I Learned….

When I returned from Australia, after spending a month studying in Melbourne and a week romping around Cairns and Sydney, I found it difficult to answer simple questions asked by family and friends. You see, talking about all the “vacation-like” aspects of the trip was easy. Seeing all the beautiful national parks, driving down Great Ocean Road, and scuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef were all fluffy things that are easy to talk about. However, when asked about my time in Melbourne, I struggled just a bit. It was actually quite difficult because, even though we had a similar pattern each day of visiting agencies, interacting with staff, and interrogating them with our mounds of questions, each visit gave me new things to think about. Despite studying under the umbrella of social work, there was so much variety in each visit, and I ended every day with my head full of copious amounts of information.

Overall, I was able to connect each visit to the soul factor of public health care. Australia has so much to offer in regards to public health. Because they have a free public health care system, the Australian citizens have greater opportunity for primary or preventative health care, as opposed to secondary or tertiary care. This means they have greater access to stopping the problem before it becomes a dire situation. I found this most astonishing and helpful as it refers to mental health. It seemed as we went to all of our agencies, they had a huge focus on making sure their “clients” had access to those free public mental health services. Whether it be family therapies, grief and bereavement, or even therapeutic playgroups, mental health care was overwhelmingly recognized across the board. This was exciting to see because, not only can I personally relate to this through experiences with my family but also, I can relate in a professional setting with the children I work with and their families.

Diversity…

This focus on mental health is especially helpful for Australia’s large diverse demographic. Similar to the United States, Australia has a dark past with the first peoples on their land. Aboriginal families were torn apart when first settlers came in and colonized the area. This, like many other discriminated minority groups, created a cycle of drug abuse and mental health issues through generations. Hence, the importance of free public health services for these groups. It can be incredibly difficult for discriminated groups, like the Aboriginal people, to find time, money, and resources to fix ongoing cycles like these. Almost all of the agencies, minus one, had specific services for Aboriginal children and families. And all agencies had free services relating to mental health.

The one agency that did not have specific services for Aboriginal families, had specific services for immigrants instead. Immigrants, for the majority, represent Australia’s population because, similar to America, it was also colonized. Culture identity, whether a person is new to Australia or from later generations of immigration, is a huge part of creating a healthy self-image and a strong community. Because of the free social services, Australian agencies are able to provide support for these families and communities, which again includes mental health. I don’t think these agencies could of stressed enough the importance of mental health services. I personally thought this was something our culture could investigate and maybe even learn from.

As It Relates to My Profession…

Before I began this month long adventure in Melbourne with Ohio States Social Work department, I had very little experience with social workers. From my past experiences in public schools, I had only ever experienced social work through child protective services. Therefore, I had a very narrow idea of not only what social workers did but also, what their ultimate goals were in this field. To be honest, I came to this trip to learn more about social work so that I could “work the system” and be an advocate for my students. I had no idea that the few situations that I saw were rare and stereotypical.

By visiting all the amazing agencies and sharing experiences through open dialogue with my peers, I have come to gather that social workers are actually not meant to be “kidnappers”. The ultimate goal, in the realm of child protective services, is to make sure that the child is in a safe environment and to give services to help either keep the child with their biological family or reunite them as soon as possible.

Over all, the places we visited had a lot of resources for the parents who can be struggling from a range of things. When seeing this over and over again at each agency, it clicked for me. I have always been a child first advocate because I work with them daily, and I see the effects of a poor home environment. However, it never occurred to me that in order to fix the home environment, the family needs supports and services as a whole. Though now that seems so obvious, it is difficult to step back and see parents as victims of things involving mental health, drug abuse, etc. when you are working with their effected children.

I have learned now to use an objective lens when looking at fragile social situations. I think this can be further applied when I have a student in need of protective services. As their teacher I can work with the parents, foster caregivers, etc. with a more open heart and mind.

