word magic as well, but the magic that happens in between, in all those in-between spaces right. So, before the group starts, in the break, after the group. Those side conversations that actually allow the women to be individual.
Lis – That look like she’s hosting an afternoon tea.
Mim – Yeah!
Lis – But like you say, that’s the magic that’s going on. The checking in with all the individual women. And ensuring that safety, a sense of safety is being felt by the group. Which would have been essential in a group like this. But also, she was needing to check because there was that very strong member of the group that made her needs voiced very clearly and strongly. And she needed to be checking the impact of that. But I mean I think the skill of this social worker was in the tension she would have been holding, watching the group, scanning the individuals within the group, getting a sense of how they are, checking in on them. But also allowing this woman a voice.
Mim – Yeah!
Lis – Because I got a sense Mim, this is possibly one little area of her life she might have had a feeling of control in. That the group one, started on time. And two, that they adhered to the group rules.
Mim – Yeah, (laughs). Look we all like a bit of punctuality, you more than others Lis, but I think you’re right. I think that the sense of safety in a domestic violence group would take on that extra layer. You’ve got a general psychological safety that’s needed in a group setting, but then in this setting you’ve actually got a group of women where safety has not been a feature of their lives, right.
Lis – Absolutely.
Mim – So their capacity to have control, and to have a locus of power about their every day, it doesn’t exist
Lis – No, look, and I think there is that fine line that she was walking between, there may come a time when the needs of that one individual woman was, sorry the needs of the group as a whole overrode the needs of that individual woman. So, I think she was keeping that in check all the time around the safety issue. Because we knew that this woman was incredible vulnerable but also volatile.
Mim – Is that ok Lis, to prioritise the majority of the women in the room over a vulnerable individual? I mean where do you stand on that? Is it the needs of that individual that reign supreme in that dynamic, or do we think about the group as a dynamic or function that’s bigger than that? And I guess I’m thinking here about the fact that the individual perspective is so incredibly western, yeah. And in social work as we know it in western countries, predominantly that’s the framework that we come from. A very individualised perspective. It’s not the case around the world, right. We know that indigenous methodologies and knowledges, we know that eastern knowledges position the community, the family, the society in a very different way.
Lis – Look you raise some really great points, and I think to just bring it back down to purely skills now. I would say yes, that sometimes the need of the group does override the needs of the individual. Not to say that you would not be looking at something, let’s say for instance that women was unable to sit in that space without making the other women feel unsafe. Let’s say she had become incredibly volatile, and was exploding at the, you know if someone said something, and she started to shut the group down.
Mim – Yes.
Lis – Or people were not coming to the group anymore, it might be that the conversation needs to take place with her about what else could be done to support her. Because at the moment, the group was not able to be the place for her. And of course, that sounds really clumsy. But I think you do have a responsibility to the group. And there are times in a person’s recovery that they may not be able to sit within a group. And sometimes, you know I have run groups where I will individually interview each member of the group to see if they’re going to be up to the group and what the group was going to be doing and what the goals were.
Mim – Yeah and I think that’s actually really important, that streaming process or assessing process that might happen before a group starts. Particularly if it’s a closed group that goes for a period of time.
Lis – And some people would have said, look could you maybe have deferred her coming to the group until she was sober. I mean I’m not saying that that was the right thing to do. But there would be some group facilitators that would have questioned her being there. But I mean we can look now and see, that that group actually was able to determine that they were able to care for this woman.
Mim – So it seems to me, just before we move into where the care and compassion really sat in this story, it seems to me that that’s the skill of the social worker in the story. Is to actually step back from what’s happening all around them and be able to identify, when is the turning point where this behaviour from an individual now derails the group.
Lis – She would have also, she had that sense of the life of a group too. So, she used Tuckman’s model, you remember she was saying, that at the four-week mark things started to calm down.
Mim and Lis – Week six was when the magic happened.
Lis – That would have been the performing that was going on.
Mim – Yes.
Lis – There would have been some storming going on.
Mim – Yes
Lis – And so she also had that as a template in which she is observing the group, the life of the group but also the individual members and the impact that it was having. They were saying to her it’s ok, I’m ok.
Mim – That’s right, they were all saying it without saying it and the skill that she had was in picking that up actually. So, let’s talk about that week six magical moment. But before we do that, let’s go back to week one of the group, where she said that, she met this woman and said to her, all you need to do in this group is turn up. That’s all I expect of you. Yeah. Now, week six there’s a pay-off from that comment, right. Week six is when the woman said, before I came on that first day, I had attempted suicide. Now that social worker would never have know that.
Lis – No
Mim – When they made that comment. So that social worker was setting safety, setting a safe space to be vulnerable in, regardless of actually having knowledge that that was so acutely needed at that moment. And then we get to six weeks, and she says I attempted suicide that day, I came to the group and now I’m in a space of safety. And the kindness and compassion that came out of that group Lis, I mean that blew me away.
