I write from my position as a cisgendered, heterosexual woman of multi-generational white settler ancestry, currently living and working on Dharawal Country in Australia. Acknowledging positionality is not a preliminary gesture to be dispensed with, but an ongoing ethical practice that informs how I show up in supervision—particularly when working alongside Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers and communities. Supervision, in this sense, is never detached from land, history, or power; it is shaped by whose knowledges are legitimised, whose distress is recognised, and whose resistance is made visible or erased.

My orientation to response-based practice was shaped initially through Narrative Therapy, particularly Michael White’s work on listening for responses to trauma and violence, rather than solely for impacts of problems or preferred alternative stories. My orientation to response-based practice traditions was through engagement with the work of Allan Wade, Linda Coates, Cathy Richardson and Vikki Reynolds, whose contributions foreground resistance, dignity, and the importance of context of social responses. These ideas resonated strongly with my own frontline experience as a first responder to sexualised and systemic violence within interagency child protection contexts, where I witnessed how professional and institutional responses could either support recovery and dignity or reproduce harm.

Supervision, for me, has become a space where parallel and intersecting narratives are held together: the stories of workers, the stories of those they work alongside and the broader organisational, political, and colonial contexts that shape both. Central to my supervisory practice is listening for responses—how workers respond to violence, injustice, ethical constraints, and organisational pressures, as well as how they respond to their own moral distress. This shifts supervision away from deficit-focused analysis and problem solving towards recognising agency, resistance, and ethical intention, even in contexts where options are constrained by systemic and structural barriers.

Much of what workers bring to supervision is not a lack of skill or knowledge, but moral distress arising from being required to participate in systems that conflict with their values. Neoliberal organisational cultures often individualise responsibility, prioritise risk management, and frame supervision as a mechanism for compliance, performance monitoring, or burnout prevention. Within such contexts, supervision can easily become co-opted into a “tick-box” exercise that obscures power relations and structural injustice. I remain sceptical of these managerial imperatives and concerned about professional accreditation processes that privilege psychologised, individualised models of supervision while marginalising collective, relational, and justice-oriented approaches.

In response, my supervisory practice begins not with case presentation or predetermined templates, but with the question: Where are you at today? What is carrying weight emotionally, ethically, or politically? This open entry point allows supervision to be responsive rather than prescriptive. While some supervisees arrive with highly structured expectations for supervision shaped by medical or organisational models, others—particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers—prefer to yarn, moving between community, professional, and organisational worlds. For many, these worlds are not separable; work does not end at five o’clock, and professional decisions are entangled with kinship, community accountability, and ongoing exposure to racism and colonial violence.

Within these conversations, values and ethics become a central organising thread. Drawing on narrative and response-based approaches, I listen for moments where workers’ values are enacted, thwarted, or compromised, and for the conditions that shape these experiences. Tools such as values lists can be useful prompts, but they are always held lightly, recognising that values shift over time and context. Supervision becomes less about judging past actions and more about creating a breathing space—a pause in which workers can reflect, reconnect with what matters to them, and consider how they might respond moving forward in a way that aligns with their values.

Increasingly, I am drawn to collective forms of supervision and what might more accurately be described as solidarity practices. Where workers lack access to supportive teams, I facilitate collective spaces—online solidarity groups and in-person retreats—where shared reflection, storytelling, and mutual witnessing can occur. These spaces foreground “pushback” narratives: moments, however small, where workers resist oppression, reach for solidarity, or imagine alternative responses. Even the act of thinking about resistance, when action is constrained, is recognised as meaningful.

These collective practices challenge the privatised, siloed model of supervision that dominates professional discourse. They raise important questions about what supervision is for, whose interests it serves, and how it might contribute to social justice rather than merely sustaining workers within unjust systems. I am increasingly interested in supervision as an under-researched site of practice and inquiry, particularly in relation to decolonising and de-psychologising approaches, collective care, and alternative methodologies such as collaborative autoethnography.

This reflection is deliberately unfinished. It is offered as an invitation rather than a conclusion. I am seeking allies—practitioners, educators, and researchers—who are interested in reimagining supervision as collective care and in pursuing research questions that challenge dominant paradigms. I welcome further conversation as part of the work itself, recognising that knowledge-making in social work is, and must remain, a relational and collective endeavour.