Final Summary…

With these agency visits, I was able to learn so much about the social service system as it pertains to children and young people. This is a system that works on keeping children and young people mentally well. It helps keep environments safe and beneficial to the child along side striving to keep families together. This system uses a wide range of services like; therapies, trauma prevention, foster care, phone apps, playgroups, financial aid, crisis aid, etc. to help families get through hard times and make it out on the other end with healthy meaningful relationships. The system, like many others, is ever changing and always growing. As more and more research is established, the field will only continue to do this.

Overall I found myself growing as a knowledgeable professional from this trip. I have grown in my skills of networking and creating relationships with companies/agencies. I have created an investigator out of myself, and I am now always questioning the system, even when I agree with it. I am now more able and confident to reach out to services in the United States and find agencies that will benefit those in need. But most of all, I have learned the importance of preventative mental health services especially when it pertains child welfare.

I hope that with this knowledge I will be able to communicate the importance of social workers and services to families I work with. In my profession, I hope to take everything I learned here and further research it as it relates to children’s education. It is so important when working with children with disabilities to be involved in their whole life. With the skills learned on this trip, I feel I will be able to create better relationships with parents and caregivers. I will be more aware of situations and be able to further investigate the origin of a disability or disorder, which will in turn help my work immensely.

This trip has changed me as a person and a professional. I think the reason it is so difficult to talk about my time in Melbourne is because there are just not enough words to express the how much I changed within the span of 28 days. I am incredibly grateful for my time spent in Australia and I am already making plans for my return.

-Kathryn

Week three has been quite the whirlwind of agency visits and last minute explorations! We were able to visit a foster care agency called Berry Street, a family therapy center called Bouverie, a community organization center for ethnic communities called VicSeg, and a child services center called Anglicare. Some of us also attended a seminar on healthy eating and self-care led by Don Tomlin. If you have ever heard him speak, you’ll know he’s a smidge radical about food being the only medicine our bodies need and about doctors being our body’s public enemy number one…While I did walk away with some useful facts about fruits and vegetables that I didn’t learn from the food pyramid in elementary school, I also did not cancel the appointments I have scheduled with my doctor and my dentist for the week I arrive back in the U.S.

To continue, we have decided to focus and reflect on two different organizations that particularly impacted us. Chloe really enjoyed our visit to VicSeg, while our visit to Anglicare resonated more with Kathryn. Find our impressions and photos below!

Vicseg-

VicSeg (New Futures) stands for: Victorian Cooperative on Children’s Services for Ethnic Groups and New Futures Training. They are a community development organization that focuses more on prevention than direct service. 90% of their organization’s focus is on training and capacity building in the ethnic communities in Melbourne. As part of their trainings, they partner with many service providers out in the communities to help increase cultural competence so these service providers can better understand the populations they are working with.

“I absolutely love VicSeg’s emphasis on partnership and working together to build healthy communities and help newly arrived families achieve independence in an unfamiliar culture. One quote that particularly stuck with me is, “You don’t have to be a social worker to make an impact on your community.” Helping people is a mindset and an attitude – not just a profession. VicSeg has multidisciplinary teams and work with many different kinds of people to build up communities. I think it is a valuable message to remember that we all have a responsibility to our communities and that we will each have something unique to offer. I am also inspired by their commitment to prevention and early intervention work through their trainings. They place an emphasis on teaching people how to be independent and then how to also pass along those skills along to others in the community. I believe this is the most effective way to strengthen a community and to make it sustainable.” -Chloe

Anglicare-

Anglicare is an organization that provides support to children, young people and families. Through services like; family service programs, foster care placements, crisis aid and the TEAHaR Program, Anglicare is able to provide support to 80,000 children and families a year. Anglicare believes that the best way to do child care is through a multidisciplinary approach which is reflected through their wide verity of services.