Lis – Yeah, beautiful.
Mim – Yeah, and when she made that comment, I’m just trying to remember the actual wording, I even put mascara on for you.
Lis – You girls have saved my life, I’ve even put mascara on for you.
Mim – Now to acknowledge the importance of that sentence, right. Amazing. For me that’s skill, that’s where the skill of the intervention comes in. That there’s a linking between the experience of the woman before she even turned up, the comment that the social worker made for her in week one, and then the revelation that came at week six.
Lis – Yeah.
Mim – And then the social worker being able to support that group, to show kindness, and compassion at that point of disclosure. That’s important work, really important work.
Lis – And what a great pay off for that social worker because it wouldn’t have been easy. I got a sense that it was hard to like this client.
Mim – (Laughs).
Lis – And, it raises that question, you and I were chatting about earlier, can you still do good work with someone you don’t particularly like?
Mim – Yeah, I know it’s hard.
Lis – It would have been hard to like this person.
Mim – Yeah.
Lis – But of course she would have shown her respect.
Mim – Yes.
Lis – And she would have accommodated her. She would have possibly had an ulcer bleeding every Wednesday morning when she walked in thinking, oh my god what are we going to have today.
Mim – But it comes back to the values of social work, right. It comes back to dignity, self-worth, client self-determination. Fundamentally whether we like someone or not isn’t the point. We know we have colleagues who are doing really hard work with perpetrators, right. With all sorts of people who have found themselves in situations where they are not good people, right. And actually, we have to come back to the values of our profession on those days, those really hard days.
Lis – That’s true. Now can we, with the last few minutes, can we just do another plug for the value of group work.
Mim – Please, and I know we’ve done this before on this podcast. But come on people, get back to some group work.
Lis – That is absolutely right, like one of the things that I thought about the beauty of a DV group right, is that many of these women would have been in complete isolation.
Mim – Yeah.
Lis – Experiencing a lot of shame around the fact that they were in violent relationships. No one on one therapeutic counseling intervention is going to give you the sense of, these people really know what I am talking about. I am hearing my story
Mim – That’s right.
Lis – Who would have believed it was someone like you, I thought it was only people like me. But, it’s also you and you and you.
Mim – That’s right.
Lis – And you understand it when I say, there were elements of this relationship that I also really loved, and you’re not going to judge me.
Mim – And I think that’s the quality of the safety that the social worker sets up in the group. But it’s also because there is a dynamic that happens in the group. Like you say, that just can’t happen in an individual intervention. So, social workers, our virtual tribe out there, rethink group work if that’s something you haven’t been doing and you think there may be space in the organisation that you’re working at. Really give it some thought and see if there is an argument that can be made for a group. Whether it’s purely education, whether it’s psychoeducation, whether it’s purely therapeutic.
Lis – So Mim, we need to wind up now.
Mim – I know, I know. It’s time Lis.
Lis – But before we finish up, I wanted to say a big, big, big thank you to our student Katie, who transcribed all of our eco social work episode. What a massive task.
Mim – A massive task.
Lis – So thank you Katie and thank you for doing that last interview as well. We appreciate the input that we have from our wonderful students.
Mim – We really do. A lot of people have been asking us for transcripts of the episodes. And so that transcript is now available on our website socialworkstories.com. And look I think it’s great that people can see transcripts of the episodes. We say so much in these episodes Lis, I wouldn’t be able to remember what we talk about. So, I think it’s great, an amazing feet for a student to do a transcript as well, and Katie’s been an absolute star with that. I wanted to read out a review that one of our beautiful listeners has left us. I’m an MSW student and since a fellow student posted a link to this podcast on our discussion board, I have been binging this podcast, thank you for what feels like the ability to do a mini placement in so many areas. Will be recommending to all future and current social workers I know. Isn’t that great.
Lis – That’s fantastic.
Mim – Look I think it’s fabulous that this podcast could be a mini placement, I think that’s really awesome. Considering how hard it is across Australia to find placements for social work students. I think this is a good thing.
Lis – A mini placement with our podcast.
Mim – I think it’s really good. And also look fantastic that this student has contacted us and left this review. If you’re a student listening to our podcast, then send it round, really send it out there to all your colleagues and get people listening and then write us reviews, send us an email, it would be really good to hear from everyone. If people want to do that, they need to email us on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com . They can also contact us on twitter and Instagram Lis, right.
Lis – You can Mim at SOWK-StoriesPod. You know but if you don’t want to write anything, I’m happy with the five stars, just review us with the five stars.
Mim – I ‘m always happy with the five stars.
Lis – Because then the other students will find us easier than, you know than those people who might want to vote us with two stars.
Mim – That’s absolutely right.
Lis – That doesn’t help our student friends at all. So anyway, happy World Social Work day everyone. If you can’t gather find one social worker, grab a toilet roll.
Mim – (laughs) Fight it out in your local supermarket and post it on twitter and tag us in it, we’d love to see that.
Lis – I love that. A photo with a toilet roll.
Mim – Thanks everyone. Happy World Social Work Day Lis
Lis – You too Mim, you too Justin, you too Ben, you too Hamish, welcome to the tribe
Mim – Bye everyone

