In this episode of Gamechangers | Changemakers, we sit down with Dr Amy Bromley, a former Policy and Advocacy Lead at CAFFSA (Child and Family Focus SA). Amy tackles challenges like managing her introverted nature, navigating burnout, and the tensions of neoliberal funding, stressing that supporting the workforce sustains service delivery.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• How to amplify the voices of children, families, and practitioners in policy and legislative spaces
• Why leadership in social work is about rebalancing power and embracing co-design and co-governance
• How to manage introversion, energy, and self-care in high-pressure environments
• How to balance compliance demands with person-cantered leadership in a neoliberal funding context

About Amy

Dr Amy Bromley is a social worker with over a decade of experience supporting children, young people, and families. She has worked in statutory child protection and as a trauma therapist and is skilled in assessments of parenting capacity, attachment, and reflective functioning, using the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics to guide trauma-informed treatment planning. Her research advocates for systemic child protection reform through trauma-informed approaches that build practitioner resilience and improve services for families.

Learn more about Amy’s research here: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4527-7516 

Follow Amy on LinkedIn here: https://au.linkedin.com/in/amy-bromley-59230821 

Resources mentioned:

• Child and Family Focus SA amplifies the voices of children, young people and families involved in family support and child protection sectors. https://www.childandfamily-sa.org.au/
• Vikki Reynolds: A social work theorist advocating for collective care and addressing moral distress. Read more about Vikki’s A Supervision of Solidarity here: https://vikkireynolds.ca/writings/articles/ 
• CREATE Foundation: A youth advisory groups amplifying young voices in child protection. Learn more about CREATE here: https://create.org.au/
• Connecting Foster and Kinship Carers: A peak representative body advocating for carers in the child protection system. Learn more here: https://cfc-sa.org.au/ 
• The Reily Foundation: A not-for-profit organisation offering education and support to parents navigating the Child Protection System in South Australia. Learn more about the Foundation here: https://thereily.foundation/ 

Want to dive deeper? Here are some more resources to explore:

• Leadership and solidarity behaviour: Consensus in perception of employees within teams, by Karin Sanders & Birgit Schyns: https://doi.org/10.1108/00483480610682280
• From Self-Care to Collective Care Human Rights Defenders: Their Roots Faces and Stories, by Lisa Chamerlain: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3822690

Gamechangers | Changemakers is produced by UniSA and hosted by:

Associate Professor Michelle Jones

Cleo Riddy

If you want to get in touch, you can email: [email protected].