The Social Worker Interview with Erin Beckwell

(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Social Worker Podcast, brought to you by the Canadian Association of Social Workers. As we continue, say ASW use hundred years, we're highlighting social workers whose voices shape a more just, reflective and accountable future for a profession. I am your host, Esther Fabriola, I'm the communications coordinator at the Canadian Association of Social Workers. And today, we are joined by someone whose work bridges education, advocacy, community care. Our guest is Aaron Bakwell, a social worker, educator, whose practice is rooted at harm reduction, liberation and commitment to systemic justice. And thank you so much for being here today. - Thanks for having me. - All right. So let's get into the question. So to get us started, can you share a little bit about your journey into social work, what drew you to this field, personally, professionally, anything that you are comfortable sharing with us? - Yeah, I grew up in a tiny, tiny town. I actually grew up on a farm near a tiny town in southern Saskatchewan. And I was gonna go be a doctor. I mean, I had a lot of health issues, all my childhood and an adult with a lot of healthcare providers. And I was like, I wanna help other people. I wanna make sure it's easier for other kids. And so I set off to go to university and become a physician. And I got there and even before I got into med school, I realized this isn't where I wanna be. Got away to the big city and started thinking about my experience growing up in a small town. I came out during university and started really thinking about what it's like living in a rural community when you don't feel seen. I certainly didn't experience any targeted homophobia in my community because it wasn't out. And so I really got thinking about, as I met more people and learned about issues experienced by other communities, I really got thinking about how do we make this better? How do we address not just individuals who are struggling in some way, but actually look bigger? And thankfully I had a friend who was taking his Bachelor of Social Work degree. And he said, well, why don't you take an elective with me next term? And so I did. And I found my home where all the things that I had experienced were put in this context that they made sense, which just kind of blew my mind that I was like, oh, it's not just me. I'm not the problem here. And so I applied to social work immediately, got in and yeah, been living the social work life ever since. - I love that, I love that I was so beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. I've noticed in a theme with my interviews and people influenced by a friend, cousin or someone, into just trying social work and seeing where it goes, you are. I think you're the sixth person that I've interviewed who was like, I wanted to go do some things surrounding healthcare and medicine and things like that. And yeah, yeah, it's funny how, I like that you said, you found your home how social work just finds you. - Yeah, and I think social work is all, I think it's changed. I mean, I certainly now see my students coming through, having chosen social work from the beginning, which was quite unusual when I went through, most of us it was this thing we stumbled into. And I think a lot of that was just the stereotypes around social work were so entrenched. And that certainly, that stereotypical version of social work wasn't where my interests lie at all. It was not what I was wanting to do. So I hadn't even crossed my mind as an option, right? I was more inclined to like, I'll maybe be a funeral director. (laughs) And that was a legit option at one point. I was like, maybe I should become a funeral director. And I think it was just this yearning to be in spaces that meant something to people. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah. - Yeah, yeah, I love that. Thank you. I mean, we should a little bit about your identity, your lived experience as a queer person and how it's a meaningful part of how you show up in your work. So I wanted to expand on that by asking how your personal experiences have shaped your values or teaching the way that you approach social work more broadly in general. - Mm-hmm, absolutely. You know, who I am is comes with me when I show up in social work spaces. And honestly, for me now, everywhere is a social work space. And unless I'm in my private space at home, I'm in a social work space. And when I came out in university, my family expressed concern that I wouldn't be able to work in Saskatchewan if I was out and I was very out. I blew the closet doors off and I was doing media interviews on CBC and starting to stir the pod already. And my family was really worried. It was gonna affect my ability to work in the career. I'd put a lot of time and effort into. And it was nice for me to be able to confidently say, no, it'll be okay. I mean, this was the mid '90s. And I had just such confidence that I would find my place. Which was interesting because when I was in my BSW program, I struggled a lot with some homophobia firm instructors. Just some really not solid practice around talking about queer and trans lives. And I started challenging things. It almost actually jeopardized me finishing my BSW program because I was challenging instructors, getting in trouble, and which is very classically me. But once I got my, both of my practicums were in very queer friendly spaces. My first one was at an organization that's now called Otsasca Tune. And so it was the local queer community center. And it was just such a wonderful thing to be able to, you