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Part of that comes with experience—this is Social Work Wise retreat number five—but it also has to do with the people who were there, the connections that formed, and what has carried over from past retreats. With every retreat, at least half of the group is comprised of people returning to the experience. There is one retreat group member who has been on board for all five journeys. In of all these collective journeys  I’ve experienced the joy of witnessing growth, occasional epiphanies, and new threads weaving together.

The Work of Careful Attention

As a facilitator, my role is to pay careful attention. It’s a listening that is intentional, attuned, and full of care. I listen for signs of discomfort, for things that might need following up, whether physical, emotional, or otherwise. Over the years, I’ve learned that this is part of the role—listening in a way that holds the group with care.

What makes this possible is the “bank” I draw on: a bank of relationships, stories, memories, and connections. Caring is easier when you deeply value the people who are with you in solidarity, when you hear the heroics of their everyday lives and practice in human services. These stories of endurance, commitment, and resistance move me, and I don’t need any encouragement to care.

Attuning to Responses

My orientation is shaped by Narrative practice and Response-based ideas. From Michael White, I learned to listen for people’s responses to trauma and what is absent but implicit in stories; from Vikki Reynolds, my curiosity lies in noticing how people respond—how they resist, create, and adapt. On retreat, I’m not only attending to how group members respond to each other, but also how they respond to the Balinese natural and cultural environment.

One reason I hold these retreats in Bali is because of what the cultural, natural, and spiritual environment offers. Some people open to it immediately, others more slowly—like a flower gradually blooming. To witness that process is a privilege.

Bringing Myself In

Of course, I bring my own baggage, too. This year, after a demanding first half as a full-time academic, I knew I needed space to decompress. For that reason I arrived in Bali a week earlier—to let go of some of what I was holding before stepping into the retreat facilitator role. It was valuable learning: I need my own letting go before I can hold space for others.

These retreats are about giving, but also about co-creation. I may coordinate, but each group has helped shape what these retreats have become. To do that, I’ve had to let go of preconceived ideas of what it “should” look like.

The Ripple Effects

I often think of these retreats as creating ripple effects. Sometimes I see them clearly; other times, they remain invisible until much later. Occasionally, I hear that something said or done here influenced a crossroads in someone’s life, even if I don’t know until long after. That’s the nature of ripple effects—they travel outward beyond our sight.

At first, I hoped connections would last in obvious ways, like through the WhatsApp group we set up to stay connected before, during and after retreat and as a vehicle for sharing of ideas, resources and photos of our shared adventures . Sometimes they have lasted , sometimes not. But I’ve come to appreciate that the impact doesn’t have to be visible to be real. Trusting that is part of the work.

Looking Ahead

Already I’m thinking about next year. This space in Bali needs to be booked well in advance, so I have already booked Alam Indah hotel in Ubud for the first week of July in 2026. Watch this space for more details.

Closing Reflections

What I take away most this time is the reminder that retreats like these are never just about rest or learning. They are about the power of careful attention, about the courage people bring to resist forms of systemic and structural oppression, and about the ripples I may never fully see.

I don’t need to know where every ripple travels. It’s enough to know that they move outward, carried by the connections and stories we’ve shared. And that feels like reason enough to keep gathering.

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Pondicherry Retreat anhttps://www.facebook.com/share/v/pHjFANpWE7sXZ529/d INT Conference

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While there are many factors that shape SWW practice, there are two that I would like to address in terms of 2023:

• The on-going impacts of colonisation, both at home and abroad
• The psych-colonisation of women and children who have been subjected to relational and systemic violence.

I understand these factors to be inter-related and occurring in the broader context of global patriarchal capitalism.

Colonisation

As an aspiring ally to Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander people, I was dismayed and disheartened by the process and outcome of the Voice to Parliament referendum in October. I have many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander clients, colleagues and friends and I was required ethically to prioritise my support of them through the injustices and adversities they responded to in ‘walking in two worlds’ as Aboriginal people working within Australian welfare systems and organisations. The daily racist micro-aggressions they are subjected to, and the organisational burdens placed on them to respond to systemic failings and shortcomings are enormous. A contribution I intend to make is to bear witness to these injustices as well as supporting acts of resistance and solidarity within communities that bring the hope necessary to sustain them. Likewise, I have prioritised supporting all other non-Indigenous colleagues who are acting within their own spheres of work as allies.

