Emerging Minds Podcast

This episode is a conversation with Dr. Sonia Terhaag about the Building a New Life in Australia study and what it can tell us about the social and emotional wellbeing of children from refugee backgrounds.

What does the evolving nature of sexual and gender identities mean for working with families? Tune into this episode with Dr Priscilla Dunk-West to explore this question and learn about shifts you can make in your practice and organisation to become more inclusive of rainbow families.

Priscilla is a sociologist and social worker and has worked in academia in both Australia and England. She practiced social work firstly in child protection and later went on to specialise in sexual health counselling. Her research interests include identity, sexuality, intimate relationships and parenting. She has produced five books and her bestselling text 'How to be a Social Worker: A Critical Guide for Students' has been translated into Swedish and is now in its second edition.

In this episode you will learn:

The social and cultural context of sexuality (02:47)

Asking questions to understand family configuration rather than making assumptions (07:43)

What child-focused and parent-sensitive practice looks like (12:44)

What services can do to promote inclusivity with rainbow families (23:32)

In this episode, Dr Kathryn Hopps, a researcher and educator, reflects on ways in which families can support children through school transitions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Kathryn also draws on her expertise in primary and high-school transitions to provide practical advice for parents and carers.

Yay we’ve finally hit 100 podcast episodes!! Our hosts sit down for a chat with a family about what they’ve learnt while listening to the Emerging Minds podcast series, including their favourite episodes.

 

In this episode you will learn:

The key take aways when it comes to children’s mental health (0:54)

Tips for children when they are showing signs of anxiety (3:59)

Why children may not want to go to school after being in lockdown (11:23)

Ways to talk to children about routines (22:38)

Dr Andrew Leech is a GP based in Perth with an interest in child physical and mental health. Andrew has an advisory role within the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and Emerging Minds. He works as an educator for medical students and GP registrars and is the host and creator of the Kids Health Network podcast. In this episode, Andrew joins us for a conversation about childhood anxiety. He looks at the prevalence and presentations of child anxiety, ways of working sensitively with children and families, and the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children’s mental health.

Dr Angie Willcocks is a psychologist with a rich history of supporting mothers throughout the fertility, pregnancy and postnatal periods. Angie has developed a practice approach that focuses on a holistic understanding of all of the domains of a woman’s life – not only those that are connected to her baby.

In this episode, Angie describes her assessment and formulation strategies, which support mothers to consider every aspect of their lives, and the supports they need to maintain social and emotional wellbeing. She is interested in how mothers can look past society’s expectations, and make the lifestyle, relationship, and parenting choices that support their long-term mental health and wellbeing.

As part of her commitment to holistic understandings of women, Angie completed a PhD that examined the effects of diet on mothers’ mental health. Through this study, Angie found that diet significantly impacted the risk of depression and anxiety during pregnancy and postnatally. She discusses the possible implications for practice that have stemmed from her research, and how professionals can introduce discussions about lifestyle into their everyday engagements.

In this episode you will learn:

how to work collaboratively with mothers who are attempting to juggle parenting, work, relationships, and family members with mental health issues (02:45)

why it is important to provide space for a mother to come into a session with her infant, and the information that you can provide to a practitioner for later conversations (06:00)

how to begin a conversation with a mother about the holistic supports she requires to parent in her preferred ways (08:05)

the opportunities that can arise for women when they can stop judging themselves so harshly and start prioritising their own mental health, diet, exercise, and relationships (14:52)

the findings from Angie’s PhD study, which examined the effect of diet quality on mothers’ mental health (16:13)

the importance of women prioritising their own mental health for themselves, not just for their children or their partner (23:08)

In this second episode in our two-part series, clinical psychologist Penny Sih expands upon her description of the ‘best life’ approach: a way of engaging positively with children by discussing the relationships, routines and activities that sustain and energise them.