know, a year after coming out, come into this space where it was just community, kind of like everywhere. And, you know, be able to be part of things like co-facilitating the youth group. And working with the pee-flek chapter. And, you know, meeting all these parents who were just so yearning to be better parents for their queer kids, which I just, that warmed my heart so much. And we planned a conference with the college education at the University of Saskatchewan as part of my practicum that went on to last quite a few years, like more than a decade. And it was so cool because there weren't a lot of queer spaces in Saskatchewan in the '90s. And I mean, I can't imagine coming out earlier than that. I mean, we were still doing the first pride march I was in in Saskatchewan. We had to walk on the sidewalk 'cause we couldn't get a permit to walk, to block off the street. And that happened for a few years for me. And I think those experiences all contribute to how I see issues in our society, how I see individual experience. When your life, and I also acknowledge I have great privilege as a white descendant of settlers, born and raised in Canada, like I have so much privilege. And yet, my queerness was enough to give me a window into that experience of oppression, that I just, yeah, I think made a promise to myself way back then to make sure I was part of making it better, maybe not just for queer folks, maybe in a lot of different ways. And I think my final practicum was in a harm reduction organization, which, oh, that changed my life in the most incredible ways. And I actually wore a shirt from that organization, they're selling t-shirts to fund their safe consumption site 'cause our government will fund it. And so I was like, what do I want to wear today? I want to have them with me because that organization, while it's changed and evolved and grown, and it's very different than when I was there. It just, I'm getting goosebumps talking about it. And it's been, I've been a social worker for 27 years. And so it's a long time since I was frontline in that work. And it's not only made me a better social worker, it made me a better human. Yeah. - I love that I can feel the, when you talk about finding your community and just all the things that I can literally feel that the warmth and everything you're saying as you're talking. So I can imagine how the session in a space that there was, within that time, I wasn't even born then. And I know there was so much fromophobia, transphobia, there was so much then. And I think it's so great we're able to find your community and start to build from them. And I'm sure folks who are in those communities today are probably thinking you're for all who are you. That you did during that time. Yeah, and you shared about your work in harm reduction. And that was actually my next point and you touched on a little bit. But I wanted to know if you want to share anything. Yeah, I was so fortunate. I got to do a practicum in an organization at the time was focused on, you know, it was called AIDS Saskatoon. And it had done a lot of work on HIV AIDS in the gay community, in the queer community in general, which was sort of what attracted me to it. And I got there at such an interesting time because HIV was changing. And the organization was trying to be as nimble as it could in terms of how do we change and grow and more shift to serve a totally different population with totally different needs. And it was such a gift to be able to watch that happen and be part of it. And it started during my practicum. Of course, those conversations have been happening before I got there. But then I got hired by the organization and I worked there for nearly a decade. And it was, it taught me about radical compassion before we even really used that language. It taught me about meeting people where they're at in a way that wasn't about a cliche. It was real and honest and authentic. It taught me that I could belong, which was something I'd always struggled with is feeling like I fit somewhere. I finally had a place to fit. And it was interesting because, I mean, the folks I worked with were about as different from me as you could get. And realizing that with some humility and some humor and a lot of authenticity, you can connect with folks. And the drop-in center in that organization was just, it was like a living room for the community. It's where people came and hung out and they made their phone calls and they got their food and warmed up and holding space for people in that way with as few barriers as we could muster, right? Like, we weren't, oh, you have to be sober to come in. No, as long as you were respectful to the people in the space, come on in. And at that time, and even today, that was just, I mean, we had folks in the human service community, including social workers who actually critiqued what we were doing. We're really quite, you know, I had one social work colleague who said, well, we have to kick people out or ban them routinely and how do you work with people when they're drunk and high and aren't they just destroying your place? And I said, no. And I think that was because they felt a sense of ownership of that space. It wasn't ours, it was theirs. And we were just holding the space, you know, we made sure the food was there. And seeing that the role was really about, I mean, now we talk about servant leadership but this idea of showing up authentically ourselves, you know, great things, difficult things, and meeting people in ways that don't require them to change in order to connect with you. We had for our drop-in center programs, like there was no intake forms, there