Looking Ahead: How Social Workers are Shaping the Future of Mental Health

[Music] Hello and welcome to the ASW Social Work Podcast. My name is Matthew Loads. We've got an amazing session today for you to enjoy, taken from a webinar that was recorded on the 23rd of September. There's some very rich in science and discussion on the future of social work in Australia and I really hope you enjoy it as much as I have. I won't introduce to speakers as ASAASW's Ben does it very ably in the recording you're about to hear. I would strongly suggest you hang on to the end to hear the Q&A session because members ask questions that bring some real richness and insights into the discussions happened previously. I hope you enjoy it. Good evening everyone. Welcome to today's session. My name is Georgie Bosch and I am the member engagement and growth coordinator at the ASW. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the different lands on which we meet today. We respectfully acknowledge the past and present traditional owners and ongoing custodians of these lands. We pay our respects to their elders, past and present, their ancestors and their families and to elders of other communities who may be present. Tonight we're going to begin and welcome to our special panel session. Before we begin, just a few housekeeping items for tonight's session is being recorded and the recording will be available in my ASW for all members after the session has been completed. If you have any questions, please use the Q&A function at the bottom of your Zoom screen. Please stand to the end of the session so your CPD can be logged against your record. And we also encourage you to complete the survey after the event so we can continue putting on great sessions for you. I'd like to start by introducing the chair for tonight. We are joined by Ben Chapman, the member engagement and growth manager at the ASW. Ben joined the ASW in October 2024 and has since been leading initiatives to review and develop meaningful opportunities for member engagement. His work focuses on ensuring that members feel supported, connected and empowered through innovative programs and experiences. We're very excited to have him with us today as the chair of tonight's panel conversation and I'll hand over to Ben to introduce our discussion topics and fantastic guest panelists. Thank you Ben. Well, thanks, Georgie and good evening everyone. So wonderful to have you all online for this really great session. I'm joined by some fantastic panelists today. But first, I wanted to introduce the topic that we'll be discussing. We know social workers are at the forefront of implementing plans and ongoing interventions as well as being on the front lines of prevention, early intervention and building strong community ties. This panel looks at how social work is helping to shape a future where mental health support is earlier, more connected and built to last. And joining us this evening, we have the wonderful Emma Sheerah from Headspace. Emma is an accredited mental health social worker who has dedicated her career to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of children, youth and families. After completing her master's degree, Emma has worked across the areas of out-of-home care, specialist and mainstream schools and clinical mental health settings. Emma comes to work within relationships Australia, Canberra and Regions in Headspace, in Headspace, Waga Waga as a senior mental health clinician. Emma also works in private practice and as a clinical supervisor with a particular passion for supporting early career social workers and those wanting to become accredited mental health social workers. Emma's practices deeply align with trauma-informed strength-based and person-centred care in all aspects of her work. She is dedicated to supporting meaningful change and positive outcomes through empowerment, advocacy and collaboration. Thanks so much for joining us Emma, it's great to have you. Also joining us this evening, we've got Rachel Higginson. Rachel has over 10 years of experience working in the field. Prior to becoming a social worker, she worked in the Disability and Youth Work and after completing her social work degree, then worked across many different areas including hospital social work, school counselling, adult mental health and trauma. To further her professional knowledge, she graduated from her master's degree in Advanced Social Work Practice in 2020. Drawing on her lived and professional experience, Rachel has a deep passion to promote awareness, understanding, in trauma and mental health and has actively advocated for positive change across a number of organisations. She strives to instill hope, empowerment and recovery to those who are struggling. Her interest outside of work involve her family, friends, camping, traveling and anything outdoors. Thank you Rachel for joining us as well, it's so fabulous to have you. Finally, we're joined by Laura Fletcher. Laura is a social worker with over 23 years of experience across clinical leadership and academic roles in both New South Wales and Victoria. And is currently the service manager at Grand Pacific Health, deeply committed to the education development of mental health professionals. Laura has contributed to statewide clinical leadership programs and has been a seasonal academic at Charleston University since 2012. Teaching and supporting social work students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. With a strong focus on lifelong learning, Laura is currently completing a Master of Mental Health to deep and her expertise and further integrated person-centered care. Laura brings deep clinical insight, strong operational leadership and a passion for social justice, delivering impactful, ethical and inclusive care across a diverse and often complex environments. Thank you so much for joining us, Laura, it's so fabulous to have you and thank you again to all of our panelists that are joining this evening. So I think with that let's get started. We social workers are experts in unpacking complexity and work from a social model of health and well-being and bring unique perspectives. With this in mind, let's talk about the early stuff what's working and where do we need to do more. And with that, how are you seeing social workers make a difference when it comes to mental health? Emma, I might throw over to you to lead us away. Thank you. I'd also just so acknowledge that I live and work on the Registry Land and I want to extend my acknowledgement to First Nations people with us today and to our elders, those that pass present and emerging. And I really like this question. I think one of the most valuable things about social work is how we do things differently, particularly where in mental health we can, we are kind of working in a medical model and a lot of specific mental health roles are within a medical model and social work is so well placed in how we bring our perspective and our lens to improve outcomes for the people that we support. Where I see that particularly for social work, what we do well is our holistic approach to care. So beyond, like I said, that medical model, things like social determinants of health, looking at cultural considerations to mental health, and how people sit in the systems around them. I think it's one of the best things that we can bring particularly to the people we work with, but the multi-disciplinary teams that we all work with and as well without other colleagues and different professions including counselling and psychology. I think that's probably one of our biggest strengths. Thank you and I think definitely the holistic viewpoint is such an important one when we're talking about, you know, something is so complex as this as well. Laura, what about you? What's your initial thoughts to this question? Just really echoing everything that Emma said, but I think what social work brings as well is our value based. So where I see social work as different to some of the other disciplines is the fact that we come from that unconditional positive regard and respectful people kind of perspective. And I think so often in mental health, the clients that we see feel very judged and can feel the stigma of their diagnosis and have often come up against systems that kind of perpetuate that or do further harm. And I think our point of difference is that we kind of see through that and just see them as a whole person and just don't make