Speaker 0 00:00:02 Welcome to the emerging minds podcast. This podcast is part of a series called listening to the stories of healing within the series. You will hear stories from community and the very diverse experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and how these narratives have shaped the amazing work that is happening in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia here at emerging minds, we like to call it the sacred garden, the stories and experiences that non Aboriginal people don't always get to see or hear whilst these stories include sadness and hurts and sometimes can feel uncomfortable to listen to it is through listening to these narratives that you will get a glimpse of the deep wisdom, knowledge and healing practices of families and communities, and understand why our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are part of the oldest continuing culture in the world. Welcome everyone. This is Donna Shen an Aboriginal cultural consultant working with emerging minds. Today, we are speaking with <inaudible> bay and auntie Coleen Lovegrove on their work with corner windmill UNT also known as KWY. Auntie Coleen is a proud not, and Diddy woman recently retired after 15 years in the field of domestic violence. Her recent role has been a caseworker at KWY. Deanna is an accredited mental health social worker and former operations manager at KWY.
Speaker 1 00:01:34 Thank you so much art and Deanna, for speaking to me today, before we get into the detail of understanding more about what your work and how you work with children. I wondered if each of you could talk a little bit more about you and the work you've done in Aboriginal, in domestic and family violence. And it, Colleen, I wondered if you could start first
Speaker 2 00:01:58 Or I'm clean. And I belong to the Northern Gerry people. Um, I've worked in the domestic and family violence, six D sector for many years. Um, I have extensive experience in working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait island women. I worked for Nika Kotanko pepper, panga, the Aboriginal secured site for Aboriginal women and children, also in the generic sector for domestic violence. I've been working with KWY for close to four years now in the Northern hub team for families experienced domestic and family violence.
Speaker 1 00:02:33 Thanks so much art. You've got a wealth of experience. We're so looking forward to hearing more from you today, Deanna. So now can you tell us a bit about you, you and your experience in working in the Aboriginal in domestic family violence space? Thank
Speaker 3 00:02:47 You, Donna. My name is Deanna I'm from Columbia, so I completed my master's in social work in 2017 at definitely this university. I have work in early childhood disability and social services sector for over 10 years. This included providing clinical expertise for working with children, young people and adults and their families with multiple mental health issues, such as psychosis, depression, and anxiety, mood disorders, suicidal issues, and risk of harm to others. Okay. The only way I worked providing the going to therapeutic unconference case management support to children and young people, he have social emotional wellbeing. Difficulties is including, um, Shannon who has been as opposed to army and domestic violence, trauma and abuse, removal, funding, family, and substance misuse, unresolved grief and loss, familiar down social discrimination and racism.
Speaker 1 00:03:51 So I wonder now if we can have a chat about the KWY model or family work and it, Colleen, I wonder if you could start just by giving us a bit of a rundown of how that model looks, how does it operate here? Well, kind of
Speaker 2 00:04:06 You are through it's holistic family support, hubs, monitors, the safety of women and children, the hub model aims to reduce family violence within the family, prevent children from entering out of home care, help family to make sustainable change, to reduce violence and increased safety, provide coordinated responses to address the complex needs of families, provide a flexible approach to meet the needs of individual families and promotes the safety of all family members.
Speaker 1 00:04:41 Um, can you talk a bit more about what the individual workers do in this model?
Speaker 2 00:04:47 I think the key for the success with KWY with our families is that each member is supported within the hub model, children, men, and women within the family unit have their own worker. It's not a one worker per family or one worker for an individual it's, we're actually working in holistic way, which I find is very successful. And, um, when we receive a referral as a team, we make arrangements to do initial home, visit with a family, to introduce ourselves at the initial visit, we give an explanation of the KW, why service and how we work as a team. This is then when the consent forms are normally signed, uh, before leaving, we leave a KWA information pamphlet with them and inform them of our next time visit or outreach appointment. Whichever the client prefers on the morning of every home visit, we will contact the client to confirm the visit before leaving.