was no sign-up, it was all just show-up. And even then seeing that organization that was about as direct frontline services you can get, had this container around it that was about challenging what's possible, challenging what's, how it's supposed to look, but also challenging the systems that created those situations in the first place. And that part of it sparked something in me, that really, you know, I loved working directly with folks, but once we got into that sort of more macro level, like, you know, why is it that we aren't getting funded for safety or needle distribution? And like we were collecting people's drug store loyalty points to go buy syringes for our exchange. Like that's how grassroots this was, right? We weren't funded by government for that. And yet we were like, there's a need we're doing it. And so it was very on the ground, but it had this political context that was always present, wasn't, you know, we didn't lose that context, which for me has, that's the thing that imprinted on me, I think, in that agency was just that individuals don't, you know, just sort of have their experiences randomly. There's a pattern to all of this. There's a logic to it. And so we, you know, would do fundraisers and events and awareness campaigns and, you know, like, it was just so fascinating, seeing how a group of people who really, really cared deeply about this stuff and really believed in harm reduction, like to the extreme harm reduction. Like we got a washer and dryer donated and we just installed it in our drop-in center. And we were like, that's harm reduction. And we had to, we actually had a conference presentation that we did several times. Why does your office have a washer and dryer? Because people didn't get it at the time. They were just like, what are you doing? Like you're trying to be everything for people. Yeah, we sort of were because we were working with people that no one else would support. And so, you know, we had to kind of become that chameleon that could just go where the need was and seeing that sort of ability to shift and change as we needed to was also, I think, a really foundational experience for me. I think so many social workers start out or maybe stay in parts of the field where there's a lot of no we can't do that. And I've been in those organizations since, right? But I started out in place where, yeah, let's see how we figure that out. And that has fundamentally shaped the way I view everything, right? Is that creativity and that flexibility and that willingness to truly, it's like, okay, we don't do that, but you need it, let's figure it out because there's nowhere we can send you for that, right? So yeah, it's, that organization will always be in my heart. And I've described it as my soul of social work that it created some sort of fundamental pieces for me about how, what kind of social worker I want to be, what kind of human I want to be, and how I want to show up with people. And I've managed to hold on to that ever since. - Wow, that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing, Erin. I think when you're talking about spaces that the people that are coming into the organization, where it's a space where nobody else would support than nobody else would care for them. And you posted that and as you were talking, you're sharing about how there's no intake, people can just come. Those are the safest places for folks because once I've been in the intake world, once we start doing intake, people retreat, they're like, I know, let me just, changes the dynamics so much, right? And we had people tell us that we should do intake and we should do some type of screening for eligibility. And we used to get comments quite often out in community, well, how do we know people aren't abusing your services? And I said, if somebody wants to come hang out at the drop in center that is primarily for people who are street involved, you know, we had people doing sex work, folks with significant substance use stuff going on. We had people just released from prison. And I'm like, you know, if somebody wants to go down and hang out and eat stale donuts and wait in line to do their laundry or use the computer and what I argue over the TV channel, happy to have them, right? I don't see that as abusing a service and I don't know many people. And like, oh, you're going to get people who don't really need your donuts, you know? And I'm like, hey, if they want to come down and see what this world is like, as long as they're respectful, come on in, right? And we didn't have many people who did that. But it was always interesting hearing people's reactions and a lot of social workers, that was a concern, right? Is they're going to abuse you and it won't be safe. And we discovered the opposite to be true, exactly as you said. Yeah. - Oh, I love that. How do you think being encouraged to question people? explore and push boundaries in that work, influence how you understand social work ethics and values today. Huge. I teach ethics today, which is always I get a little kick out of it when I get to teach ethics. And it's really given me sort of an open door to question and challenge the assumptions we make about what social work needs to be, right? And how it has to be structured. And so I find that early experience in harm reduction has actually translated into sort of transferable skills everywhere, including in teaching. And I think the big thing was being able to sit with tough questions about ethics. And so things like a dual relationships comes up all the time. And in our organization, because we were so unique when I was a new social worker, there weren't a lot