any judgments and understand why people present the way that they do. And yeah, just that unconditional positive regard, just treat that person as if it was a family member or someone that you really cared about and guide our intervention from that perspective. And it's not just a patient or a number and not looking through that medical lens, but this is a human being with their own hopes and dreams. And when they come into ask for help, that's a really big deal. And how can we just provide that unconditional support to them? Yeah, and that kind of safe environment piece is such an important piece of, you know, you want to be able to kind of feel like what you're saying is going to be, you know, in the safe space, you can feel like, you know, someone that you're talking to kind of understands that kind of empathetic approach as well. And that, you know, some of the details that you're sharing can actually be really, really traumatic as well. So to have that kind of really comfortable environment, I think, you know, is definitely something that, you know, we should strive for. How about you Rachel? What's your initial thoughts when we explore this question? Thanks Ben. It's like Laura and what Emma said, very with that holistic support, you know, we're very unlike that clinical focus. we look at that whole person, their environment, relationships, the housing, employment, and community, and we address the factors that directly influence mental wellbeing. I guess, in short, we don't just treat the symptoms. We strengthen those foundations of a person's life, which makes recovery and wellbeing more possible and more sustainable. Absolutely. I think, particularly around when we look at psychologists, there is the recognition, starting to be the recognition that there is a definite need for social workers to provide that holistic view, and there's definite gaps in there as well. I know that there was a really interesting pilot that was made, I think in Brisbane, South P.H. Gen where they were integrating social work into GP, a GP setting so that they could essentially have that more holistic view in addition to that medical viewpoint as well. I think having that whole-centred approach is definitely important. Have you heard much around the GP trial and how that could maybe play out a little bit further in terms of that integration piece? It's not actually a specific study that I've seen, but I am really keen to jump on and have a deep dive after today. Absolutely. I think particularly as an accredited mental health social worker, these are things that are really big topics. In this field, and for social workers as well, that are working in mental health. I think particularly the more that recognition is coming with the accreditation around mental health and how we are, particularly as we do have, obviously, that ability to have a Medicare provider number and getting that, I think, a big part of what we're doing is trying to also build that collaboration with GP's and really advocate for the value that we bring within this space. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've seen you've just come off mute. What were you going to jump in there with? I was just going to say we found a bit of the reverse. So we're a mental health centre that's just employed to GP's to actually come into our practice. And I think it's that collaboration of respecting everyone's perspective and the discipline. And there are so many people that are arriving at a mental health service that have neglected their physical health care needs. And haven't seen a GP like we had one the other day who hasn't seen a GP in five years. And so we're able to say, well, we have three GPs here. You do not need a Medicare card. I can get you in and provide that comprehensive kind of holistic care. Recognising that as social workers, we can't do everything as much as we would like to. And actually working in collaboration with other disciplines. So having the GPs on board for us has just been an absolute dream in getting just things coordinated better for the clients coming in. Absolutely. Absolutely. Rachel, I've seen you've come off mute. What would you like to add? I just wanted to add that that's great to hear Laura that you have two GPs down there at Grand Pacific Health. We used to have a GP at like mine. I was told, but I just wanted to add that we get a lot of our referrals at least 80% of our client referrals are GP. So they're very, you know, collaborated with the medical centers here in Wago and we have that vibration with the GPs, which is really good. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, there's this kind of I think there's this analogy that I saw a couple of words. I saw a couple of weeks ago, which was, you know, there's this far too much emphasis around, you know, providing the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff rather than focusing on actually at the top and kind of doing those in those early stage interventions. And I think, you know, the integration of either social work into GP settings or GP settings into those social work settings can definitely kind of only further, I guess, further strengthen those kind of earlier interventions to what we're trying to achieve and drive in that care and support to the wider service users. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for your insights there. Any kind of lasting comments on kind of what we're seeing around social workers making a difference kind of closing statements. No, okay, wonderful. Well, thank you so much to everyone for contributing there. So I think with that, let's move on to our second question, which is really looking at whether it's groups or local hubs or informal networks, you know, how are social workers helping people fill us alone? What does community connection look like in your practice? Laura, I see your off mute. So I'm going to hand over to you. Well, I am, as you mentioned before, I work for Grand Pacific Health, but I've been the new manager there for the last four months, managing the new Medicare Mental Health Centre. So we are one of the federal government's new mental health services that have opened up. And I think what we do in terms of community connection is we are open seven days a week with extended hours. And we offer a walk-in kind of service so people can come in without an appointment at any time and be able to be met with somebody that will talk to them about their mental health. But we have lots of people who just drop in for a coffee and to grab some fruit or to sit down and have like a social chat. We also have a number of groups. So I've been really impressed with the number of groups that we offer. So we have lots of subcontractors and different organisations under the same group. So we have Mission Australia providing groups, parenting groups. Our community engagement worker has started up a Yistidys Women's Connection Group. So once a fortnight, those women are coming in and having morning tea and just feeling comfortable being in a mental health service or setting. We have lots of other kind of therapy groups, art groups for both adults and children. So I think that's our way of connecting with the community. But to advertise our weekend service, we just had a barbecue that was well attended by different members of the community. Again, a drop-in, come and have a free baked an egg roll and a coffee with us and just feel comfortable accessing a mental health service and becoming familiar. So what I think community connection looks like and demystifying some of that stigma around walking in and asking for help. We just really try and make it as accessible as possible. I think I was reading an article with Health Talk Australia and there was saying one person that was attending was it just really helps reducing that feeling of isolation and loneliness. And the ability to kind of just walk in somewhere and have those conversations and be able to engage with someone face to face. You know, really just something as so simple as that, you know, has such a profound profound impact. So yeah, I absolutely agree. Emma, what about you? What do you think? Yeah, I am really great to hear what Laura is doing over in Grand Pacific and in particular in Medicare mental health. Similarly, within the headspace center that I work in in Wogger, when you walk in the door, one of the first things that you see is a kitchenette. So we have a lot of accessible things that, you