Ep. 28 – Eco Social Work and Climate Justice (w/ transcript)

March 3, 2020 / swdiscoveries

This episode includes an interview which was recorded in late 2019 just prior to the terrible Australian bushfire disaster. Many of the points of view shared by the panelists became highly poignant in the following months. We believe you’ll feel the same way.

As ever, join Mim & Lis as they unpack this emerging, yet integral social work practice in Eco Social Work and Climate Justice. We hope you enjoy!

Credits:

Hosts – Lis Murphy and Dr. Mim Fox.

Producers – Ben Joseph & Justin Stech

Contact us online at www.socialworkstories.com, follow our facebook page or use the handle @SOWKStoriesPod on twitter or instagram.

Do you have thoughts, want to contribute a story or question for the team, or just say hello? Send us an email on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com – we’d love to hear from you!

Podcast Transcript – Episode 28: Eco Social Work and Climate Justice

To cite:

The Social Work Stories Podcast, 2020, ‘Episode 27: Eco social work and climate justice’ (transcript), accessed online [insert date here], <www.socialworkstories.com>.

Date Published: 03/03/2020

With special thanks to Katie Wicks for transcription.

Photo by Luke Richardson on Unsplash

Mim – What a summer we’ve had Lis, it’s been awful in Australia this summer

Lis- Yeah, we talked a little bit about it. Firstly, I’m so glad I can have a conversation with you outside of my closet.

Mim- (laughs) Yeah welcome back Lis

Lis- Thank you, thank you. It’s so nice to actually sit in the same room with you, because a flood isn’t keeping me away from you and nor a fire. But back to your point, it has been a really challenging summer.

Mim- It really has, and for everyone listening, welcome back to the Social Work Stories Podcast. We’re really thrilled to be back for 2020. This is our first episode for the year. I’m Mim Fox and I’m here with Lis Murphy. Hello and happy new year.

Lis- Thank you, thank you. Here we are in February and it kind of feels like, gosh it’s a new decade as well.

Mim-It is absolutely

Lis-I don’t think Australians really had the option of celebrating new year and Christmas and the summer break.

Mim– That’s right, yeah. For many all their plans were put on hold and whole towns were put on hold. It was really a time of trauma across the country

Lis- And I think it will be one of those Christmas’s where there was life before. We lived our life a certain way before and then there was the post 2019 fires, 2020 fires and what that’s meant for so many Australians.

Mim- That’s right. So last year we were at the ANZSWWER symposium, the Australian and New Zealand social work welfare education and research symposium, and some of our regular listeners will remember that last year we started a mini season stemming from that conference about activism in social work practice. And so, we had some really great episodes towards the end of last year around that theme. And we’re going to continue that again today Lis. I’m so pleased to sort of bring this story and more so a conversation to people today about Eco social work. Which I know is really close to your heart as well.

Lis- It is so close to my heart. But I feel like, because I’ve been out practicing for about thirty years. I have never heard of this model of social work. I was so excited when I listened to this interview. And as you know I contacted you and said, is this a theory? Why haven’t I been told about this theory? How dare they not tell me about this theory, Because it is something, as you know, I am also a permaculturalist. And it’s so exciting and it’s another theory that I’m really thirsty to learn more about. Because i want to add it to my toolbox, or my gardening shed, or my wheelbarrow.

Mim- You’re the only person that i know Lis, that could come out of the closet and out themselves as a permaculturalist.

Lis -No honestly, I think before we started the recording, I said to you, the three themes to permaculture marry so beautifully to social work values. Its earth care,

Mim- yeah

Lis -People care,

Mim- yeah

Lis -Fair share. Now if we were a succinct profession like the permaculturalist obviously are, don’t you reckon that boils it down

Mim- No absolutely, I think that’s fantastic. There are a lot of our listeners going, uuh, I’m not a gardener, I want those listeners to know that I am with you 100%. And we’re going to get into that but hang in there because this conversation isn’t just about how do you spend more time in the garden. This is actually about a method of practise that we can start to engage with on a more broader level. As a profession as well as individuals. So, we are pleased to bring everyone this conversation. I’m going to let our colleagues, members of our tribe, speak for themselves as they introduce themselves at the beginning of the conversation, and it was a real pleasure to be with them at the ANZSWWER symposium, it was great.

Lis -I bet, they sounded like such passionate women, I loved listening to their conversation

Mim – So let’s give it over to everyone, we’ll see you in a second guys, see you soon.

Music Plays

Sue- Hi, I’m Sue Bailey and I identify as an eco-social worker. And I do that because I know that humans are a part of nature. So, to position our social work practise in the systems in which we live makes perfect sense,

Marilyn – I’m Marilyn Palmer, I teach in the social work program at Eden Cowan University with Sue on the Bumbery campus, and have done so for many many years, And I became, i have probably always been an eco-social worker. The story that i think is so interesting to share is that I thought for a long time that I couldn’t bring my ecological concerns and interests and work as a peace activist and greens candidate into my social work education. Because, I don’t know why I didn’t think I could do that. But I eventually discovered that you could. That education for sustainability was a thing in universities. And since then, and since liaising and meeting with others like Naomi, Antonia and Sue, and coming together and using the language of eco social work I’m on a roll now.