of other organizations. There were none that did what we did. Sometimes we had relatives like biological relatives come in of our staff. We had people who access services, which was the language we developed instead of client. Because when I was doing my practicum, that was the first questioning and challenging we did. My field instructor, she said, you know, I don't like that we call people clients. I don't feel comfortable continuing to do that. I think just because everyone else does is not an adequate reason. I want you to come up with some alternatives. And I was just like a kid in the candy store. I was so excited about trying to find other ways to talk about the work we did, right? And the people we supported. And it just aligns so well with my sense of justice, right? That people should be more than just a client. And so we did a lot of work on, at first, it was people who access our services. And we kept questioning, we kept pushing and ultimately came to the conclusion that no, we don't own these services. We want the people to own the services. And have a say. And so we needed to sort of further challenge and not brought up some questions about governance, right? Like how do we make sure people have an actual voice, a meaningful way to participate here? And that was just incredible to watch as well because it allowed us to explore division, separation, but also connection. And our boundaries and professional practice about negotiating how we connect, or are they allowing us to maintain some separateness from the people we support? And in that environment was very much about connection. It was not about separation. And so it was fascinating, figuring out the logistics of how do we create an advisory committee that's not just a colonial format, right? Because the first idea was, oh, we'll get some people access services on the board, which was kind of becoming a bit of a thing, right? Is you have a service user on your board? And we sat with that for a bit and questioned it. You know, is that the best way? Are people that we see in our drop-in center going to feel welcome on our board? You know, are they going to feel they have a voice there? Are they even going to feel comfortable sitting around a board table with an agenda and motions? And, you know, is that going to be a good experience for them? And meaningful way to contribute. And so we start talking to people and said, you know, would that be something that interests you? And a lot of people were like, what do they do? Like, what, what are you talking about? And so we said, okay, if you could offer some feedback, some, some more formal and consistent way of contributing to what we do, what would that look like? So we modeled a group after the Vancouver area network of drunk users or Van, do we created Sandu in Saskatchewan? And they became a bit of an advisory for us. They also did some of their own like social justice work and they connected with other peer groups across the country, which was really cool. We took some folks to conferences and presented with them. And seeing that all of that is possible and it doesn't have to be profoundly difficult or unethical. Like, I had a person who accesses services that came with me to a conference to present. And, of course, the day of the conference, they got their honor or their per dieming cash. And this is someone in like active substance use, right? And so gets a couple hundred bucks cash to pay for meals for the week disappears. And I'm like, okay, are we going to be able to do it? No, shows up at breakfast an hour before we present. And then dine and dashes on me and leaves me with the check. And it was just such a, it's like he felt safe enough to know that it wasn't going to affect the care he received, right? That we had like really solid relationships. And I wasn't going to be, you know, sort of judging him or chastising him for what he'd done. Of course, that's what he was going to, right? And he's like, well, I knew you wouldn't be upset. And I'm here for the presentation and I'm like, good. And it did great. But it was such a cool experience that still, like when I teach ethics today, these are the examples I provide for my students, right? That a lot of places, I think, and things have become even more sort of structured and challenging to do those things today. But I think there's always an opening for collaboration, for meaningful engagement. And it doesn't have to be this like over the top super complex, it can be. But it can also be really simple things. And really authentic connection with people is often I've found, especially with this population of folks, a way to connect and get them to share their thoughts on things. It's probably more likely to happen over a coffee in a drop in center than it is in a focus group or filling out, like we used to laugh when people would be like, well, how often do you survey your clientele to evaluate your services? And we were like, we don't survey our clientele. And people like, what do you do? And I said, well, number one, if we surveyed our clientele, it would be absolutely ridiculous. There's literacy issues, there's so many different layers of inaccessibility of that format. Why would we do that? Well, what else can you do? Like there was sort of this idea that that was the only way because it was so common. And I love the opportunity to get my students thinking about how do we find out if what we're doing is working for people or if it's helpful without slapping them the clipboard or sending them, now it's a QR code, which just whatever. But like giving that opportunity to consider, where can I be flexible? And then the