know, sit down and make a cup of tea. And I have lots of young people that I work with without might be the first thing we do before we even go into a session. So very similar around, you know, trying to increase that accessibility, but really break down a lot of those barriers that people can experience. And making it feel like a really safe space, not just walking into like we talked a little bit about this kind of really clinically medical. So we have a wonderful community engagement work, who works extremely hard in how much he's networking with community and getting as much of our faces out there as we can. And I think that's one of the best things that we do within headspace. I think that's a safe and comfortable space. I love the kitchenette and the tea. I bet you go through a lot of tea. So I think having that kind of just warm welcoming environment and just kind of knowing that, you know, the first thing you get served as a cup of tea, you can sit down and have a conversation. And there's a really kind of grounding experience as well, which I think, you know, when you're when you're kind of seeking that kind of when you're being that proactive person and going in for that support, it can be a very anxiety inducing quite a challenging situation you face yourself in. So have that kind of immediate grounding, I think, you know, is a really, really great thing. Rachel, what about you? What does what does community connection look like for you? Well, at our organization like mind and blogger, very smart to Emma and Laura, we have the kitchenette. That's pretty much there as a as as clients walk in. It's very, it comes in sit down. It's quite a big place. And it's like seven years old. So it's it's quite new looking quite a very warm environment. We've tried to make it really trauma informed. It does have that clinical medical medical environment. We've just had an electrician in to change all the lighting actually. expect. actually in the groups, the rooms where we run groups, we found that that's been very triggering for some clients and we've put replaced or though the clinical lights with and we just have lamps which has been that's something that we responded from the clients. And yeah, I guess we probably do need more community engagement. We tried to get are you okay day up and running on the day, we tried to really reach out to the community there. It was very small. I think for us we just didn't get the notice out there. Like Facebook page was down and stuff and it's just yeah like we've got the mental health expose coming up. That's a really fun good thing that we're looking forward to to going to attending. We also do run groups as well. And yeah, it's just like looking at what groups we need to run more of. But we do have our staff. It is quite small at the moment. So yeah, that's sure. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, thanks. Thanks for everyone. It's interesting you mentioned about the lighting. It's something you know something so simple as light, you know, personally I hate the white lights. Like when I'm at home, you know, I get the kind of warm, you know, yellow glows because it's just a much more calming kind of soothing environment. So yeah, it's funny how kind of some small things make such a huge impact when you're kind of in those environments as well. And kind of again, feeling safe and feeling welcome and stuff like that. So yeah, that's really interesting. One of the things that I was I saw I came up a couple of months ago that in South Australia, there was the first library based social worker that you know, I was helping visitors who are attending the library for whatever reason. So it provided kind of different, it was a different kind of avenue, a different approach to kind of getting out into the community. But you know, we know that libraries are a really great resource. So, you know, they were doing really great work with just supporting the men doing the mental health interventions or, you know, working with homeless and needing sports. Do you think that that something might be valuable in kind of the communities you're serving? I think in our set up in Woga, we're quite lucky. Our local library is set up really close to council. And council do some incredible work in terms of running group programs and particular things within the library to be able to, you know, increase in accessibility. I think libraries can be quite a safe space where lots of people from lots of different experiences can present too. And I know within headspace we do a lot of partnership in programs at the running or we will go along to events they're doing as well to help, you know, brace on that barrier of not having to call or walk into dorm referral that you could start to have a chat before you even walk in outdoor. But I think in Woga, and I'm not sure if Rachel and Laura agrees, I think we're really luckily placed in terms of how our library is set up within our community. Yeah, absolutely. Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you everyone for your contributions there. Again, I think it's really, you know, the community connection is almost the most crucial part of it, right? Because you kind of need to be out there connecting and kind of keeping that connection going to kind of build up that momentum and build up that continuity as well. So yeah, it's really great to hear that there's kind of so much community connection going on in your practice as well. So that kind of leads me on to kind of the next question, I guess, which is, you know, we've got these really great programs running, you know, the community outreach, then the community engagement programs. But what really gets in the way of keeping great programs running long-term, you know, we know that these programs are making a difference. We know that they're having such a positive impact on people's lives. You know, what was the sticking point for kind of not having them running long-term? Laura, see you've jumped off from you again. I'll hand over. I'm just picking up. What gets in the way of keeping programs going? I think one of the things that we kind of find in more regional rural areas is just recruitment and kind of keeping the staffing profile there. One of the biggest problems is where a lot of our services are at capacity and we just don't have the resources and staffing to kind of keep up with demand. So sometimes you might have a really good idea for a program that you just don't have the time and the staff to kind of devote to that because we're trying to provide that crisis response. So for me, that's what I've kind of seen. Emma kind of touched on the role of community engagement offices and they're really pivotal, I think, in mental health in keeping those community connections going and keeping programs running because it's all about advertisement and getting out there and letting people know what we have available. And I think as Rachel was saying, sometimes that can be the blockage if people don't know what we offer, they're not going to attend and therefore you're not going to have people coming. So it's kind of constantly posting on social media and getting a name out there and as Emma said also, making sure that we attend community events. So people know who we are. We have a good reputation in our community and people trust us and that's kind of how good programs keep running. Excellent. Yeah, I agree. I think the exposure piece is a really important piece. So kind of diversifying and getting in front of as many different people as many different ways as possible. You know, really builds that kind of, again, that continuity of what you're trying to achieve and kind of the association to kind of keep that program running. Thanks, Laura. What does what do you think keeps in gets in the way of keeping programs running long term? It's pretty much what Laura has said definitely. And I feel it's not the quality of the program themselves. It's it's assistance around them. So funding is usually short term. And it's the programs that show those strong results. But they lose that support once once the initial like once the money runs out. We saw an example of that with women's health. Their funding was cut which was a shame. And for us personally, for life, mind, there's been our workforce shortages. We're quite small at the moment. Sustaining that consistency is really difficult. And I guess it's shaped by those changing like the government priorities and