Naomi – I’m Naomi Godden, I identify as an activist. I’m an activist in climate justice, in gender justice and social justice. I’m also involved in the social work program at ECU with Marilyn and Sue, I also co-chair the women’s climate justice collective which is a national movement of women demanding climate justice and ensuring that climate action is undertaken with a gendered lens. So that the rights of women and people of other genders are addressed in all climate action. And I’m also an elected Councillor at the shire of Augusta Margaret River. And I bring a social justice and climate justice lens into that policy making and decision-making space. Which is an incredible privilege and opportunity. But which can also be extremely frustrating. So, for me, I guess having been an activist since my early teens and living in an environment, I live in Margaret river a beautiful part of Western Australia, an incredible environment which is severely under threat from climate change. And so being so connected to nature there and understanding the intersection between environmental degradation and climate change and social justice, for me it’s just a normative part of my practice and really has always been.

Antonia – Hello, I’m Antonia Hendrick, and I am a social work academic at Curtin University, and I identify as lots of things. I think, essentially as a human in nature and part of nature and it’s been a big part of who I am and my upbringing. I’ve been connected to you know, waterways and creeks and so on growing up and then just really fond memories and feeling connected to nature has been really important. And the health and wellbeing that gives you as a human being is something that I think is really important in my work as a social worker and to bring that to my teaching. And working with Sue and Marilyn in the first instance around community development, which has brought us together, and then extending that into eco social work has been a really important part of practice and writing collectively as well. And now recently meeting Naomi which is really inspirational as well.

Marilyn – One of my areas of coming into eco social work and using it as a term, where the links are quite strong in the literature, is around disaster response. I did a study back in the 1990’s around the response to the Gracetown cliff collapse down in Margaret river, where a number of children and adults died. And that got me interested in looking at leadership and how leadership plays out in disasters. More recently though, we are all really confronted with the impact of climate change on disasters and their increasing number of bushfires. So, I have recently gone back and looked at leadership around the Yarloop bushfire in Western Australia, where again there were fatalities but also much more physical damage to houses. And in fact, the whole town was severely damaged, and came close to being destroyed. Of course, which it hasn’t, like all communities it’s rallied. But still it had a huge amount of damage done. So working around that area and understanding the link between climate change and the disadvantage for people who are on low incomes, for elderly people and for people who are going to be severely impacted by disasters knowing full well that I community has to recover from a disaster in a way that doesn’t replicate the disadvantages around gender and class and ethnicity which were often there before the disaster. That’s been a really powerful connection for me. More recently looking at how you research in those areas.

Naomi – And that’s a really good point Marilyn, because the reality is that, and there is a heap of research that shows this, that climate change exacerbates existing vulnerabilities. So, it doesn’t cause people to become vulnerable it actually exacerbates the systems and structures of inequality that we already have. And, that’s whereas climate justice activists, researchers, teachers and people that care about this issue. What I’m learning and have really engaged with and think we’re really committed to collectively, is that we need to confront the systems that are causing climate change in the first place, we need to dismantle and tackle that and transform into something new. And I speak to the students regularly about how it’s the white supremicist, imperialist, capitalist, patriarchy that we need to untangle, destroy and rise up with a transformed system that is based on the rights of people and nature. Where people and the environment are intimately connected, and people understand their reliance and dependence on the environment. And the environment would flourish without us, in fact it would be better if we weren’t here. And so, this human centeredness that we have currently in this white supremacy, imperialist, capitalist patriarchy is what’s extremely problematic. If we can move to understanding people as one of a multiple of species in this enormous ecosystem that exist in the biosphere, then it shifts our thinking considerably.

Sue – I think that connects into some of the work that you’re doing Antonia with first nations people

Antonia- Yeah, I was thinking the same as well listening to you speak Naomi. What’s been really important in some of the work that has happened, and involved at Curtain University is working with some Aboriginal elders, who have come to work with us as a staff group as well as a student group around starting to really think about ourselves in a different space. So, rethinking our relationships with one another, but also the land and the environment. So, the deep connection that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have with land, and country, and the sicknesses and illness that can come from disconnection from those spaces and places is really important. So, it really gets students thinking at a different level. And a level that connects them in different ways too country and the environment I think, and yeah, so that’s been really important.

Social Worker – What I wanted to add to that is, I think about social work practise, because this is a podcast about practice, but I think about research and education and conversations as a part of research, as a part of social work. It doesn’t sit in that idea of doing social work practice, it is the very way that we engage and have conversations and work to effect change. Whether it’s at an interpersonal level through conversation or raising awareness, or, in climate strikes where we are actually trying to get government to rethink its really destructive policies on oil and gas industries.