Speaker 2 00:05:50 KWR doesn't have a cutoff point as well. We will continue working with the family until they feel they no longer need a service. Uh, it's up to the clients, how long we support them. And I find that's really good. A lot of services do have a cut off point for many reasons. And as a worker, I'm always respectful and patient. Uh, I normally don't like writing notes while I'm with a client. Sometimes I need to dot point a couple of things as a reminder, but I'll always ask permission first and I'll usually make a joke of it, you know, old age. And they usually have a bit of a giggle and, and give you permission. Um, KWY support with is engaged with clients twice a week, wherever they feel more comfortable, whether that be in their homes or at a park cafe, clients engage better in their safe space, rather than in a clinical setting.
Speaker 2 00:06:46 We have three workers per family, a men's worker, women's worker, and a youth worker while I'm supporting the woman. Our men's worker simultaneously works with a perpetrator in a separate space for confidentiality reasons. And so that the woman can open up more to us that no one else is around, uh, here. Um, there's no consequences after we leave that sort of thing. Our youth worker would normally have this, the therapy sessions within the children's school in confidential space. The ability to share information between workers within each hub allows a real time instant response. Our aim is to improve the safety of women and children by providing specialized knowledge and culturally appropriate services to break the cycle of domestic violence and stem the flow of Aboriginal children into the child protection system across
Speaker 1 00:07:42 Australia. And I think one of the things that was really important about what you said is that there are different workers for different members of the family, and there's the staff work together with that family around that family. You picked up on the role of the youth worker. And I know that also includes working with younger children as well. Deanna, I wondered if you could talk more about the role of the worker that works with the child in this context.
Speaker 3 00:08:09 I think it's very important to highlight that before working with children is very important to getting as much information about the child before engaging with the child or the young person. This can be true. The family, if appropriate for their family cruises school or the services involved DCP or mental health services, this information, we normally do it through the women's worker and their means worker through our multidisciplinary team meeting. Sometimes we actually do come to the meetings with mum, the initial meetings with mom and dad and or the carers where we actually got it information about what was happening, happening with the child, the young person through a series of ma into. So we used some mapping tools, early stages just to focus on what is the risk and protective factors around the child. Once we identified those threes and why we identified the protective factors, we can start to work with the child or the young person, or we do want to get as much information from the young person that the child before we actually continued to surface, there are a number of things that are very important to think about it before commencing any support.
Speaker 3 00:09:22 So one of the things is the environment, how's it going to look like? So obviously we're working with children under 12. We normally provide through a school again because it's a safe place. We don't provide a therapeutic support at home because I, with this family around and things like that. So we normally provide one-on-one support at school, if he's on the 12. And then after that for children, all the children, we picked them up at school or high school. And then we normally ask them, where is their safe place? They normally would like to go to have that therapeutic support. This can be in a community center. Sometimes it can be a school. I have found a lot of young people. They don't want other people see them receiving that support at school. So some of them actually ask you to take them to the beach, to have that competition, to talk about what's going on at home, in their lives.
Speaker 3 00:10:12 Another thing that is very important is the parents' engagement. That is actually really important when working with children or young people, if a day is not parent engagement, obviously there won't be engaging. Sometimes I just come with a women's worker, I'll wait outside when the women's work is with a mum and you can see the young people and even children, they started to see you. They come in every week, you stay outside, you just say hello, but you always there. And then as the time passed, they started to see, okay, I actually trust her because my trust that women's worker. So if the women's work is the mess worker providing support to my parents, I might want to know what's going on. I want to be a part of this as well. Um, with the young people there, sometimes he has back in me after six months, I'm waiting for that is building that trust, but they're not trusting young people and children because for them, even if they are in the middle of the family, that domestic violence for them safe place is home.
Speaker 3 00:11:10 They're scared that I'm coming there too from a different mom and dad. Um, so I guess that that is something that we, uh, as a practitioner do take into account when building rapport with a kid that is a lot of things that are, I think I have learned through the years, working with Aboriginal people, cultural supervision, um, cultural consultants. There is some things that are always mindful when I'm working with young people and children in those ones are, I'm very aware of the language and my behavior, obviously in a way that I'm not causing more shame than I'm not ripped from my case in the child or the young person. I'm very genuine. I try to be as genuine as I, within mum. We did that. For example, when I'm in the initial stages, we gain information through some mapping tools with the mom and the dad.