other piece of it that I think I learned so well in that space is the notion of transparency that when there's things you can't do, you talk about that with people openly. When there's limits on your services or your resources or your time, you name that and let people have some control over the interaction. So many gems. Oh my gosh. I don't even know where to start from. So many, there's so many things you said that I was just like, yeah, yeah, I had to like you know, I was just agreeing a lot from the beautiful thing that the service user mentioned when he was like, I knew you wouldn't be upset. That's so key. So it seems like something people would raise over, but that's so key because that trust has been built at the point where I knew he could, you know, do what he wanted and Aaron would welcome him back and open arms and that, you know, that's, yeah, that comfort and I, we used to say to people, you know, every day is a new day, you know, like that's why we didn't ban people and I am so happy that that organization in today's iteration still is one of the only places in the city that doesn't ban people for their behavior, right? It's like you need to go out and take a break. You can come back tomorrow and we'll try again. And that actually taught me so much not only about social work and working with people, but about myself. I was such a perfectionist and I was so hard on myself and realizing at some point, okay, I can tell, like help others understand this, right? That we're all human. Some of us have bad days and you can take a break and come back to it the next day was actually revolutionary for me and my own mental health, right? Like, yeah. And so that softness and relationship, that compassion and relationships. Yeah. just like I still try to have some of that even though I don't work in direct practice anymore. I also love that sometimes and it's not even intentional through working with folks. We learn more things about ourselves. Oh yeah. Yeah learning to give ourselves some grace. You know maybe even seeing the way because because through talking to services of advocacy you're indirectly teaching them to advocate for themselves. Yeah right and tell other people about the ways that you learn to advocate for themselves. Yeah and you know we talk about empowerment in social work sometimes right and I it always seemed like this sort of superficial idea to me like it just didn't really resonate until I saw those moments of people being like well come come with me to this place they'll treat you right but also well I learned something and I'm gonna help you now because I know how to advocate and seeing that sort of network grow and like we also created jobs for people who were you know sort of hanging out in the drop-in center been there a while express an interest in wanting to get some sort of relevant employment experience so we started creating peer positions which again like you know from an ethical standpoint challenge is a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah. Our board even questioned us and was like what are you guys doing? What are you doing? And really this is the logical next step for us right as is helping people get some you know maybe it's employment skills but even if employment is never on the radar for them right it's like giving back to your community having responsibilities you know needing to show up for people these were things that I just like I loved it when we could employ and it wasn't always easy like we had folks who occasionally would show up you know we'll high and be struggling but we didn't deal with like with that like we would deal with that in a government system right where as you're getting disciplined and sent home and it's like same as always and we had to be really clear with folks because if you're gonna bend those rules you have to have a lot of clear parameters around them right and so it was like no you know like you come up come in you're not ready to work you can go home and you can come back tomorrow and work and that's fine and people had the choice to get paid in cash or get paid in freezer meals and we had a lot of people who worked for food that didn't want extra money because it would get clawed back by the government and so they we would pay them in food and you know in Saskatchewan it's cold in the winter so freezer meals are handy you can store the mode on your balcony or you know in your car and it just that became a really interesting piece as well is like it challenged a lot of pieces for me around what work has to look like and how it has to be structured and you know what consequences should we have if any and does work have to be about productivity and earning money and capitalism or can work be about something else and and it sort of opened my eyes to a whole bunch of other possibilities that yeah and of course gave me even more insight into myself because I was a workaholic and giving people permission you know when they're struggling or having a rough day to go home and take a rest I was doing that and I couldn't do it with myself and so it was also just this additional layer of like wow I need to sort through some stuff so I can ease up on myself otherwise this work that I love this community day door I'm not going to be here for very long with them if I keep pushing at this rate yeah yeah yeah yeah thank you for that um I wanted to just taking more just what you were talking about before um shipped into a little bit of a conversation around systems um we hate for folks who are listening watching and we had our discovery chat and I was talking about um a challenge you'd observed in systems is that