Social Worker– I think the key here is, I would love to see all social workers identify as activists, and see everything that we do, whether it’s work individually on our own self-reflection, on our work with communities, in our teams, in our structural changes with our organisation, and the lobbying that we are involved in, too seeing everything that we do as activism and we’re working towards challenging and transforming the systems that are problematic. Working towards this transformation in a really deliberate and collective way. And if ever there was a time for social work to claim activism as our mode of practise, now is it. You know the predictions around climate change are so horrific. If we keep going on the track that we are going the fate of humanity will be, you know, I don’t even really want to name it, it’s just so devastating. And so we need to really claim that, claim our space in that as ours. Really one of the few professions that we have on the globe that is focused on working collectively for social change with a systems lens which is so powerful. And use that and really claim the activism that we can, and really feel that collectively grasp that power and take that power. And obviously doing it in partnership with communities and supporting, organising and mobilising with our community that supports others. Particularly with vulnerable people and oppressed people. To stand up and rise up as leaders. And to lead movements for social change. We have such opportunity and power to do that.

Social Worker – I couldn’t agree more and I think, it concerns me when people talk about eco social work as if it’s a field of practice or as if it’s a domain of practice. When in fact it actually applies and can work across, and needs to across, all of the fields of practice and all of the domains of practice. It’s a way of working in social work, which has been around since the beginning of social work because it is about collective practice. But we do, we think collectively when we do individual case work. I ‘ve got a background in child protection and I know that I was bringing those values and ideas about collectively and about connection, about relationships and families and wellbeing and how you might achieve that. In the context back then. In the 1980’s, in relation to the peace movement, because that was the big existential threat we had there in relation to nuclear war. And so the existential threat we have now is very similar but bigger. Because then we were just relying on one person not to push a button. We have already begun the process that is going to cause, is causing, climate change right now. And we’re seeing right now the impacts of that all across the globe. And so, for me it’s understanding this is a way of doing social work which builds on the tradition of feminism, of radical social work, of the antipsychiatry movement. All of the history that is there leads us also to transdisciplinary practice. I agree 100% with Naomi. We are so well placed, because we have got systems theory, we’ve got the history, we’ve got the skills. Jane Adams and the settlement houses, much of what I’ve heard today is just modern day settlement houses. The practise that people are talking about is modern day Jane Adams type work. So, working with those other disciplines which have a little corner of them, doctors, nurses, planners, all of these people who are actually wanting to deal with this issue as well, we can work with them.

Naomi – So at ECU, Marilyn, Sue and I are currently forming an interdisciplinary research group on climate justice. Bringing together academics from environmental science, public health, education, the arts, social work obviously, probably business, law and engineering. We’ll grab who ever we can that is interested in this space and come together to develop and conduct in partnership with communities, really effective strategic research. And in that action research process, so the feminist participatory action research approach, which is very much about working with communities to undertake research to inform advocacy and activism about social change. What’s been really exciting for us is there has been so much interest across the university and actually quite a desperate appetite from academics across various disciplines to come together and make this happen. Firstly, it’s really smart because we can leverage off the collective intelligence and intellect across the university. And we will obviously include other universities and first nation elders and other community leaders in this group as well. Secondly, you know if social work is struggling for money, which it often does, other fields, particularly medicine, sometimes the sciences, engineering, can access good money. So, we would partner with them and we be really clever about where we would access the funds we need to do good research. And thirdly, by being interdisciplinary, by publishing and participating in spaces outside of the, I guess the traditional social work space, we as social workers will be influencing so many other sectors and spaces. And I think that what is so exciting, as will the environmental scientist be influencing us and so on. Because it’s this way of sharing and building knowledge collectively. So, I think this is a really exciting moment in time for us as academics and as activists in this space. The fact that the university is very supportive of that, and is enabling that is wonderful, and I guess gosh, we are just excited to see where that can go. So, watch this space.

Sue- I just want to add on to Naomi’s comment, I’ve been doing some transdisciplinary work at the University of Western Australia. So, there’s a multidisciplinary team that is working to raise awareness in farmers and how they can do things differently. So, what UWA has done is, they’ve bought a farm out in the wheat belt, so that’s an area that is really struggling both in terms of the decline in rural population, because people are leaving. But also, in terms of impacts of climate change, like drought. And a confusion about, and a real despair really, because farmers have been doing this work for so many years, for generations, and now they’re being blamed for climate change. And now they are being told that the way they are doing things isn’t working. So, what the … farm out in the … does is that it actually trials, and also it is a working farm that runs for a profit so it provides a really good model of how farmers can adopt and look at some of the regenerative agricultural stuff. But in terms of what social work is doing, so, one of the things that I did in that space is community development work where I did a bit of an asset map to understand the needs of the community. And what was really clear was the university hadn’t engaged at all with first nations people. So, one of the things I did was build the relationship. And we put an acknowledgement sign up on the farm and then had a BBQ. But what it did, it really, there is still a lot of discrimination in some of our rural areas. And so, what that did, was that it signalled that UWA actually really takes that seriously and that it is modelling a way of working with first nations people. Because they know that country better than anybody. They’ve got stories and history that are just starting to be heard because they are feeling a little bit safe to say that. So that’s sort of one of the examples of that transdisciplinary work. There is a committee that we have animal biologists, we have plant crop people, engineering, architecture and social work sort of sitting on that committee. And the work that I have been doing is around theorising what is actually going on there. So that collective work, this is collective work, and this is what it’s called, and this is what the aim is of it.