While the global contexts of colonisation do not have as direct an impact on the work of SWW, I refuse to ignore the colonisation of Palestine by the state of Israel and the on-going horrors inflicted on Palestinian people and their communities. I try not to be overwhelmed by the bombardment of traumatic images in mainstream and social media of dead or dying children and their grieving families and the sense of helplessness and hopelessness they generate. I prefer to be inspired by these images to engage in acts of protest and resistance in solidarity with like-minded people instead of remaining a bystander to this genocide.

Psych-colonisation

Most of the supervision work of SWW is with women supporting other women and their children who have been subjected to violence from men they have intimate partner and familial relationships with.  Men who choose to use violence are organising and using the internet to expand their repertoire of abuse with advanced surveillance technologies and have discovered more legal loopholes to extend financial constraints. Hence the work with these women is ever more complex and stressful to keep up with and resist these strategies of coercive control. I have been shouldering up workers in their efforts to do this alongside continuing resistance to the pathologisation of women and children through mental illness diagnoses and the attendant medicating and social control via casework. Most of the people I have supervision relationships with are interested in developing their knowledge and skills in approaches to counselling and casework that resist this pathologisation such as Response-based practice and Narrative therapy.

Highlights of 2023

The SWW response to these factors has specific intentions of creating communities of solidarity and generating hope.

Mimpi Bali retreat in Ubud, July 2023 was one such project. One of the dreams I have held on to for a few years is to bring a group of comrades with me to the Indonesian island of Bali to rest and reflect together and be inspired by the beauty of the natural features of the island, the people and their culture. For six days in July a group of eight women who do social work in a wide range of settings engaged in collaborative auto-ethnography research and outsider witnessing conversations in response to questions generated by the group: What are you retreating from and to in this experience and what difference will it make to your practice? We discovered a lot of common ground in our responses to these questions, but also points of departure that generated lively discussion and many ‘lightbulb moments’. Sharing the retreat experience created a community that has been sustained by a Whatsapp chat where we share ideas and resources with each other and support acts of resistance. Many group members are keen to repeat the experience and are joining me July 16-21, 2024 along with some new group members.

Another exciting practice development of SWW has been in social justice informed team development and leadership work in collaboration with long-time colleague and friend Melissa Brown. Inspired by the ideas of Vikki Reynolds, our work with various NGOs we have been inviting teams into exploring ‘walking the talk’ of organisational and professional ethics and mission statements alongside their collective personal ethics. We are interested in developing a social justice informed human resources framework and practices alongside like-minded organisations and continuing to facilitate staff development and team training days.

Always a joy and inspiration of SWW is being given the honour of contributing to the professional development of early career social work practitioners. I have several former students that I have been supporting in various roles since graduation that are now in team leadership roles or growing thriving independent practices.

I am grateful to the various organisations that have trusted me to maintain my supervision relationships with their wonderful workers including:

• Waminda South Coast Women’s Health and Wellbeing Aboriginal corporation
• Catholic Care, Illawarra Shoalhaven
• Office of Public Prosecutions, Witness Assistance Scheme
• Sydney Domestic Violence Court Advocacy Service
• Weave Youth and Community Services
• The Deli
• Rosie’s place

And the following NSW Health Local Health Districts:

Western Sydney, Illawarra Shoalhaven, Far West, Hunter New England, Nepean  Blue Mountains and Northern Sydney.

I finally would like to acknowledge those workers who have stuck with me over many years and many positions and have shared the stories of their work with me, striving to practice according to socially just ethics and  sustaining a healthy work and life balance and harmony.I also acknowledge the support of my own clinical supervisor, Dr. Matt Rankine from the University of Auckland who is helping me shape some ideas on de-colonising and de-psycholonising supervision approaches into possible doctoral research and has kept holding me accountable to my preferred ethical stance and intentions as a supervisor.

Looking forward to a productive 2024 in solidarity.

Deanne

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I had the honour of being invited to have this conversation with esteemed colleague Dr. Catherine Richardson, Director First Peoples Studies, School of Community and Public Affairs, Concordia University, Montreal. She is also the co-founder of the Centre for Response-based Practice and co-author of this inspiring article Richardson & Wade (2010) ‘ Islands of Safety: restoring dignity in violence-prevention work with Indigenous families’, First Peoples Child and Family Review, Vol.5,(1) that we include in out Advanced Social Work Practice subject readings at the University of Wollongong.

