Supervision

For over 20 years I have provided clinical supervision to social workers, students of social work, psychologists and a range of allied health professionals responding to forms of interpersonal violence in my senior roles in NSW government departments, universities, NGOs and in independent practice. I have provided supervision to social workers and students in other practice settings including general hospital casework, community and mental health and NGO family support services. I am also experienced in the provision of supervision and mentoring support to new managers and emerging leaders in social work and allied health professions.

While most of these supervision relationships have been in the Sydney metropolitan area, I have also been able to sustain collaborative supervision relationships with workers in regional areas and interstate via phone and other platforms like Skype, as outlined in these testimonials. My hope is to be able to use these platforms to offer supervision to international colleagues as well.

I think of supervision as a safe space where workers/students can critically reflect on their thinking and practice and receive support and encouragement to develop their preferred professional identities.

My supervision practice is guided by the Australian Association of Social Worker’s Code of Ethics that sets out 3 basic practice responsibilities:

  • Respect for each person’s inherent dignity and worth and recognition of their human rights. This means upholding duty of care and doing no harm to others.
  • Recognition of Social Justice as a core societal and professional obligation to recognise and address structural inequality and inequities for marginalised and oppressed groups and advocate for structural, political and cultural change necessary to create a more ‘just’ society.
  • Enacting Professional Integrity that includes and awareness of power relations in professional relationships and a demonstrated commitment to transparent, accountable practice. I am also deeply committed to my out professional development and as such regard it as necessary to receive my own Supervision and participate in on-going training and education.

I begin my contribution to the supervision relationship by being transparent about the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings and approaches of my work and invite supervisees to outline the ideas that shape their own practice. I am also interested in inviting workers/ students to critically reflect on the values and assumptions that shape their work, drawing on an Intersectionality framework to facilitate the exploration of how one’s identity is located within experiences and understandings of gender, race, class, age and so on.

This determines how one is positioned in culture and society in terms of privilege, entitlements, access to resources and inclusions as well as exclusions, limitations, oppressions and other forms of subjugation. I believe that this is an ethical obligation for all professionals who aspire to be informed by social justice in their work with clients who may identify as belonging to groups who experience the intersection of marginalisation, oppression and other forms of subjugation in their lives.

Education

I am currently teaching Social Work undergraduate and masters qualifier students at the University of Wollongong subjects including Advanced Social Work Practice,Perspectives on diversity, and Critical Social Work practice. I have previously taught a range of subjects at Western Sydney University and the Australian College of Applied Professions (ACAP)

I have experience in designing and developing training and education sessions and packages on a range of therapeutic modalities in working with children and families including narrative therapy, response-based practice, systemic family therapy, strengths-based and trauma-informed approaches. I have also developed specialist courses in child protection, sexual assault, domestic violence and child neglect from identification and recognition to the latest evidence-based practice treatment models.

I am well known in my field for my ability to engage audiences and as being creative and even entertaining my performances as an educator and conference presenter (I have been known to include singing on occasion). See my list of local and international conference presentations HERE.

I foster a safe learning environment through my collaborative, consultative and flexible approach and aspire to maintain a de-centred yet influential position in my teaching roles. I welcome requests from professionals, service managers and organisations to develop and deliver training sessions and packages in my areas of specialist expertise and interest.

Our education initiatives have been in creating tailor-made staff development days that include:

One day training for Catholic Care school counsellors on ‘Responses to disclosures of sexual assault by children and young people in the school context’

One day webinar for Witness Assistance Service, Office of the Director of Public prosecutions (ODPP) on ‘Working with matters involving Intra-familal sexual abuse(IFSA)’

Half day webinar for the University of Wollongong Student Success team ‘Strengths-based ideas and practices: a Critical exploration’

Consultation

I am interested in providing one-off or short term serial consultations to social workers, allied health professional, teams and services in the following areas of my specialist knowledge and skills:

Interpersonal Violence

  • Child Protection – physical abuse and neglect, sexual assault (including sibling abuse), emotional abuse and neglect, medical neglect
  • Sexual Assault – recent assault of young people and adults and crisis intervention, past assault (including childhood), elder abuse, institutional abuse, sibling abuse and incest, children’s exposure to pornography.
  • Domestic violence – systemic crisis and legal responses, past and present therapeutic issues and responses, intersection with child protection.
  • Workplace and organisational abuse -bullying and harassment, systemic abuse and parallel process, vicarious trauma.
  • Child Protection – physical abuse and neglect, sexual assault (including sibling abuse), emotional abuse and neglect, medical neglect
  • Sexual Assault – recent assault of young people and adults and crisis intervention, past assault (including childhood), elder abuse, institutional abuse, sibling abuse and incest, children’s exposure to pornography.
  • Domestic violence – systemic crisis and legal responses, past and present therapeutic issues and responses, intersection with child protection.
  • Workplace and organisational abuse -bullying and harassment, systemic abuse and parallel process, vicarious trauma.

Approaches to Therapy

  • Intersectionality
  • Narrative practices – Shared Counselling, Outsider Witnessing
  • Response-based Practice
  • Critical Reflection
  • Anti-oppressive practice
  • Systemic Family Therapy
  • Strengths-based practice

Team Development & Leadership Support

A Social-Justice and Restorative Practice informed approach to wellbeing, team development and workplace harm with agencies responding to complex social problems including interpersonal violence services, justice agencies and the child protection sector.

Work in the human service sector is social, relational and political. The unequal way power and justice are arranged have differential impacts on the individuals, families and communities we serve. In most contexts, the most marginalised people are likely to have the poorest outcomes without significant focus and resources to address the complex systems of oppression that impact their lives. The greatest resource we have in this relational work is our ourselves and each other. Our roles as advocates, lawyers, caseworkers, counsellors, peer workers, health workers and carers can not only transform the lives of others but also to transform our own lives. Yet this work also can impact us in ways that diminish our wellbeing and ultimately cause harm. Constant exposure to violence, injustice, racism, identity denial and inequality can have toxic effects on us and on our teams. Common experiences in human service teams include chronic stress and reactivity at one end of the spectrum or cynicism and disconnection at the other. What are referred to as ‘personality clashes’, chronic under or over performance, unclear or unsafe professional boundaries and a sense of persecution or victimisation are all expressions of distress within our workplaces. Managers often feel like they are “putting out spot fires” which can feel tiring and relentless with the only tools at their disposal individual supervision, training that is vaguely related to the issue or the long process of performance management.

Key elements of our social justice and restorative practice informed approach are;

  • The belief that our individual experiences and responses to the work (‘our stories’), when shared, can expand and transform possibilities for unique organisational care approaches.
  • Extending trauma informed care frameworks to include the collective impacts of our work therefore exploring collective care responses.
  • Addressing diversity and inclusion through representation, recognition, and participation of all voices in the organisation
  • Work with leaders to expand and transform possibilities for sustainable, committed responses to workplace harm.

What we offer

  • Consultation and support of the leadership team to explore the broader context of the organization and what a collective care leadership response could look like
  • Individual sessions with staff to hear their experiences, what matters to them, ideas and hopes for the workplace.
  • Bringing together of the individual staff experiences and values into a co created statement of commitment.
  • Workshops that respond to the team’s collective concerns and shared values.
  • Identification of key actions to sustain collective care initiatives.