Social Worker – And what’s really exciting about that, and following your progress through that Sue, is how there’s decolonising practices and essentializing indigenous ways of knowing, doing and being which is really exciting to see that unfold, and be a part of that to some degree as well. And I guess, this isn’t multidisciplinary, but within a unit that I teach community development, students are asked to do a strengths, weakness, opportunity, and threats analysis in their local community. And they do that based on first nation expressions within that particular community. So, they’re for the first-time seeing community in a very different way and often its physical assets and the beauty and what’s actually there. Which actually brings a different layer and lens to their social work understanding and practice and it’s really a rich resource that they then bring into the teaching space, that they share with their colleagues as well which is really great. One of the areas of course, because we are educators, is looking at what happens in the classroom. And we talk about collectivist practice and it’s so easy for educators to forget we are working with collectives all the time in the classroom. So, bringing eco social work into the classroom, doesn’t have too, but it can lead to transformative learning practices because that’s the kind of obvious connection between eco social work and teaching. Because you’re working with a collective and you’re wanting to create opportunities for deconstructing the power relationships in the classroom and as well as the content, the process by which people are learning. So that’s another place where it gets acted out.

Social Worker – I just wanted to add one sentence to that, people in the community are hungry to know how to work as collectives. They’ve lost the art because we’ve been marinating in neoliberalism, so they are hungry and really looking for examples of and some training around how to do that.

Social Worker – And I think that the best thing that social workers, community members, anyone who has an interest in any aspect of social change can do, is find your local activist group. Every single community has them. Mine has several. Some may only have a couple. Activism is in so many different forms, you know. It can be the community garden, it might be a climate action group, it may be a little homelessness action group, it might be the community centre. If we rethink these as they’re all spaces of activism. Particularly if people are organising together to mobilise their community to demand something different and to bring about something different. Then they are all these spaces for activism. I think that we have a lot of really great wisened activists, leaders and people with a lot of experience in Australia, Marilyn being, Marilyn, Sue, Antonia, being some great examples of that. And particularly for young social workers, like, if this interests you and you see this desire to be part of movements for social change, find these elders and work with them and learn together. Because the knowledge is there. A big learning for me was consensus decision making. Now I was never taught that at University, I did a group work unit and we definitely didn’t go into the realm of consensus as a theory. But it’s been participating at grass roots readiful activist groups where I’ve really learnt that. And it’s a skill that I can never undo now. I love it and it has such an influence on the way I work with people as a social worker, in my activist space, as a researcher and as an educator. It is one of the many skills that you would learn through activism. What activism does, is that it, participating in activist collectives, what it does, you become more than just, that’s your five hours to volunteer a fortnight, or my practice is over here in my workplace. It permeates everything including your personal life and your family. Where you approach life with an activist lens, for challenging systems of injustice and working together to bring about something that is radically different, and it is going to work for everyone. And really feeling excited and claiming that, is an extremely liberating experience in itself. We talked about earlier, how we feel in doing this work, and I feel, you know sometimes I feel very enraged and angry and frustrated and deeply sad. But, most of the time I am super energised. I’m so excited, I get a real buzz off this work. I get a buzz from going to the climate strike, but I also get a buzz from being in an activist meeting where we’re organising an event or organising an activity or where we’re collectively talking about the world that we want, you know or these things because that’s all part of the process. And the more that we can engage in these really exciting transformational dialogue and discussions about what the world could be like, and then making that happen in their own communities in whatever way that we can. I think that again, the more powerful it will be, but also the more healthy and happy we will be. So really, it’s grabbing that and enjoying it.

Music

Lis- Every time I listen to it, I learn something more,

Mim- Yeah

Lis- And again their passion. But I wanted to pick it up with the point that one of the women made about how activism can look differently, for different people, right. So, she sounded very much engaged in protest and climate change activism. But I was also thinking about the different ways in which we can practice that as social workers in our practice. And I was thinking about things like the food security work that is being done by social workers. Because we know that many of our clients cannot afford nutritious food.

Mim – Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah

Lis – The work that many of the social workers are doing connecting people through community gardens. One of the neighbourhood centres that I used to work at, that was the connecting point for many of the men in the neighbourhood and it was a way of addressing the isolation, the social isolation there. But also connecting them to earth

Mim – And the natural resources around them,

Lis – Exactly

Mim- It’s this notion of climate justice Lis, that the women spoke to as well, which I think when we think about climate change we often don’t, with all the media and hype that’s happening, we often don’t think about the impact on the individual people. And the lack of, the social injustice that comes about as a result of this. I think bringing those stories to light is actually one of the really important roles that social work can play here.