Speaker 3 00:12:01 So January, and I really want to lay the nut and show them, I want to know about the child. And I also have learned to give time for science as well. That's I think is something really important because as well as it works with animals is exactly the same with children. Sometimes they just don't like to talk. That's okay. As well. Another thing that I think is very important is a knowledging. That sharing information is a two way process. So I'll always share a little bit about myself and my journey, like you said, I'm from Columbia, but I also have a journey. So I'm an indigenous woman from Columbia as well. Let's chat a little bit about that and a cha a little bit of all my traditions. And even though there might be some similarities and some, no, but this is who I am. I think that is really powerful when you work with children and young people. Then again, as I said, as a non-aboriginal worker, I think I do take into account the knowledge that I received from Aboriginal colleagues, um, um, my cultural supervision. So I attend them cultural supervision. And if, for example, I'm working with a young person on a child that, um, is from the lens. Some make sure that I have a cultural consultants from the lands to give me that information, Connie Coleen.
Speaker 1 00:13:12 Is there anything that you want to add on?
Speaker 2 00:13:14 Usually the child worker, the men's work and the women's worker will talk together? Uh, well, the children aren't right. There's things going wrong at school what's happened? Is it, has anything happened at home with the parents? I might say, well, she's actually totally everything's schooled. And the men's Mo worker might say, well, he stated this has happened and this has happened. So each one of them are indicators to us, whether something's flowing right, or whether something's going wrong and what we can investigate that a bit more. Usually children are a great indicator of that around their behaviors.
Speaker 1 00:13:50 And I, you know, as you're talking, what I can, I'm getting that sense that you, as workers have to move with the ebb and flow of the family you're working with and the individuals you're working with, and you have to do it in a way where they can continue to trust you at every step of the way. It seems like a really challenging type of work to do, but also much more holistic.
Speaker 2 00:14:16 I think deep listening is a key and, and leaving space for silence sometimes too. This gives the clients reassurance, you are taking in their story, uh, and being respectful. I do, uh, a women's checking, uh, at every home visit. And that's just a form of how they're feeling, uh, how they feel about their culture, how they're feeling about their living arrangements. That it's only a few questions, but it gives us a whole insight into what's going on with the client each week. And this document will indicate to if I need to investigate and discuss a concern, if the score was very low in that we also do our work is check out with them. And this is to let us know whether we are meeting the needs of the client. And if I don't get 10, 10, 10, I'm going to ask, where does she think I'm going wrong?
Speaker 2 00:15:11 What more can I help her with? This gives me an indication I need to be working on a certain areas. So it's good for the worker to know these things. I will do a women's safety analysis as well, and that will be done, uh, every four to six weeks, uh, unless circumstances change, of course. And then, then I will do it sooner. I do a case plan with every client and I empower the client to take a lead in their own care process to make sustainable change goals, moving forward for their future. I will do a safety plan with the client for their current situation. Also, if a situation changes and a client needs to leave in the case where there is a pet, I will also do a safety plan for the pet. And the reason I have a safety plan for the pet is many women won't escape, a volatile situation and leave a pet behind.
Speaker 2 00:16:04 I also give my clients all after hours emergency numbers in case something happens, whereas our worker's not around or can't be contacted during the day. I'm not a well-being practitioner, but I always make sure every client has literature on grief and loss, anxiety, and panic attacks to help them when a practitioner isn't with them. And there's certain exercises on that literature for them to do, to bring themselves out of anxiety and panic attacks. And look, every practitioner works differently. Some of the other activities I will do is a junior gram. I'll do an activity with a client called the tree of life, which is an extension of the junior grant. I'll also do a negative positive tree, which is a bit of an art form, same as the tree of life. And this helps with your case plan. I have made up a document myself, which I call the relationship document, which I leave with the clients to fill out in their own time, over a couple of weeks, as it has several pages. This document is a memory jogger of the good times and the good things in their relationship. This jogs their memories back to good times and good things in their relationship.
