Dr Catherine Camden Pratt is a Lecturer in Art Therapy in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Western Sydney University. Catherine’s clinically-led teaching is informed by her private art therapy practice in which she works mainly with women, children and their families, and also facilitates art therapy groups for Cancer Wellness Support. As well as this, she draws on many years of working with creative arts in education, and in personal and social change.

Catherine is a social ecologist informed by feminism, poststructuralism and critical psychology as ways to open up questions of power and voice.  She locates art therapy performatively as a practice of social justice, and is passionate about making art as a way of knowing and of sharing stories for which there are no words.

She has over 35 years of experience in creative arts-based teaching across a variety of contexts. Her teaching is student-centred and foregrounds critical creativity as a way to enable understandings about ideas of identities as shaped by society, culture and politics.

Her PhD shared the stories of women growing up in families with a mother with a mental illness. Arising from that research she wrote a popular book-   Out of the shadows: daughters growing up with a ‘mad’ mother (Finch, 2006).

She also co-edited the book- Social Ecology: Applying Ecological Understanding to our Lives and our Planet (Hawthorn Press 2011).

Within social work there is a small but growing band of art therapists. In preparation for a podcast conversation with social workers who also are art therapists , I thought it would be useful for me talk to Catherine first, as someone who trains art therapists.

The conversation that emerged was not quite what I had anticipated, as we explored the long and winding road that brought Catherine to her current role.

She honoured me with a very personal account of her journey. She also shared with me her beliefs about what the art therapist brings to the interrelation space – and  through our talk, I gained a better understanding of how art can tell a story in one place, and the powerful therapeutic effect that that might engender.

The notion of a universal basic income (UBI) is gaining increasingly favourable attention from both the the left and right of politics. Small and seemingly favourable trials have occurred in some countries. To find out more about UBI I spoke with Dr Ben Spies-Butcher who lectures in Economy and Society in the Department of Sociology at Macquarie University. Ben’s research focuses on the political economy of social policy.

In addition to his academic publications, Ben is a regular contributor to The Conversation. He is also a Research Associate at the Retirement Policy and Research Centre at the University of Auckland, and is a board member of Shelter NSW. He was also the 2017 Glenda Powell National Travelling Fellow for the Australian Association of Gerontology. Ben has written elsewhere that,

Unemployment benefits in Australia have gradually fallen behind the cost of living. The benefit, currently called the Newstart Allowance, is now one of the lowest in the OECD.

This makes it hard to effectively look for work, with devastating consequences for those relying on it. Even business economists have argued it needs to be raised.

Despite this, governments have moved in the opposite direction, shifting more people onto lower and highly conditional payments. This reflects the politics of payments that are very highly targeted.

Our conversation explores the idea of UBI and its relationship to work and social welfare.

Why are we all working so hard when automation was supposed to increase leisure time?

How has the state intervened in regulating both the paid and the unpaid economy?

Why has surveillance and compliance become such a central part of so many people’s work experience?

Why has pay day lending become so profitable? Why does household debt continue to rise?

If there was a UBI would we all just go to the beach and play computer games? Or would it reinvigorate democratic engagement and empower people to leave bad jobs?

How do we convince regional and rural Australians that punitive notions of ‘workfare’ are destructive to our social fabric?

I sought out Nick Smith for this conversation because of my interest in the future of work. Nick has recently co-authored a book entitled The Return of Work in Critical Theory

According to the blurb,

“The book presents a bold new account of the human significance of work and the human costs of contemporary forms of work organization. A collaboration among experts in philosophy, social theory, and clinical psychology, it brings together empirical research with incisive analysis of the political stakes of contemporary work. The Return of Work in Critical Theory begins by looking in detail at the ways in which work today fails to meet our expectations. It is a lucid diagnosis of the malaise and pathologies of contemporary work and proposes powerful remedies.”

Nick was previously the Director of Macquarie University’s Centre for Research in Social Inclusion from 2003 to 2007 and was Head of the Department of Philosophy from 2008 to 2012.