Lis- Absolutely, and earlier we had talked off mic about, the skills that social workers can actually bring to the whole conversation. That I would imagine many countries are similar to Australia, but it can be quite divisive depending on what circles you have conversations in. The whole issue of climate change can essentially divide a room. And I think one of the important things that social workers can bring to the conversation is the ability to listen and to get a sense of where the person is coming from in their discussion around it. It is so easy to kind of right someone off as some right wing person, that doesn’t actually read the science or have a sophisticated thinking around it. But we know that we lost an election based on those assumptions

Mim – We did

Lis – And one of the things I think we can do better; is to understand what the thinking is. Is it about, that people don’t believe in climate change or is it that they are really worried about paying their rent, or losing their jobs? And I think that, Northern Queenslander issue where we lost a lot of votes up there, I think was around that and the fact that we need to listen and understand where people are coming from.

Mim- Oh look I agree with you, but gosh that’s hard and that’s generous and it takes so much empathy, Oh Lis, I have to say I find it really tiring having to be the one always listening. And I know there’s a lot of social workers out there who feel that they are the lone voice in a lot of these discussions and these issues. And they’re known in their families as the one who’s always, you know, putting their opinion forward and being the one to morally speak out, and oh the social worker’s going to say that again. It can get exhausting. What I really loved about that notion of conversation, is that to be an activist doesn’t mean that you have to pound the pavement. It doesn’t mean that you have to take the stage all the time, right. Like it actually can be embedded in this method of conversation. And I think that is actually really eye opening to people. That they can achieve a lot on a one on one level around climate justice and climate change.

Lis – And that it doesn’t have to be massive either. That for instance, the hospital that I worked at last year, we decided to have a green policy in the department and we tracked where all the paper was going and we planted up plants for all the offices and we recycled all the toner. There are things that we can do in our lived work as well.

Mim – Yeah

Lis – And I think the time is absolutely right for it. And for Australians at the moment I think everyone, no matter how you vote, everyone can now look at the past summer and go yeah something is really wrong here and we actually do need to come together around this. And one of the things I found heartening about listening to what it’s been like for some people, you know watching TV or listening to friends of friends, is that it has been bringing communities together.

Mim – Yes

Lis – To rebuild. And I think this is a perfect opportunity for, and we know that social workers will be involved in this particular part of the recovery, they’ve been part of the crisis, they will be part of the community building that goes on and we do have a lot to bring to that space. And, like, I think that we are possibly the canaries in the coal mine. You know Australia experiences a summer like this, our northern hemisphere colleagues are probably about to experience something very similar. We know that California’s quite similar in regards to some of the fires they’ve been having. But social workers are needing to kind of think through I guess; how do we work in this space? One of the things Mim, that I just wanted to pick up, which really struck a chord for me, was one of the women said that there is a strong link between people who are already disadvantaged, who are already vulnerable, that climate change can exacerbate that.

Mim- Yeah natural disasters. One of the things that’s been sitting with me while I’ve been listening to you just now Lis, is that being a family living in poverty, right, you’re already prey to the whims of big organisations, like big supermarket chains. And you’re so reliant on all of these larger, often people are paying for their shopping with vouchers from NGO’s and things like that, but then they’re going to these big conglomerate organisations to get their shopping, and they’re prey then to the power of being a consumer. So, it’s cheaper for them to get unhealthy food, it’s cheaper for them often to buy food that is covered in layer upon layer of packaging, right. And they’re then having to make short cuts around their shopping and the nutrition for their families. Because they’re already at the whim of society, does that make sense?

Lis – Totally

Mim – And then when you bring this idea of, it’s almost like, and I have heard lots of people say this, that climate change is like a luxury of an issue. It’s totally fine for people that are well off to be standing on their pedestal about this. But for those people that are on the poverty line, they don’t have that luxury. And I think that’s where that sentiment comes from. That actually, part of the social work work that we are doing with people has to be around finding their place in all of this. And finding the morals and values that go alongside some of this every day decision making, that can actually put some of this into perspective. Does that make sense?

Lis – No, I think you raise a really good point. Perhaps one of the things that I would, that I both agree with, but I challenge, is around the fact that food is cheaper in supermarkets. One of the things that I really worry about is the fact that we’ve got a whole generation, perhaps two generations now, who have lost contact with earth and who do not know how to grow their own food. Which is often ultimately cheaper than the supermarkets. It’s like there has been a lost knowledge. So, I know my grandparents grew most of the food that was eaten. But that has been lost. And so, I think that there are some social workers working in that space, and you know lots of other professions too, around recouping some of that knowledge. Again, the community garden works that are being done with some of the public housing estates. It’s really important that there is also that link between affordability and also the value of actually having contact with earth and with people in that space as well. Moving away from that therapeutic model of yeah, we sit in four walls and we talk through a problem. Sometimes digging in the soil is going to be so much more healing for some people than that particular model