Cathy and I talk about how Response-based Practice ideas can provide an alternative to psych-colonised ways of doing supervision, grounded in the ethics of social justice, dignity and decolonising.

https://open.substack.com/pub/catherinerichardson/p/australian-social-work-supervisor?r=jnz5r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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As the retreat co-ordinator and group facilitator, I had the privilege of working alongside these passionate, committed women in creating a dynamic scaffold for the retreat experience. It was important to have a frame to provide a sense of predictability and safety necessary when being away from ‘home’ and stepping towards the unfamiliar and yet to be known. Equally important, however, is having enough flexibility to permit the ‘letting go’ necessary that is supported by the fluid nature of Balinese culture and relationship to time.

The program incorporated professional group reflections informed by Communities of Practice, Collaborative Auto-ethnography (CAE) research methodology and Narrative therapy outsider witnessing practice alongside Balinese cultural excursions (tour of local village, rice fields, temples, waterfalls) and relaxation activities such as yoga, massage, reiki and other spa experiences.

It was important to have meals together and fortunately from my many trips to Bali I have acquired useful knowledge about where to find high quality organic food and cafes and restaurants that make best use of the natural surroundings. At mealtimes participants shared stories of their work and other aspects of their lives as well as exchanging resources and ideas. I had learned through my experience of facilitating a similar retreat experience at home in the Snowy Valleys, NSW, Australia in April 2022 that participants find these informal experiences surprisingly enriching and inspiring.

On the strength of overwhelmingly positive early feedback about this retreat I am already planning to repeat the retreat experience in early July 2024. If you are interested in joining us and would like to discuss further please email me at : deannedale@gmail.com or call me on 0411150497.

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I arrived in Bali in the first week of January 2023 to rekindle a romance I have been having with this island since 2012. The pandemic interfered with my dreams of sharing the experience of this place with my colleagues in July 2020. Finding that in 2023 Bali is ‘business as usual’ as far as safe tourism goes, I am finally going to make this happen in July 2023 for a lucky group of 10 who will join me on retreat in Ubud. The connections I have made over the years with Balinese people and ex-pats are still intact and the experiences I had planned for the group are still available. These include rice field walks, cooking classes, dance performances and participation in ceremonies. On this trip I have also added an excellent waterfall walk in North Bali and a snorkelling trip in East Bali as excursion options.

The hotel I had carefully chosen for the group, Alam Indah, in beautiful Nyuh Kuning village has honoured my deposit and of the 7 rooms booked, 3 offer twin share for those with budget restrictions. Since I was there last, Nyuh Kuning has even more options for international cuisine and has several places that serve excellent espresso coffee for us Aussie coffee snobs. The main road in the village is vibrant and busy with locals and tourists, however Alam Indah offers an oasis of beauty and tranquility with excellent service from the same staff I met when I first started staying there over 10 years ago. Guests come back many times over the years to stay there and there’s a good reason for that!

In terms of the professional program, I had the opportunity to try out some of my ideas for facilitating a group process and provide a forum for an exchange of ideas and solidarity in the Snowy Valley in April 2022. What I learned from this experience and other team facilitations since will help shape this Bali program, which is largely about providing a safe scaffold for conversations about our work while at the same time ‘letting go’ of expectations and giving people a chance to breathe and have their own journeys.

I notice that airfares are pretty pricey at the moment and from the research I have done this will be the case with travel across the globe all year. A tip I have heard recently is to search for flights on a Tuesday as the airlines put out their discounted fares on Mondays. As a rule fares are cheaper mid week, so that may be something to consider if you’re thinking of joining us.

If you’d like to know more about this retreat 5th-11th July, 2023 please contact me at deannedale@gmail.com.The price to attend is $1,200.00 per person if not sharing a room.

BALI SSW RETREAT JUL 2023 V4

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The year kicked off collaborating  with the Wollongong West Street Centre team in the development of content for their new website. https://www.weststreet.org.au/home  This project afforded me the privilege of meeting with this experienced and passionate group of women to gather their wisdom about their ethical and historical foundations and ways they would like their services and community to be understood.

One of the highlights of the year was the inaugural Social Work Wise retreat in April at Tumbarumba in Ngarigo Country, also known as the Snowy Valleys. Thirteen intrepid souls took a big leap of faith with me in creating a pop-up community at Laurel Hill Forest Lodge. This facility is currently a conference and school camp centre, however has a fascinating back-story of being forestry commission accommodation and a minimum-security prison. We certainly played our part in re-authoring that history with conversations that reflected intentions of preserving our planet and pushing back against the carceral archipelago and oppressive welfare and health systems that we work within.