policies that it's ever changing. So it's it's keeping up with that which can shift those resources away from like running this successful initiatives. I think yeah. Yeah. I think I was a recent study that came out was showing analysis of Australia's health workforce policies. I think it was 81% of federal initiatives were short term grants and programs rather than focusing on the on the longevity. And you know that that that doesn't kind of breathe into kind of getting these programs up and running and keeping them sustainable. Because we have the we have the data. We have the evidence. So you know we should be thinking about with longevity around kind of how do we keep these things running rather than kind of these you know short six to 12 month grants that you know we're providing these services. And I think as well you know we we're providing services to some of the most vulnerable in the community. I suppose it can be quite distressing for them to kind of be given this kind of the carrot almost and then taking it away from them. I mean you know we want these people to kind of have that continuity of support. So it is such a shame that we you know that that data is saying you know 81% is such a such a big number. And what about you I know we've kind of hit we've kind of got some shared shared views on you know keeping programs running. But what's been your experience around the difficulty around what you've been trying to achieve from from mental health perspective. Yeah look I completely agree with Laura and Rachel I think two of our biggest things that can potentially be barriers are around funding but absolutely resourcing I know with an hour organization that's something that can be tricky. And even so particularly for us in quite a mental health specific setting we may have really great ideas we may have really good need. But one we may not have the money to either hire additional staff or two. There's also that balance between taking away the capacity of a staff member to run a program when we do have really high demand in terms of young people that are on our wait list access our service. So it can be quite a tricky balancing act at times as well. And even on funding I know that we seek out a lot of short kind of those small grants or things that pop up when we see need to try and bring in that additional funding but the barrier to that is they are limited at times too. So although we may have really great success and we may get some really good data it can be quite difficult to continue that going post that funding exhaustion. Yeah absolutely absolutely. And I think you know the other perspective I guess is that you know the social our social workers on the front lines are feeling this acute as well because you know they're scrambling to kind of keep these programs a live or scrambling to get new grants and you know or cutback services and it kind of takes away from the from what you're trying to achieve with with the the care and support that you're providing. So it's it's it's a really difficult position to be in because you kind of want to spend your time getting as much investment as possible but you also don't want to use that to jeopardize the kind of the level of care and support you're providing to your clients. The Australian Medical Association won like late last year that I think they're chronic underfunding and increasingly complex patient presentations have pushed the mental health system to crisis point. Would you agree with that that coming from the AMA? Great job. Would you want to go first? Oh, you're on mute. Can you repeat the question again, Ben? Yeah, so the Australian Medical Association warned late last year that chronic underfunding and increasingly complex patient presentations have pushed the mental health system to crisis point. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I think I would have to agree with it. I feel it is at that crisis point. I think like for us, for our life mind, I feel that stigma and lack of awareness in the community can kind of limit the engagement. And which makes things harder to demonstrate that ongoing demand. Yeah, like that's just from our organisation though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Laura, I saw you, your batch jump in as well. Did you want to add a comment to that as well? I was just going to say, yeah, I definitely think the mental health service is in crisis, but I think it's been in crisis for a very long time. And I think sometimes when you think of it, you just accept it for what it is and try and make the best. I think I've worked in hospital settings in high dependency and acute mental health services where I think the challenges are even more noticeable. What I'm saying out in community is that there really isn't any services that will see clients long term. So a lot of the funding is very short for services that are short in nature, dealing with people in crisis. Where do you kind of send the clients when they need that long term intervention? And I think what we find in again, regional and rural areas is just we don't have the workforce capacity to respond. So we very rarely get people coming into our area that are experienced and have a lot of knowledge and skills. We have to grow our own and really work at training social work students into clinicians in that early career. So that's another complexity of working in the system in that role is you just don't have the staffing profile to kind of meet that demand. Yeah. Thanks for thanks for sharing Laura. Emma, is there any comments you wanted to add to that? I think both Rachel and Laura have done a really good job in terms of covering that. I think where it we say demand is there is significant demand on those more crisis services. So I'm thinking particularly for my age range things like cams so community mental health. Have as this, you know, quite this pressure in terms of trying to see people as much as you can. And then on the flip side of that, there's a pressure on these community based services to be also picking up those gaps. And so I think that it is something that's quite across the board in terms of, yeah, I think like Laura said, it has been a long term crisis in mental health. I don't think it's something new, but there is definitely pressures across the board. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Rachel, did you want to jump in there? Sorry, I keep. Didn't mean to do that. But yes, look, I'll just add Laura was saying about the short term, we're getting, we're seeing a lot of that. It's the 10, you know, the 10 mental health under the mental health care plan. You get the 10 sessions. A lot of our clients need long term therapy. And so we have a lot of them have that extensive trauma. And it's about bridging that gap. Like, where do they go after the six to 10 sessions? It's either into private, you know, therapy, monies, a fairly big issue for a lot of the clients. So yeah, it's just an add on to what Laura was saying. So it's not about equality, per se, it's about equitable access for all of these people to have the same opportunities to engage with these mental health, with these mental health programs to ensure that they're getting the support. You know, it shouldn't be based on whether they have the money to be able to afford it. It should be, you know, something that is afforded to these people because they are the most in need of that support. So absolutely. Thank you everyone for your contributions. It's really interesting to kind of hear kind of your perspective. So thank you. I might move on to the next question now, which is looking at how we can show the value of social work in prevention and intervention and get the right people to invest in it. You know, we know social workers are often put into a box, but let's unpack the box and explore the reality of what the kinds of stories, data or partnerships that actually help decision makers understand the impact we see every day. Right, try my hand over to you first this time. I haven't put you lucky first yet. So maybe I'll hand over to you first. Yeah, I guess we always struggle with this question. I don't know, I've jumped ahead of myself. I guess it's really about showing it by demonstrating both the human and the economic impact that we have. You know, sharing those real client stories along those measurable outcomes, like improved well being, you know, stable housing and reduced emergency admissions. We'll help make that