Mim- You know I completely agree with you, but there is an entire aspect of me which is going, I ain’t digging in the soil. But I’m an urban, urban social worker. I live and work in a city, I don’t have the soil to be playing around in. I am dependent on supermarkets. I also am living in an area of Sydney where I can access farmers markets, but not everybody does. And so, I totally hear what you’re saying, but I think for me, when I think about eco social work, I don’t automatically ascribe it to getting down on my hands and knees in the ground. For me eco social work is very much around a broader understanding of sustainability. You know for me, that clothing sustainability is a really important passion area personally for me. And so I bring that into discussions with my students. When we’re talking about working with families. I used to bring it into my practice all the time around, how do we use, repair, recycle. These are the concepts for me that I find much more fundamental. But I loved with the women that we’ve heard from today, talking about education sustainability. That we’re not educating in the short term. We’re not actually working with our students on how do we solve the problems of now. We’re working with them on a much larger scale, too create change in our world. And when they think about themselves and their own educational development, that it’s not, what have I achieved at the end of this class? It’s not what have I achieved doing this assessment? It’s, what have I achieved overall in this subject and what have I achieved overall in my degree, and what am I going to take from all of that into the longer-term professional development education in my career. That these notions of sustainability are broader.

Lis – Totally

Mim- Know what I mean.

Lis – Absolutely Mim

Mim- That’s what makes sense to me. I ain’t digging in the ground with you.

Lis- No. Look, you may not be digging in the soil with me in the near future, but I’m in for the long haul.

Mim – Exactly

Lis- And you know, I can wait, there’s no problem with that.

Mim- What about if we come to an in between Lis, and we collaborate in different ways

Lis- And I can definitely teach you how to compost in your apartment for sure.

Mim – That I’m looking forward too

Lis- I can definitely do that

Mim – I’m looking forward to that, because seriously, I need some tips around that. But listeners if you are listening, feel free to post for me any tips about indoor composting. But also, let’s take it back to the conversation we heard already, which was where these wonderful colleagues of ours were talking about interdisciplinary approach to social work research in this space. And how it has to be collective collaborative work. And I wholeheartedly agree with that notion Lis. That social work can not exist in this space alone. There are a number of disciplines that actually are coming at this concept of eco, environmental concerns with the environment as one of the systems that surrounds us. That actually has vast expertise, and we need to be working together.

Lis- The idea of that farm, that they talked about. The farm that they’d set up

Mim- yeah yeah yeah

Lis – I thought that was an incredible lovely model

Mim – Loved it

Lis- I do, because some of my heritage is from outback Australia right. And so, I know that it’s hard to go to this hometown and be the left leaning liberal

Mim – The voice literally in the wilderness

Lis – Absolutely. But I could certainly be able to engage with community. And so, I think social work brings so much to that program. We have to be at the table, because again, back to our earlier point we know how to have the conversations. And the fact that that woman was saying no one had actually talked to the Aboriginal community that lived in that town.

Mim- Isn’t that horrendous though, it’s like social work 101

Lis- Aah yes. I think that collaborative model is spectacular. And I want to hear more about it

Mim – Yeah me too. The last thing that they also reminded everyone, they kind of put a bit of a challenge out there for the listeners, was to go and find your local activist group. They said look for activist opportunities everywhere.

Lis- Look, at the very least, know who your local member is, have a conversation with them, talk to them about a community issue.

Mim- Yeah, likewise I would say go and find someone that inspires you and just engage with them. Listen to what they are putting out there if it’s a podcast, or it’s a radio program, or watch what they are making and creating. Go and hear someone speak. This is how we move forward in this area actually, is engaging with the people that are inspiring us and then getting inspired ourselves. And then inspiring others

Lis – Well yes. And the flip side is to have those hard conversations, but take it from a different angel. Be less attached to having to prove your point. Listen to what the other person is saying and try and practice empathy. What is it that is driving their belief around this? Because it might be a way to have a more enriching conversation with the person, rather than having to be right.

Mim- This conversation could have gone on all day

Lis- Totally. I could suggest to you that we leave here right now, the sun’s still up, and we can go, and you could help me

Mim- If you tell me you’re going to go and dig in your soil

Lis – It’s time for the winter crop to go in Mim. I’m just saying, I’m just saying

Mim – Keep me indoors, with a lovely cup of hot chocolate in front of the fire, but thank you very much

Lis- So, to our listeners we are going to go. You can come with me to the garden or you can go and have a hot chocolate with Mim. We could divide our listeners perhaps on that.

Mim – Lets do an online poll on that one

Lis – Who’s coming with me

Mim- That’s right

Lis- I’ll come and show you the pawpaw’s growing on my tree

Mim – She’s not joking people

Lis- Or you could just stay put and you could contact us through email on socialworkstoriespodcast@gmail.com, or you could send us something on twitter or Instagram on @SOWKstoriespod. I mean the choices are there Mim, there’s no excuse.

Mim- Absolutely, I would agree100% Lis. Dig in the soil, have a hot chocolate in front of the fire or send us a line.

Lis – And add eco social work to your frame of reference, which is what I’m going to do. I’m so excited

Mim- And conversations as your method of practice

Lis- So good

Mim- I know, I know. Have a good week Lis

Lis- You too Mim

Mim- Bye everyone.

Social Work Discoveries

Social Work Research Podcast

Month: March 2020

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