tendency to blame individuals instead of addressing the systems that shape their lives Erin I was wondering if you could explain why focusing in systems rather than individuals is essential um and how you you do that in your work with your students in a quality because in things like that that was one of the toughest things for me to encounter when I left this magical organization I started my career and and um other organizations often were much more sort of mainstream and realizing that it I don't think it was intentional of this sort of like looking at the individual for the problem and you know strengths-based was was really becoming a very popular thing and um you know everybody's naming strengths all over the place and I'm like okay folks that doesn't mean we don't look at the systems like you can't just strengths your way out of this stuff and I think so often though like especially coming from a background of harm reduction I went on to work a bit in like sort of substance use addiction sector and there it's sort of like okay well if someone doesn't complete treatment for their addiction they obviously weren't ready they obviously weren't motivated enough they and it was just constant right it's like when do we say how did we maybe not support this person well enough as a system right what did we miss what can we do better and and again that transparency about you know we've got colonial values showing up in every system in our world right and so naming not that this isn't maybe the best thing it's maybe harmful it's um but at least giving not a bit of air time and saying well we need to understand this person left treatment because there there was nowhere for their kids to go and they're terrified about what's going to happen to their kids and our policies prevent them from chatting with their family for the first however many days they're here that isn't about this person and their motivation or willpower or whatever other ideas we have and so now in the classroom it's I sometimes feel like I'm teaching a dream that isn't real yet and so I try to be pretty realistic with my students about what they're going to face um but I also try to plant seeds for these sort of questioning and disrupting and putting you know I don't like saying blame but putting the sort of blame where it belongs and not leaving people thinking that they're the ones you know oh you you didn't show up for your appointment well now you have to go to the bottom of the waiting list well that's not person-centered care that system-centered care and it's usually not about what's in the best interest of our people or what's evidence-based it's about a system trying to manage its resources yeah and so I teach students about resource-driven care or person-centered care that those two are in direct conflict all the time in systems and so what we're doing what we're able to do might not actually be what people need and not dissonance I mean over time I think can create some moral distress for folks that I know this isn't what my client needs but this is what I'm able to provide for them and and I try to just get student I'm like don't let yourself slide into this world where you start blaming your clients for their failings their struggle it's their fault it's like no we know where this comes from and how it's manufactured and maintained and um you know we're often put in situations as social workers where we have to deliver services that we know aren't culturally responsive aren't accessible and so that's the language I use with my students right and then I say okay if you choose to work in one of the systems that continues to cause harm and continues to in a variety of ways label clients as the problem how can you resist that as an individual worker right what are the things you can do say not do not say like choosing different language you know and how profound can that be for someone and I worked in our health system for a few years and it was such a fast and easy. It was the biggest system I'd ever worked in. It's the biggest employer in our province is massive, right? And so seeing how people talked about person-centered or patient-centered care all the time, but my job in the health system, at least most of the time, was to try to agitate around equity and get people thinking about not just who are we seeing and how well do we serve who we see but who's missing? Who's not showing up in our clinics or in our outreach? And who's having not only poor outcomes from care, but poor access to care and poor experiences of care? And what is that doing to our system? And how could our system benefit from changing? And I always thought it was maybe a bit of a skeptic just because I'd come from like grassroots, right? And I was like, no, I'm gonna go into this with hope and I'm gonna believe this is, I mean, they created my job. Obviously somebody somewhere with power wants things to change. And so I did my absolute best and over the course of years I think made a lot of traction, but where I made traction was training individual workers, not changing systems. So I was training workers how to adapt their practice given the system we're in, which wasn't my plan, but they were like, you're a good teacher. You could go teach our frontline workers how to be trauma informed and how to not cause more harm. Fine, I'll do that, but I also wanna change the system. And at the end of the day, the system just does what system does, right? It resists change, like it just doesn't want it. And COVID came along and I was working in public health. And I thought, here's our chance to show how equity informed services look and how they make a