look like that visible and show show that. I feel that that will attract the right investment. I think it's, it's not just about presenting social work is not not just a support service. It's like it's a cost effective solution really. The fact that it's a cost effective solution that builds healthier, more resilient communities is what we're trying to get across. So speaking like that language, both compassion and evidence. I think is key to gaining the attention of those policy makers and and funders. Yeah, yeah, agree. And I think, you know, it's. It goes back to that holistic approach, right? You know, it's about, you know, it's not just focusing on, you know, the, the actual. How are we kind of helping these people in generally go, you know, in their day to day lives, you know, is that person centered approach to kind of providing right in that. Yeah, yeah, excellent. Thanks Rachel. And what, what, what, what, what do you think we, how do you think we can show the value of social work for in prevention and intervention? Yeah, I think it's quite a big question. I agree with Rachel. It's something that there's never going to be a hard and fast easy answer. And when I think of this from my perspective in terms of being an accredited mental health social worker, I think in general, there is a bit of lack of awareness in terms of what that even means. As social workers, if you work in mental health, you're more exposed to it, but I think back to my university studies and I didn't know that was a pathway. A social worker had access to. So I think awareness is an incredibly important part of that. And you know, I think about even we look at the differences in Medicare rebates for a accredited mental social worker can provide versus a psychologist. So I think in terms of even to in the broader model in terms of when Medicare also see us. I think there's a lot of advocacy that still needs to happen and a lot of awareness building around. You know that we do spring bring a really specialized skillset and that we do have a little value in this space. So I think that absolutely there is space for further advocacy and trying to get that awareness out of what we actually can provide. Yeah, yeah, agree. I agree. I mean, you know, we're seeing we're seeing that, you know, particularly play out in the, you know, the NDIS space at the moment, particularly around, you know, social workers being taken off of plans and, and you know, people have been, they've been working with her for quite a while. You know, all of the sudden they're no longer being able to provide, you know, the help and support. It's obviously very distressing for for those people who have, you know, been been going through that process, but because of whatever reason. They, they did that not being the right fit anymore. And you know, it's a very, very, it's very problematic and very troubling to, you know, see and hear those experiences from our social workers that, you know, have built those relationships have tried to provide that care of being taken off those plans. There was a, there was a quote made by, made by someone a few, a few months ago that was saying, you know, they pointed out that people only end up in the end, I'll claim that people only end up on the NDIS with severe psychosocial disabilities because we failed to support them early on. And I'll give you the thing that I think is really important, is that we are really, really, really, really, really, really, really important. And I think that we are really, really important to have that care of being taken off those plans. And the question is, the value of social workers that we work across a range of organizations and services that are not just specific to mental health. So social workers can be found in the schools. They work in child protection. They work in libraries. They work in the designated mental health. They work in the hospital. We're kind of across all of the organizations in which we work in. So I think that's the difference, all the point of difference between social work and some of our, the other disciplines that we work in is that we go across so many of the different services that we need to connect in housing, justice, court advocacy. I think what I've dedicated and my career too is also that early intervention with educating students. So I feel so privileged that I have an opportunity to kind of impart my knowledge and wisdom about the mental health system with up and coming social workers and really preparing them for what the field looks like and what their point of difference is. I love the fact that I'm now in a management leadership role. So I can use my clinical wisdom and all the information that I've gathered across the years to actually make a difference and change programs and change processes and advocate for the role of social work. And I really see, it kind of leads into the next questions about social workers deal with complexity. But I think social workers really work well in this prevention intervention because we're across everything. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that's a really important piece of puzzle, right? It's not just X, it's not just Y, it's XYZ, it's ABCDEFG. It's the full alphabet of practice that you're touching. So yeah, absolutely. And I think being able to have people realize that this kind of connects all the dots together, it's not just kind of working in isolation, I think is a really important component as well. So absolutely, thanks, Laura. I think when we look at kind of a lot of the recognition around mental health social workers, we're seeing some developments being made particularly earlier this year when some of the private health, some of the larger private health insurers are now recognising that social workers can provide mental health services to people. We're starting to see that trend go when the MediBank announced the launch of that piece. So I think there's kind of ways that means forward, but definitely there's still an awful lot to be done. And I think there's a really important piece there. And I know that our social policy now because the team are working very, very hard to kind of start, keep building that momentum, particularly around there's MediCare rebates piece and the recognition that the social workers deserve, because they're doing an awesome job. They're doing an amazing job. And we want all of our social workers to feel proud and recognise for the amazing work they're doing. So absolutely, thank you. Any closing comments around kind of how we can show the value around the prevention intervention before I move on? Okay, well, thank you so much everyone for your responses. It's been really interesting. So I think one of the things I just wanted to touch on as well was we talked around the skills a little bit. And I think having certainly having the skills from social workers to be able to get those skills recognised. So particularly around professional identity, what do you think some of the challenges in getting the skills and practice recognised as well? So I think it kind of ties into this piece, but just kind of taking that a little bit further. I have often joked over my career that everyone claims to be a social worker until things get complex. So I think that's really our point of difference. And I've worked in lots of teams where you're not defined by your profession and you do intervene across a whole range of different interventions. But what I found is when things got really dicey and really complex, it was when social workers really stepped into this strength. And that was when we were kind of called upon. And I definitely know that was the case in the mental health unit. The psychiatrist would come tapping on our door when things got really complex or really challenging or the families were kind of pushing back or not agreeing with plans. It's when we really stepped into it. So I really hone in on that and kind of really sell our strength and our skillset is dear to us. And our strength and our skillset is dealing with complexity. When things get messy, that's when social workers thrive. And we know what to do and we can kind of water that. And let everyone else do their little referrals and claim to be the social workers revived all those little interventions. We step in when things get complex. And I think it's just really embracing that as our point of difference in our strength. Absolutely, absolutely. And things are social workers