One of the key themes was re-generation following the recent sequence of natural disasters of fire, flood and pandemic. The Welcome to Country from Ngarigo elder John Casey included a yarn about the Ngarigo ways of looking after the land and its inhabitants in the face colonisation and other adversities. Two Health workers who were frontline in the local mental health response lead a session on locating and building on the power of community in the face of the catastrophic 2019 bushfires. Both of these sessions provided deep learnings and inspiration to re-connect with what matters most in our work.

This is the poetry of one of the participants that sums up the experience for me:

Re-treat to a benevolent space. Thoughtfeelings became words – spoken and written – story shared and held close. A compassionate space for rest – soulful, physical, spiritual. Time passes and wisdoms are shared. Bodies nourished and minds refreshed. Challenges are made to thought and feeling. Courage and care in equal measure create opportunities to re-imagine ourselves and our purpose.

Another highlight in September was my opening workshop at the South Coast Child Wellbeing Network’s 2022 conference entitled Resisting ‘burnout’ by holding values and mattering at the heart of our work with children and families. Drawing on the work of Vikki Reynolds and Bill Madsen, I invited the 200+ participants to explore their guiding values and intentions and share stories with each other about how these values and intentions show up in their work, make them come alive and hang on to hope. This process generated the foundations of a collective ethics network that will hopefully be sustained beyond the life of the conference. I never cease to be amazed that no matter the size of the group of community workers that share their values and how they walk the talk of them, common values of community, respect and collaboration always seem to show up.

These kind of collective ethics conversations have become central to my supervision work with groups and teams as they provide a solid foundation from which to lean into some of the more challenging conversations with colleagues about the impacts of the working within unjust systems and structures on our minds, bodies and our relationships. I have had the privilege of working with the following organisations throughout the year and I honour the way they have prioritised the cultural, emotional and spiritual safety of their workers to support these conversations:

• Waminda South Coast Women’s Health and Welfare Aboriginal Corporation
• Knowmore Legal Services- Special shout out to Aunty Glendra Stubbs and Melissa Brown for contributing their wisdom and skills and for their love and support of this project
• CatholicCare Wollongong school counselling teams
• Links House DFVSAS Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District

The individual workers who have supervision conversations with me are the beating heart of my practice and the hundreds of stories they have shared with me of pushback and ways of finding hope in the cracks of oppression keep me committed to the path I am on to provide support and solidarity to frontline social justice warriors. I love them and thank them all.

So looking forward to 2023 and what’s in store? I know I am carrying forth many of my commitments to organisations and workers. I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will finally get to live my dream of taking a group to Bali in July for a retreat experience. Alam Indah hotel in Nuh Kuning, Ubud is already booked for our adventure! Get in touch if you’re interested in joining us and I’ll send you details.

In Solidarity, Forever – Deanne

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In this podcast conversation with Yasmine McKee-Wright, I share my hard-earned wisdom from working in the inter-personal violence response fields of social work, some ideas about policy reform in child protection, ways of doing social justice and why high quality supervision is so important for longevity in this profession.

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I think this question is particularly worthy of consideration given current narratives about ‘burn out’ and the requirements of ‘self-care’ being so influential in human service organisations, commonly being incorporated into performance indicators and reviews. Over the years I have no doubt experienced harm and been subjected to trauma in workplaces caused by systemic and structural inequities and political oppression. I have had to have breaks from work to recover and regenerate from these experiences and have on occasion considered a change of career. I want to emphasise that it has not ever been direct work with clients that has lead me to those dark places.

So what has kept me hanging on to hope and resisting invitations to give up on a profession that has also provided me with deep professional satisfaction and inspiration? Here are my 5 secret longevity tips:

1) Develop a theoretical framework for practice underpinned by values that align closely with your personal values and ethical stance. For me this has been found within the traditions of Narrative therapy, where understandings about client problems are located in socio-political-cultural contexts, not in the mind or body of the individual.

2) Welcome change in the organisational context and be willing to embrace new career opportunities as they arise, including the responsibility of team leadership and co-ordination roles.

3) Seek out quality reflective supervision, even when not considered necessary by your employer and you have to self fund.

4) Build effective team and interagency relationships and an extensive professional network. Two-thirds of the jobs I have been successful in applying for have come through word of mouth recommendations rather than job seeker websites or recruitment agencies.

5) Find activities outside of work that ‘fill up your bucket’ of energy and joy. For me they have usually been as part of a community, for example joining choirs and musical ensembles and a yoga studio.

6) Don’t take yourself too seriously and have a good laugh!

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