difference. And there was just no space for that. And it was so like that was the beginning and the end in healthcare for me. I was like, I can't stay in a place where there is not only lack of resourcing of change and lack of structure around how we're gonna change, there's like in this crisis, there was active resistance to change. And I was like, I can't sit by knowing that people are dying and do nothing. And one example was we were talking about setting up makeshift morgues in the early days of the pandemic. What if the deaths are just overwhelming our systems to the point we need to turn curling rings and skating rinks into morgues. And not a really uplifting conversation to sit in on. And one of the high ups, not in the health system, this was with government, people said, yeah, well, we'll need to figure out a process. So people, if they're coming to claim a loved one, what ID do we need, how does that work? And I said, well, we need to in that process make sure we're accounting for people who are unhoused, don't have ID. And they're like, well, if somebody's homeless dies a COVID, who's gonna come collect them? And I started crying in the meeting. I was like seeing faces and hearing voices of people that I had known who were an important part of my life and thinking, I know a bunch of people who would rally around to make sure people were, they had a chance to say farewell and those ceremony, whatever was needed at the end of life and they would make it happen. Maybe they don't have cell phones or ID, but they would still want that and to know that our government at the time was just so cross about not even wanting to create a process for that to be possible because, well, who claims a homeless person's body? Like it was just horrifying to me and I actually went on stress sleep after that 'cause I couldn't show up in meetings anymore without being so emotional that I wasn't helpful. I was just angry and sad and I was just like, no. Like this system and the government needs to care about all the people. - Yeah. - You know, not just the ones who can follow the directives and check on social media every day what the latest changes are, right? - Yeah. - Yeah, it's like the side who's disposable and who matters, whatever. - Exactly, yeah. - Yeah. - I'm so sorry to get to experience that, especially to the point where you couldn't work anymore and it's been challenging, especially during COVID. - Yeah, it was tough. I mean, part of it was too that my role in COVID was like, I was an office person. I wasn't a frontline social worker anymore. I was doing this equity work. And so I was relegated to my home office, never saw my colleagues, you know, like for weeks on end and I so very much wanted to be out on the front lines. Doing street outreach again, you know. Like I wanted, that's where I wanted to be because the drop in centers were closed. And, you know, and I'm just like, I don't want to be sitting on my 85th virtual meeting of the week. I just want to be out there doing what's needed right now because our government isn't doing it. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Oh, wow. - Okay, that was really tough. - Yeah. - Thank you for sharing that. I have a lot more things I want to ask but we only have time for more questions. So I had to like try to prioritize what we could talk for ever. I wish we could talk forever. - We could talk forever. (laughing) So I guess through this conversation, you've talked a lot about like our responsibility and, you know, personal accountability. And I know in our previous conversation, we talked about through the reconciliation in your work and what that looks like, especially in relation to indigenous communities. So, to round us off, I wanted to ask how do these commitments show up in your practice, in your teaching and in your opinion, why are they essential for social workers today? - Cool. I mean, that could be its own podcast. - Yeah. - Right. And I hear from students and social workers all the time that they're struggling to make truth and reconciliation real in their work. And so that has become a particular interest for me in teaching is how do I make this not just a thing we talk about but a thing we do every day. And some of that I believe is all the stuff we've already talked about is decolonizing the way we do social work and questioning everything. And, you know, meeting people where they're at, being authentic and later in my career, when I worked in the health system, I worked with some wonderful brilliant elders, you know, who talked about just sitting with people, being with people, listening and realizing without having the same framework for it, of course, that's what we've been doing all those years before, right? And that, you know, sort of changing the narrative about what it means to be a social worker because for many of the people I had worked with, for many of the people my students are gonna work with, social work isn't a title that's, you know, a friendly warm hug for them. It's a scary thing for a lot of people and trying to get students to realize you may be trying to be one of the good social workers, right? Challenging, changing, unlearning, learning, doing all the right things. And you are going to walk into a room carrying the weight of every social worker, a family or community is ever encountered, right? And so how do you do that with grace and humility and understanding the weight of that responsibility that I, you know, especially when you work for systems that are, you know, where there's such disparity still, child welfare, you know, corrections, et cetera, right? It's like you gotta walk into every encounter