deal with some of the most complex things out there because there's so many different pieces of puzzle that kind of are forming that. So absolutely, definitely getting that message out there, for sure. What do you think? I just wanted to add that that's so like Laura, that's great. I think it's definitely so true. But I feel that a lot of our work, like the advocacy and the crisis, support and prevention that we do when it gets messy. I feel that sometimes that happens quietly in the background. So it's not always seen or valued. I feel that it's missed from other professions. And that's where our identity can be. Like we're having to explain what we are, what we're doing. I feel in the health services, they don't fully understand what social workers do. I feel yet a lot of the what we do is behind closed doors. Like it's very like in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Any comments from you on the skills and recognising those skills? Yeah, no look, I'm really completely agree with what's being discussed. And I think back to when I was working in schools, school counseling roles in leadership positions in terms of overseeing well-being programs within schools, I think regardless of what specific social work position you're in, even outside of mental health, I completely agree with Boris. What Laura was saying about, usually, I remember in my work in schools, when things got tricky, the first person they knock on the door was, OK, yeah, Emma's a social worker. She'll know what to do with this. We're just going to put it here. And I know that you'll figure it out. And on top of that, what Rachel was saying, I think that's something that gets really missed in that people don't always see the extent of the work that we do. And particularly, I think, when I'm one of my early placements was in hospitals quite a while ago, but even within that hospital setting around looking at, well, the social workers do the referrals. Actually, so much more in terms of what we do and how we support the people we work with beyond mental health in any social work role that you do. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I completely agree with everything. Everyone's saying it's really, really interesting to kind of go deep into that skills piece. I suppose, kind of off the back of that, where do we think the skill-- maybe starting earlier on in the social work careers, thinking about the students, what do you think some of the skills-- some of the critical skills that the students are going to need when they're kind of coming into working in mental health setting once they graduate. They're kind of going through now. They're probably being in practice in a couple of years' time. What do you think some of those skills they might need compared to what we're demonstrating now? Laura, for a hand over the ear. Yeah, I think one of the messages I try and educate students is just the complexity and the challenges and how difficult it is to navigate the system. So I think that's a tricky piece of work to educate somebody on. But I think it's really, really difficult for clients to navigate the mental health system. So then a social work is we need to have a really good understanding of that and kind of know how everything works. And there's so many things that you just can't learn at university about the profession until you actually go out there. So it's trying to educate students on what the real world actually kind of looks like. And being really clear around the fact that there are funding limitations. There are resource limitations. And there are 10 session models. And rather than being in angst around that, how do we actually embrace that and make it work the best that we can and kind of not just accept it for what it is, but acknowledge that this is the system we work in and how can we actually make it the best. And I'm a bit of a polyenner. I'm very positive about that. But I think it's our role that if we feel like we are being undervalued, then how do we advocate for ourselves? How do we make sure that our value is? So I think it's just trying to tell people it's more than just the clinical intervention. There's so much more involved in working as a social worker in mental health and connecting with students. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Lauren. I had the absolute pleasure of visiting University of Western Sydney a couple of weeks ago and spoke to hundreds of students who are all kind of aware of the working in mental health space. And it was such a great kind of thing to hear that they were aware now that mental health is a very important part of what social workers can offer. So absolutely to hear that they're excited to kind of work in that space and their spider work in that space is a really great thing to hear. Emma, what do you think around what advice would you give to kind of students? wanting to pursue mental health social work. - Yeah, I think Laura, and obviously with your education background, I know how wonderful you are as a teacher and as a clinical supervisor. And one of my passion areas in my clinical supervision work is early career social workers. One thing that I always keep at the forefront of my mind and something I talk about really frequently is, the one of the best things about social work is we work in collaboration. And I think the most important thing is your relational skills. And so I know in my own practice, everything I do comes from a relational approach. And I don't have to have all of the answers in an immediate session. The most important thing is to be able to sit with somebody, learn from them, hear their experiences and figure things out together. And I find that people I work with build a lot of trust in you when you may say, I'm not 100% sure about this right now, but let me go and find out some answers or let me explore what my networks have and just start wrapping around care. And I think one of the beautiful things about social work in this nature is it's not something that we do in isolation. And I think social workers do an incredible job in terms of one how they network within the social workers themselves, but two how we operate in multidisciplinary teams. And just as much as we provide really great, unique perspective, we also get really great perspective back from our other disciplines that we work with. Yeah, that's one of the things I always keep in the forefront of my mind. Yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. Thanks, Emma for sharing that. And Rachel, what about you, what advice would you perhaps give to some students looking to pursue mental health, mental health, social work career? - Look, yeah, pretty much to go on from Laura and Emma. They've said, had some great comments there. I feel like for myself personally, to realise you don't have all the, like you don't have all the answers, like you're continuing to learn and to be excited in that. I feel that, you know, yeah, I just needed to have a bit of a journey for myself. And I felt like it was a continued learning, you know, you were never going to reach the end of, okay, I'm finally, I know it all, I've got it all. It's just having that realisation was a really eye-opener for me on a personal level. And that just helped me become a better mental health, like social worker in the field of mental health. And that would be probably the advice I'd give. - Yeah, awesome, awesome. - Thank you, thank you so much everyone for those great responses. And thank you so much for joining us and providing your insights. I'm really excited now to head over to the Q&A part, portion of this session. So we've got to have a few questions coming through already. But if you haven't done so already, please feel free to use the Q&A function at the bottom of the screen to ask your questions. We may not get chance to ask all of your questions. So apologies in advance. We'll do our best to kind of get back to you as soon as we can. But I'll probably kick off, we've got a question from Jono around asking about your service. How is your service funded? What you do? How is that funded? - So I work for one of the new Medicare mental health centers. So it's federally funded as a new service. They've only really kicked off in the last 12 months. So people accessing our service do not need to own a Medicare card, even though it's called a Medicare mental health center. They don't need a referral from a GP. They just walk in, make contact. There's lots