Nick’s main interest lies in debates in social philosophy concerned with the diagnosis of modern social pathologies. These investigations have also led him to an area of enquiry that could be called the hermeneutics of work: that is -the interpretation of work as a meaningful, self-formative activity.

Sound a bit dry?

Not in the least. Nick and I had a lively conversation that explored some vital questions.

Why is work more stressful, and increasingly robbed of meaning beyond an economic transaction. Why does there seem to be more bureaucracy and more bullying? Why is casualisation on the rise?

Will increasing automation be a blessing or a disaster?

Is a universal basic income a potentially good policy or another symptom of the malaise.

And of course we speculate on what work in a utopian world might look like.

There is growing  dissatisfaction with the care provided by state run mental heath services across the western world.

This forms part of the context  for my conversation with Niels Buus,  the Professor of Mental Health Nursing at the Sydney Nursing School based at St. Vincent’s Hospital  in Sydney, where he is the leader of The Centre for Family-Based Mental Health Care.

Niels has a broad research profile within mental health research, which includes suicide prevention, treatment adherence to antidepressants, clinical supervision of mental health nurses, as well as continuity of care and recovery-oriented health care delivery models.

He is a specialist in ethnographic research methods which can produce nuanced insights into healthcare practices and personal perspectives on health, illness and treatment.

Such approaches are particularly powerful in studies of user-participation in mental health research. As a Scandinavian registered nurse, he is professionally socialized into a strong humanist tradition, emphasizing compassion, openness and equality in healthcare.

In line with this, Niels is engaged in research in the “open dialogue” model of care, and how it could be implemented in Australian healthcare settings.

Niels and I  had an extensive  conversation covering his early training as a nurse, and the clash between custodial and psychotherapeutic models of care.

He also talked about the birth of open dialogue in a small town in Finland and what it looks like in practice.

We discussed how open dialogue sits alongside ‘Big Pharma’, the usual hierarchies of power and knowledge, and the traditional organisation of state services.

You can listen here or subscribe on iTunes or Sticher.

This episode is a conversation with Beni Mackenzie one of the founders of the Australian Social Work Changemakers Facebook page.

The page was born of conversations amongst some social workers attending the 2013 AASW National Symposium. The purpose of the page is to provide an online environment for students and qualified social workers in Australia to converse, debate, collaborate and organise.

One of the principle aims of the page is also to contribute to the positioning of social work as the peak social justice profession, and an as important and respected political voice. From small beginnings, it now has over 670 members.

Before Beni got into social work he fuelled his sense of injustice with alcohol, anger and drugs; paradoxically these experiences have held him in good stead in understanding many of the people he now works with.

During our conversation, Beni describes his first social work job in the small outback town of Charleville, working with people affected by drugs and alcohol, and his current work with the homeless in Southport.

We also cover the boundaries and ethics of working in personal and digital space; the contradictions of working in social media designed to make a profit; and the challenges of holding on to horizontal democratic practices in hierarchical organisations.

Shirley Ledger started her working life as an enrolled nurse in a small hospital in rural Queensland. Realising that nursing was not for her she became involved in youth work and domestic violence services. Years later ironically, she found herself back at the same rural hospital as a social work student on placement.

But the focus of our interview was on social work field education.

For some years Shirley has been a university field education co-ordinator. In this role, she was heavily involved in training, curriculum development, supervision liaison, and placement breakdown.

She became deeply interested in academic claims that field education ought to be the “signature pedagogy” of social work. This then has become the work of her PhD in progress.

Lee Shulman, the academic who popularised the term “signature pedagogy”, held that in professional training it comprises the central form of instruction that prepares students for future professional practice.

Consequently, Shirley’s research questions are,

* How does the current model of field education connect with the three dimensions (surface, implicit and deep structure) of signature pedagogy?

* How does the current model of field education connect with the temporal patterns of signature pedagogy (initial pedagogy, capstone apprenticeships and the sequenced and balanced portfolio)?

* How and where are social work programs incorporating the pedagogies of formation, engagement and uncertainty into curriculum design?