Speaker 1 00:17:18 And I, you know, as you're talking, I'm getting that sense that you, as workers have to move with the ebb and flow of the family you're working with and the individuals you're working with, and you have to do it in a way where they can continue to trust you at every step of the way. It seems like a really challenging type of work to do really, but also much more holistic
Speaker 2 00:17:44 And working with the whole, yeah, the longer you work with them, the more and more they, you, uh, around their confidentiality. They know that things are getting corrected without us revealing that they actually informed us of that. So we're not actually, um, letting the other member of the family know that this had been revealed to us. We do it in a way where we can have that therapeutic session around that issue without them knowing that it was actually revealed. And it doesn't break their confidence in you. If you know what I mean,
Speaker 1 00:18:17 One of the, the issues that we understand can happen at different times is that you will see violence in families where children can be involved in that. Deanna, I just wondered if you could talk a bit more about how you work with that in that class context.
Speaker 3 00:18:33 So yeah, I have worked with children who has, um, used violence, a, um, siblings. So the model is very flexible. It's in this specific cases, we try to provide one-on-one support in one week. And then the second week we tried to provide greater support. So we have a series of group programs that we run for the young people. And one of them is the respect sister, girls. For example, if you see to assist us, I mean, they're finding each other. So we provide that group support for them along with, they want to work that up here to support.
Speaker 1 00:19:07 That's great. So the aim of this is trying to work with the needs of the individual, but also how people come together and ensuring that you build a positive or work towards a positive direction. So
Speaker 3 00:19:18 Have you give to in a group work with children, you can actually start to see the interactions between each other and you can actually address them in that moment. So we grade the opportunity to talk about safety is a real opportunity to talk about and build the emotional literacy. Okay. As
Speaker 1 00:19:35 I listened to both of you, you are really talking about how, as a team, you work with a system of people, you've got the family system. And in that system, you have individuals that you work with. So there's quite a lot of complexity in the work that you do across the board. What, in your point of view, do you feel are some of the greatest challenges in doing this kind of work?
Speaker 2 00:20:00 Uh, well there's many challenges. Uh, worker will come across in a vast array of challenges. Look, it could be substance abuse, it could be children in care. It could be excessive gambling. It could be financial. If I'm unable to help clients in certain areas, I'll actually refer on to a specialist that specializes in that area to help the clients. Normally, when we refer on to somebody else, they'll always report back to us how that's going so we can keep encouraging the client. But yeah, if there's anything we try and deal with all issues, but if there's a particular area that we're not succeeding in, or we can't help as much as we'd liked to we'll then refer on to someone who specializes in that
Speaker 1 00:20:46 Area and have it UDN. Are there things that you've experienced as real challenges in that work? Any kind of difficulties things that you've faced? Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:20:55 Um, so I think one of the challenges that when working with children or young people is the parenting, the parents' engagement. Um, so if the parents are not engaging, obviously that will fracture that relationship in the sense that we won't be able to engage with their children and our young people.
Speaker 1 00:21:12 I also wondered from, you know, your point of view, um, you know, as an Aboriginal woman, what needs to be in a service for it to be safe for our people. I wondered on your thoughts about that
Speaker 2 00:21:21 Locatable wise and all Aboriginal workers. We have white workers, we have workers from different countries here. They all go through the KW Y training. Um, and there's several training sessions, uh, for
Speaker 1 00:21:35 All. Thanks. So in Deanna, as a, as a Colombian woman, use indigenous working with Aboriginal tribes to honor people, what have you learned in terms of what's important about creating, you know, competent spaces, cultural competence, spaces, culturally appropriate spaces and services.
Speaker 3 00:21:52 I think it's very important as a practitioner to be on ongoing, trying to Enron, how you know protocols about, um, as well understanding own values and their beliefs. They do guide our practice because this is how we are. So it's very important as a practitioner to recognize our own values and beliefs, and they don't influence the way we work with a client is very important too. I think to reduce any cultural misunderstanding are really, really use cultural consultants. This is really, really important, I guess, attending, uh, only cultural supervision is also very important. And when you working with, for example, in my case, I working with females and males, um, boys and girls, I guess that is very important to have those different views because there is agenda differences in there. So we'll have one month, for example, the controller consultant with a female and then will have, uh, an auntie and then I will be with an uncle on another, in another month. So I guess that cultural competence is something that you always, you are building because I put it in a community is very rich. You might be working with someone I'm from the Ghana line that is completely different from working with a non-injury person. So I guess that you didn't want information that you can get. The more you can assume you can have shown why when you're working with a client, I'll because they're Aboriginal there, you're working. Oh yeah. I know the protocols that protocols are completely different and you need to acknowledge that
Speaker 2 00:23:26 Just to add to that, you know, for healing and change to occur, there needs to be reconnection to our culture, community traditions, reconstructed three yarning, song, dance, art, weaving fishing, and sometimes just spending time on country. Uh, it helps re vigorous our culture, our ways this helps us connect to self, to family, to community. And there are, uh, we're very fortunate with Katie rewind that we have an AOD practitioner. We have a well-being practitioner and we have a cultural consultant. We have a cultural person who we have some clients that are disconnected from the Aboriginality. They feel disconnected. You know, they may have been removed as a child and they're over 80. Now, they're back out there on their own. They don't feel like they belong to the Western world and they know they're Aboriginal, but they don't feel connected. They're feeling totally disconnected. They don't know anything about their culture, their language.