of different pathways to that. And so it is unlimited number of sessions and supports that they can access. And we have a whole range of different services that are funded under that model that they can tap into. So there's no fee for the clients at any time. - Thank you, Laura. - Hi, my name is Azar. - I think I understood, yep, that was good, thank you. Great, and then we have a reflection from Michael Daley, who's just said, I'm just reflecting on an observation from Rachel that a lot of what we do goes on notice. I consider this maybe because a lot of what are social work skills, soft skills like listening, communicating, advocacy, et cetera. What would you kind of say to that? - I mean, yep. I guess I need to explain what I meant by that. So yeah, definitely right there, Michael. I was more saying things like, like the extent, the extent of what we do that goes on behind closed doors. So when we, a lot of our work like advocacy and that crisis support and prevention happening quietly in the background, this goes often unnoticed by our other work colleagues or by other people. We often go above and beyond in our work with our clients like it's the behind the scenes stuff that we do a lot of like the case management, you know, the extra work that we do. That kind of stuff goes unnoticed is what I'm meaning, yep. - Great, thanks Rachel. Really great response there. Just looking through some questions now. What are your thoughts of using, utilizing online services from H, MHSWs from other areas to support around that kind of resource shortage? Oh, Emma, I see your batch jumping. - Yeah, I think one of the things that was really interesting to watch emerging from COVID was this shift into trying to increase accessibility, particularly Rantali Health. So I know personally in my private practice, I do support clients that I work with from all around the country. I think that it is a really important thing that we are able to do at increased accessibility. And I know within my practice, it can be tricky. A lot of people will prefer face-to-face services, but I definitely think that there is scope to be using these networks that we do have post-COVID to try and reach more communities and try and build some more resources. - Thanks Emma. Zing, when else wanna jump in there? - I think I agree with Emma. It is a client preference. So we have a lot of people because of their location in rural areas. Have to travel more than 100 kilometers to actually to come into our center. So we can offer telehealth services to them. The beauty of that too is that we can tap into telehealth psychiatry. So we have access to psychiatrists now that would have once been something that was quite difficult. We were in Wagar, the hospital relies on flying fly-out psychiatrists to deliver the services there. In the community, it was non-existent. So telehealth has enabled us to access telehealth psychiatrists for our clients so they can get assessments. And get medication reviews, which were once not accessible. So it definitely is a game changer in terms of being able to provide mental health services. And there's a whole range of different options out there now. So if there is a waiting list in a service, you can find someone that provides telehealth in a different organisation and give people choice as to how they do that. - It's really great to hear that we're expanding that accessibility piece. So I remember even my background being in the UK and that accessibility piece back then was very, very hard to come by. So to kind of see this kind of new development for online and telehealth and that sort of opportunity to engage that way is so valuable and so important, particularly around some of those people located either in remote or rural areas. So yeah, that sounds fantastic. Thanks, Laura. Okay, so we've got a few more questions that have come through. Matt says, Matt like it says, what do you see the role of community development workers being in mental health programs rather than a solely service delivery model? And does this even, does this idea even exist in contemporary social work? Then who one want to jump in? - We don't have a community development officer in our organisation, but that's kind of more about the local councils in our areas. Both headspace and I'm not sure around like mines, but in Grand Pacific we have community engagement offices which is kind of the new direction that mental health services are looking at about how do we engage those difficult to reach population groups and make sure that they have accessibility into mental health services. And I think that community development role still sits with the council. That would be my take on that. Correct me if I'm wrong or anyone else. I'll have to agree with Laura. I would think that the council with us with like mine, like I said, we're at the moment at a small little organisation. There's been a few left, which having some difficulty recruiting. We would love to have community engagement offices. I know we did have one. but nothing around the community development worker. I know. Thanks, Lauren Rachel. I've got a question from Kelly. Kelly asks, as a social worker who's re-entering the field after a break, I've been building my experience working in the youth sector and professional development. I'm wondering how I can pave my way to becoming a qualified mental health social worker. Any advice for Kelly there? I think one of the best things that you can do is connect with those that are working towards accreditation or who are accredited. So I know there's a number of really good community of practices both on the ASW website but also I know there's a number of Facebook groups that are Australian based particularly around people that are regardless of what you are in your journey in terms of whether you're just starting to consider it or whether you've been getting your practice hours and meeting some clinical hours and starting to figure out, okay, how do I actually put all of this together? I know the ASW does have a specific training module around just in general the credentials that will give some really good oversight into what particular criteria is and there is information on there as well but might be advice from my own personal experience. Find a really good supervisor who knows the process really really well and can support you and find those groups of community of practice. Yep, you beat me too. Emma was going to jump in and plug us a little bit but Emma is quite right. On your ASW portal there's a free guide to on how to apply for credentials and particularly around the accredited mental health social worker credential or give you lots of information around the prerequisites, how you can apply the assessment process and all the information that's that's needed. So I think that that would be a good kind of resource in ASW to kind of check in as well. Rachel I see you've just jumped off from you. What advice do you give? Just a quick add-on coming from personal advice, log your hours. So just yeah I know it's you know it can be difficult but just getting into the habit of doing that because I'm in the process of chasing up all my hours to get that mental health accreditation and it's a bit of an nightmare so just log hours and log everything. You're supervision everything. Excellent thanks Rachel. We've got a comment here as well from a question sorry. Has anyone experienced a peer-based mental health social work setting and if so what does it look like on the ground? Just quickly jump in. I'm really excited at like-minds where just started this. We do have that peer-based mental health worker who's coming and she's doing groups. At the moment for us we're just struggling to get that that the information out there. So although the numbers are low at the moment I feel this is going to be a great thing for our organisation. We're looking at having some more training done and getting some more peer group therapeutic groups because we've realised there's definitely a gap in the regional and that those areas and people wanting the groups. Well our clients anyway they're really wanting those groups especially that they're a putic so we're looking at peer lead groups at the moment. Excellent excellent thanks Rachel. Laura Emma is there is there is anything you've kind of seen and having experience of? Yeah we have a really strong dynamic peer workforce so we actually employed 10 peer workers in our organisation and they're