Penny Sih is a clinical psychologist who has spent 17 years working with children, teens and their families. During that time, Penny has developed engagement processes with children that focus on an understanding of their ‘best life’. In this episode, Penny shares how the ‘best life’ approach can help practitioners to better understand the ‘whole child’ and the problems that affect them; and enable children and parents to be active participants in the therapeutic process.

Dr Gill Murphy is a lecturer at the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the Western Sydney University. She has worked as a mental health nurse for twenty years, with experience in forensic, in-patient, community and emergency mental health services.  Her engagement with mental health research led her to found the Childhood Parental Death Ambassador Program.

As founder of the Childhood Parental Death Ambassador Program, Gill hopes to raise awareness around the needs and experiences of children when a parent is dying or has died, and to really make children visible within that process. As part of this, the program has delivered the Childhood Death Study, in which they interviewed adults who'd experienced the death of a parent during their childhood.

The study found that a lack of information provided to children during and after their parent’s death meant that they often thought about it in distressing or unhelpful ways. Additionally, it found that children were often not supported to celebrate or remember their parent’s legacy, causing them to lose touch with the supporting and nurturing rituals they had enjoyed with that parent.

In this episode of the Emerging Minds podcast, Gill discusses the need for practitioners to develop preparedness in their work with children who have lost a parent, and to be able to have conversations with them that are supportive and reconnecting.

In this episode you will learn:

Learning 1 (01:30) the key objectives of the Childhood Parental Death Ambassador Program.

Learning 2 (02:36) the key findings of the Childhood Death Study, and what these mean for any practitioner working with a child whose parent is dying or has died.

Learning 3 (04:17) the effects of secrecy or a lack of information on children’s ability to positively think about their deceased parent, and to stay connected with their legacy.

Learning 4 (09:53) what some services are doing to actively involve children in memory making when a parent is dying or has recently died.

Learning 5 (17:44) how practitioners can overcome anxiety to talk to children in ways that are supportive and attentive, and to ensure they are listening to what the child needs at the time.

Children and young people have historically been seen as passive and incapable of participating in the decisions that affect their lives. But as society has become more aware of child’s rights and the importance of inclusive citizenship, opportunities have arisen for children to become involved and considered in decision-making processes. 

Dr Ben Lohmeyer is a writer, researcher and lecturer in social policy at Flinders University. Much of his work has focused on children and young people, and popular discourse which has minimised or disqualified their potential contributions to social policy. In this episode of the Emerging Minds podcast, he discusses society’s ‘exclusionary’ attitudes towards children and young people, and looks at the ways in which practitioners, organisations and institutions can collaborate with children to make their views, preferences, hopes and concerns a central part of decision-making and problem-solving approaches. Ben is interested in the ways that children and young people have become increasingly involved in activism – around climate change, for example. He believes there are still many ways that children’s voices get minimised or disqualified by society but is deeply interested in the ways that children have persevered and been able to make protest, despite these obstacles. 

In his work as a social policy lecturer, Ben is committed to the ethic of inclusion. This moves away from the traditional, ‘banking’ notion of teaching, where wisdom and truth are owned by the teacher (or the most powerful), towards learning strategies that focus on the student’s own know-how, reflections and preferences. In this way, Ben hopes that these future social workers will themselves favor practices with children and young people that are based on principles of co-creation and privileging the child’s voice.  

In this episode you will learn:  

the dangers of excluding children’s voices from important decisions like social policy, overcoming problems, or creating safe and nurturing spaces (05:59)

how moving towards more participatory teaching and service intervention models can benefit children and enhance your engagements with them (10:49)

how the voices of people with lived experience are now being prioritised in research and co-design processes (21:18)

how to create spaces for children and young people to provide feedback; and the importance of adults being able to accept feedback that might be difficult to hear, or uncomfortable, or even unexpected (27:32)

the importance of understanding the different ways of communicating that children and young people have, and using their own reference points, rather than judging them from your own point of view (32:18).