with someone being ready to rewrite their story about what social work can be. - Yeah. - And that has nothing to do with, you know, how smart you are or how much experience you have, that's something I think each of us can commit to every time we walk into a space and encounter someone we're supporting is just being like, how do I do this in a way that focuses on relationship first? And that might mean we don't get done what we planned in the first meeting because I have to create space and hold space for people to tell me how much harm has been done to them before. And to hear that and take it, not get defensive, not explain how I'm different. That it is not about me. And I think helping my students understand that, that for those of us who are non-indigenous in particular, showing up in spaces and giving people the space to say, someone like you hurt me, someone like you didn't care for me well, someone like you judged me. And I'm not gonna trust you because of that. And to say, yeah, that's fair. I get it. And that's actually the start of how we build trust, right? And I think sometimes students are struggling with that, right? They're like, but I wanna show how good I am. Well, that's not what truth and reconciliation is about. It's not about how good I am. It's about how willing I am to sit with uncomfortable truths. How willing I am to own my own shortcomings. And I mean, as a white person from Saskatchewan, that wasn't easy. And it's still something I'm working on, right? We're gonna have to do that for the rest of our lives. I grew up on indigenous land that I was actively taught in the school system had never had any people on it before my lovely farming family 100 years before had gone and plowed the earth. Of course, that's not true, right? You know, then I was also the kid climbing the hills around our farm, finding arrowheads and TP rings and all the evidence that, and I think that's where the questioning started for me. Something doesn't add up here. And so I want my students to question like that. I want them to say, how can I hold space for you in a way that honors your story, that doesn't question your story, that doesn't dismiss your story and doesn't defend against your story. Because I think that's what reconciliation really looks like, is not having to, and I used to be so wrapped up in being a good social worker, whatever the heck that is. And I think working where I did the first decade of my career, absolutely. So to strip me of this idea of a good social worker and said, no, you need to show up as Aaron. Not a good social worker, that's an act. Show up as yourself. And I think in some settings, that's easier to do than others. And so I absolutely do not judge social workers and settings where that is incredibly complex, right? Because I think that's the other piece is honoring complexity and nuance is a part of this that there are people in roles in social work where it's tough to bring their whole self to the work for a variety of reasons. And so then the job is harder. - Yeah. - And so having compassion for those colleagues, having compassion for ourselves when we're in those positions, but then asking ourselves, okay, how do I do this? Given the limits of my role, right? And always looking to what's possible. And interestingly, I know time is limited, but I just want to say, I love teaching social policy. That's another lovely course of mine. And students in my last cohort told me I was the dream killer because I talked not about the idea of social policy but the reality of social policy. And then how do we navigate the reality of social policy? And they were like, Aaron, you're like bursting our bubble and you're sort of killing our dreams. And I said, I don't wanna sort of kill your dreams, but I want you to go into social work without the rose colored glasses on and actually see what's going on out there. - Yeah. - You know, and that needs some realism, but it also, realism needs to be, I think, matched with compassion. And that's always how I try to approach my students and my community colleagues and the alumni. I mean, now I have a network of hundreds of social workers I've taught, which is just so, I have a community, and it's amazing. - Yeah, I love that. It's a perfect way to end our time together. Yeah, Aaron, I appreciate you. Thank you for your reflections. You're honesty, your critical lens. I think your voice really challenged me mostly for myself, challenges me, and I hope other social workers to think deeply about our values and responsibilities. The systems we work in, how we navigate those systems. And I'm grateful to you, see if you're grateful to you and to highlight this perspective, 'cause I think it's such an important one, and I hope folks connect with it. So thank you, and feel free sharing. - And thank you to you, Esther, for doing this project, and putting this together. I just can't wait to sort of see everyone's episodes and yet another reminder of just how diverse and amazing social workers. - Yeah, I really can't agree anymore. Thank you. - Yeah. - And to our listeners and our viewers, thank you for joining us. As I mentioned, I really hope this episode leaves you wanting to challenge systems, wanting to ask questions, wanting to make changes in spaces where you can, where you were able to, and I hope that Erin's story inspires someone who maybe isn't into social work yet to take that leap, who isn't sure, take that leap. So yeah, thank you for joining us. This has been the social worker podcast. I hope that you continue tuning in as we share conversations and honors 100 years of CSWU and Canada. So yeah, thank you. (upbeat music)