pretty central to everything that we do in terms of they manage our concierge so they're the point of first call. When you walk in a door you are greeted by a person with lived experience that will step you through the process of accessing supports and they run a number of our groups but I think it's really important to acknowledge that most people who choose to work in mental health have a lived experience whether they're in an identified role or not. So I think we're starting to and compared to where things were 23 years ago when I started working in this field to where they are now we're really seeing the importance of having people with a lived experience not tokenistically placed in the organisation but actually being front of house key component of what we do because they understand how difficult it is to walk in a centre and ask for help so when people are greeted by a peer worker who has that lived experience it's that that reassurance that they're in the right place and we know that we're delivering the best of care so I think that's a really important part of mental health services these days and a number of places that I've worked not only have peer workers but have family and care workers so family and carers who are employed as part of the service to support other carers and family members so yeah I think it's the best kind of like pivot in mental health services of ways having those identified roles. Yeah yeah absolutely. Thanks a lot for sharing that. Do you want to close out that question with anything? Yeah not particularly within the organisation I'm working in within my headspace centre we don't have identified peer workers but what we do have is something called our YRG so our youth reference group and this is a group or committee of young people within our age range who are very much leaders in what we do as a service and YRG members can come from all walks of life they may have their own experiences of accessing services that are only with experience of mental health or they may just be really passionate about new mental health and so every decision we make I know at the moment I'm doing a lot of program development I take every document that we're proposing to our YRG particularly fast it's so important as a youth service that what we're doing is relevant to youth so everything we do is always in collaboration with that group. Thanks thanks for sharing Emma that's really great to hear we've already got time for two more questions before we close out so we've got one here from Shko who says thank you to the panel for your insights Emma highlighted that social work is rooted in relationality do you think the whole field of mental health is also deeply grounded in relationality? I like to think so and I believe it's something that's integral I don't believe that you can provide effective support without being relational. Regardless of what role you're in what position we know there's research out there that says that 70% of therapeutic outcomes are based on that therapeutic alliance that you have with somebody you could have the best clinical skills the best knowledge but if you aren't able to connect with a person all those things don't matter and so I'm a very firm believer that we all need to start in that place. Social work come with that uniquely based on our core values and the things that we uphold from the get-go and I think that's one thing I love about social work is regardless of where you are in your career we all come with the same value base it's a very valued based profession and I I would like to think absolutely every professional in this field does come from that point. Excellent thanks Emma that's yeah I agree I think that's a really great point you make Rachel or anything you'd like to add to that. No I just agree and I think also to sometimes we critique perhaps some of our colleagues and those who come from the medical model I have seen some of the very best relational care come from psychiatrist and just exceptional assessment skills and respect for the clients they work with and so my observations are that everyone I work with and everyone I have worked with in the past has come from that relational point of view and I think sometimes people can get a big burnt out bit of compassion for tea that they are essentially there because they actually do care about the people that they're seeing so yeah relational care if you don't have that then mental health is not your arena yeah excellent thank you and Rachel any closing comments for that question before we move on to the final and we're in Laura did a great job they did they did thank you thank you okay so we want to ask questions sorry for anyone who's asked a question we haven't got through those quite a few that came through but Leah asks how can social work leaders support the peer workforce to reflect on the purpose of sharing lived experience in direct practice. You want me to know if you're okay I was just kind of sprawled down there's actually some extremely good training out there sorry just yesterday some of our new peer workers that have started the mental health coordinating council have a safe storytelling online professional development so that teaches our peer workers and that workforce how to to trauma-informed way share this story. I was also very privileged as a manager to attend the Mental Health Coordinating Councils managing the peer workforce training. So that gave me additional insight into my role as a supervisor, as a manager, and as a leader, how to ensure that I'm providing the very best care and support to people with a lived experience that are employed to help others. So there's some really, really good resources and training out there to make sure that that happens, that it's happening well because we need peer workers to be able to talk about their own lived experience, but in a way that doesn't reach traumatized or impact them or the client they're working and how to kind of do that in a safe way. So yeah, I hope that answers your question. I would highly recommend that course, and it's kind of like a bit of my onboarding requirement that any new peer worker kind of goes to that training and learns how to engage in safe storytelling. - Thanks, Laura. Rachel, I see you jumped off mute. Is there anything you'd like to add? - It was just really kind of like a question, really. For Laura, that's great. We were just literally talking about this in our group meeting today about not retroitising and being aware of when to share their story. And we were looking at, yeah, training, I guess. What was that that you did? Was it an online thing, Laura? - Yeah, so the Mental Health Coordinating Council runs online safe storytelling workshops, but the managing lived experience workforce training I did was actually face to face. And because Graham Pacific Health employees such a significant amount of peer workers, it was dedicated training just for managers in our service. But the Mental Health Coordinating Council does offer it to anyone in the public. It was facilitated by a person with a lived experience that was absolutely fantastic training. - Okay. - Yeah. Thanks for sharing your words. - That's great. Thank you. Emma, did you want to add anything onto the back of this before we close off this question? Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you for everyone that submitted a question. Again, apologies we didn't get through all of them, but we'll try our best to get back to you ASAP. If not, you can email branch services with your question again, and we can pass it over to our lovely panelists who are sure we'll be happy to share their thoughts as well. So I just want to say a huge, huge thank you to Emma, Rachel and Laura this evening for joining us and sharing their experiences and perspectives and knowledge and all the wonderful things they've brought to the conversation. This evening has been wonderful. - Well, I hope you've enjoyed this session. I think you'll agree with me that there was some amazing insights from the panelists and the conversation that was had around a lot of these quite challenging, but also interesting ideas. I particularly enjoyed the questions from members at the end, which I thought took another angle on a lot of these insights and brought some real richness to the conversation. So I look forward to talking to you again in our next podcast soon, so please keep a watch on the ASW website, and we hope to be with you again soon.