This led to a fascinating discussion on a range of issues, including the lack of evidence for the efficacy of current fieldwork practices, questions about the sustainability of current arrangements, and questions about the social justice implications of mandating 1000 hours of unpaid placement, plunging students into poverty and hardship.

And so we dreamt about how necessary changes might be achieved.

This episode is a conversation with Suzanne Doorakkers Sprague, a social worker with a large and thriving private practice in Geelong, where she employs 8 staff in several locations.

Her road to social work was a long one- coming via nursing and psychology. She has also been a counsellor at Alzheimers Australia, as well as working in rehabilitation and in social inclusion services for the elderly. Having lived in Geelong most of her adult life, Suzanne has deep roots in the town.

In a wide ranging interview Suzanne discusses the pleasures, challenges and dilemmas of setting up a practice and a business including; marketing, promotion, networking, setting fees, and handling social media. We discuss the anti business culture that exists in some sections of the social work profession, and how that is now changing.

In this episode I interview social worker TL  Tran. She works in the area of LGBTIQ health.

This is a very personal conversation to which TL brings a lot of humour and grace.

To escape persecution, TL’s family fled South Vietnam when she was 8 years old. TL speaks frankly about her refugee experiences, adapting to Australian culture,  and navigating the process of coming out as a bisexual woman in a traditional asian family.

We traverse her social work career  and  explore the values, knowledge and skills that she brings to her current work in LGBTIQ communities, with particular emphasis on narrative therapy.

Research tells us  that LGBTIQ people are at increased risk of a range of mental health issues including depression, anxiety disorders, self-harm, suicidality and suicide, much of which has been attributed to experiences or fears of discrimination and abuse.

We explore the devastating impact that this  has on mental health in this community, and how TL approaches the challenge of confronting discrimination in her awareness raising sessions.

TL  provides us with a good map on how we can help people move from tolerance to true inclusivesness.

 

Tony Tonkin is the founder of the Child Protection Party in South Australia.  the Party is about to go national. We talk about the party and its purpose- but this is also a deeply personal interview.

Tony came to social work later in life. It gave him a sense of purpose that had previously been missing. After volunteering at Lifeline, he began studying social work and developed a passion for  therapeutic work. Studying social work changed his values profoundly. He got a job counselling gamblers and began to understand the the interplay of social forces that created the preconditions for addiction, depression, anxiety, child abuse and domestic violence.

As he developed his knowledge and skills he began to work more creatively and wholistically with a range of NGO’s, including confronting men around violence and abusive behaviour.

In the course of his practice he became very concerned about punitive practices in child protection which he felt did not uphold human dignity, or work for the best interests of children. This led him to systemic advocacy work in an effort to correct these abuses.

Our conversation explores the causes of child abuse and the effectiveness of prevention policies. We tease out some important questions. How much power or influence does the state have in preventing child abuse? When things go wrong, what is the balance between blaming individual workers versus cultures and systems? How much responsibility do we have to call out unethical practices in institutions? Given the truckloads of investigations, reports, and commissions that point to remedies to improve child protection, why do we see so little change?

For more information on the Child Protection Party- check out their website.

Some of the deepest roots of social work in Australia are grounded in the traditions of the hospital almoner; a tradition personified by Bobbi Henao Urrego, who the manages the social work service in a large western Sydney hospital.

My conversation with Bobbi explores the role of hospital social work, particularly in the light of her experiences last year as a social work scholar at Mt Sinai Hospital in New York.

This  6 week scholarship is coordinated and managed by the Department of Social Work at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York City, and is offered to a handful of overseas social workers each year.

It is designed to enhance leadership, strengthen research skills, and build global social work relationships.

Mount Sinai is a mega hospital based in the Upper East Side of Manhattan between some of the wealthiest and poorest neighborhoods in the city.

The Social Work Department, established in 1906,  is one of the oldest in the United States. It takes pride in encouraging innovation and research. Currently 30 of its social workers are on the faculty of the Department of Preventive Medicine of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Bobbi along with other scholars was required to develop a research program to bring back to Australia. We touch on her research and ponder the future of social work in health care.

To obtain a obtain more information about the scholarship, please email Teorrah Kontos: [email protected]