Speaker 2 00:24:34 Sometimes they don't know a lot about their own family. So we do have one particular case at this particular stage, which this has happened to, uh, we've brought in someone who's very culturally appropriate uncle McGee, who has, uh, sessions with this person once a week and is informing them of their culture, their history dance weaving. I know that, uh, we've given her books on her traditional weaving and art, and we do storytelling with her and she almost jumps in our arms when she says this at the front of her house, because she's so thirsty for her own culture and for connection. And that's really, really important with this particular family where we've gone as far as we can with our casework, with this person, the family is on a good road now and moving forward, but we're keeping up the cultural support for her because there's a lot more of that that needs to make this person feel whole again and connected. Um, so, you know, we're very fortunate that we have different practitioners within the same organization that can really come together and help people and families or individuals and families that are supported by KW boy. Great. Thanks.
Speaker 3 00:25:58 Going back to the cultural competence for non Aboriginal practitioners, it's something that I really think is really important. And I have learned over the years is to have someone to vouch for you in the community as well. So you can say that you have woken up on a generalization, but it's also good to say with who and who in the community actually botched your practice. A uncle scientist actually converge for you. And the other thing is as well to make sure that you use Kartra profits mapping tools or assessments when you're working with your client. Um, this is very, very important because we want to, obviously a lot of mainstream, um, might be taught op-eds to bias and as an non-aboriginal practitioner, I always make sure that I use cultural appropriate tools as well.
Speaker 1 00:26:44 So I wondered now, if both of you could share some of the successes that you feel you have had in working in this with families in this space and what's made them most successful.
Speaker 2 00:26:57 You know, I feel the have model of being holistic model within the family helps significantly change for the success of every family. I believe because each person has an individual worker and we're all working together. And because workers are debriefing all the time, we're all working towards that one goal for the success of this family. But really, I believe that clients have their own successes, you know, if they really want to make change and we'll take on board the tools you're giving them too. And then we'll take on the information, the guidance, the direction that you give them, and they will succeed. We've had some significant successes within KWY.
Speaker 1 00:27:42 Thanks so much, Deanna. Yeah. If you've got any final words to say in regards to successes, things that you felt have been, you know, success for you or success for children and families, we also
Speaker 3 00:27:53 Have yen or young people there. I guess that what Andy said, if the partner is engaged and they're finding sexually engaged with the program, that is it as well, a city is it would be affecting sexually for the children as well, because we can provide that therapeutic support because the children will gauge as well. So, um, I have heard young people with, uh, drugs, substance abuse use who had not Dieter here, uh, or then of the program and when they were close, he was going to be closed. They completely stopped engage. Um, so I think very important. And I think that he works with young people and they still look into why they're interested in their goals and making sure that they do follow true, making showed that supporting them so they can follow. So if a young person asks you for, um, support, always, always be open to offer it. And if a young person said to me, I'm not ready now, that's okay. We will, we talk about it or we'll address that have a goal that you want to achieve. He's
Speaker 1 00:28:55 So much Deanna, 90 Colleen. It was an absolute delight hearing about your work. And it's always wonderful to be with both of you. So thank you so much and you're most welcome.
Speaker 3 00:29:04 Thank you for inviting us.
Speaker 0 00:29:08 Thank you for joining us in our podcast series, listening to stories of healing, visit our
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