“I was really blown away by Anglicare’s TEACHaR program. This program addresses the education gap by working with clients who are going through or have been through trauma. By using trained special education teachers, they are able to create IEP goals with the general education teacher and guardians that are measurable and attainable. Furthermore, since they are using teachers, the Anglicare staff member can take over the class room while the actual teacher spends one on one time with the child. I felt this was especially important because thins gives undisrupted attention for the child from an adult of authority. Not only will this help the child build trust in teachers and school, but it will also help them to generalize and build trust with any authoritative figure. This is important to me because as future educator, I hope that I am provided with the same transparency about my students that Anglicare has provided to their clients teachers. It is important to me to invest time in my students and make sure they are receiving the right supports and appropriate educational practices. I feel that Anglicare does this and excels!” -Kathryn

Final Thoughts

As we finish our trip we are left with many wonderful impressions of the city of Melbourne. From the Little Italy on Lygon Street to the metropolitan rooftop bars on Brunswick Street, to the history and culture filled museums, this city has plenty to offer all kinds of kinds. The people here are incredibly diverse and were kind and welcoming to us visitors. The health care here is public, which allows for amazing services including mental health, to those in need. Over all this city is an urban stir-fry of amazing people and organizations. This experience has allowed us to reflect on and compare Australian policy, services, culture and lifestyle to our own country. Though Australia’s population is considerably smaller, we still find ourselves left with our eyes wide open to different ways, and in some cases arguably better ways, of organizing communities and serving people. It has been an amazing experience and inspired us to go forth and continue to pursue change in the U.S. for the welfare of our people and of our youth.

-Kathryn And Chloe

Week 2 Wrap Up

After wrapping up week one in the rainy city, we got lucky with a few days of sunshine to round the corner into week two. We spent that time soaking up the sun in the great outdoors of Victoria. First, we explored the riverbeds and grassy fields of Darebin Park, a spiritual healing nature reserve. Next stop was St. Kilda Beach, home of a Luna Park and gorgeous sunsets on St. Kilda Pier. Then finally, we wrapped it all up with our nature tour with guide Peter, aka Outback Billy. We marched all around Phillip’s Island doing everything from taking selfies with kangaroos and wallabies to watching the fairy penguins waddle across the beach to return to their burrows. However, all good weather must come to an end. When we returned to the city for our next agency visits, so did the rain…

Our next set of visits started with the Lighthouse Foundation on May 20th . This organization is dedicated to ending youth homelessness. The dedicated staff at this agency help young people who need a home and a purpose to find their place in the community. By using a therapeutic family model and trained caregivers, Lighthouse Foundation helps young people break the cycle of homelessness with an 88% success rate.

On May 21st we visited the Young and Well Center. This research institution partners with 75+ other organizations to promote the health and wellbeing of young people by creating easily accessible tools, apps, and other programs on the internet. They also seek to promote children’s rights online in this digital age. The goal of these online programs is to try to reach the 70% of young people who may be in need of help, but are not actively seeking it for various reasons. They are early intervention programs created to intervene before a young person reaches a crisis point. What is unique about this organization is that they highly value youth participation in the designing of these programs. Staff members see the young people as actual partners in this process. The adolescents that are accepted through the application process become part of what this agency calls the “Youth Brain Trust”. Youth members can participate on this panel for 1 year. Part of the goal here is to build group cohesion and a culture of peer support through this active participation in planning.

Cultural Observations 

Now that we have had two weeks to soak in the city Melbourne, we have noticed many more things about the culture here. Similar to what we discovered in Where Are The Roo’s? – Week 1 Observations, the stereotypes of Australia are an inaccurate depiction of the buzzing urban areas, like Melbourne. Unlike the pictures we had painted in our heads of tan people, deserts, jeeps and kangaroos, Australia’s cities are not so different from those of the United States and other cities around the world.

-Melbourne’s City Layout

One of Melbourne’s many distinguished traits is the urban art. Graffiti is all over the city. Though there are gang names here and there, for the most part the city is covered in art. You can find one of the most well-known, and legal, graffiti spaces on Hosier Lane in down town Melbourne. Providing a space for graffiti artists to outlet and recycle their work is a tactic many cities use to decrease vandalization elsewhere. This concept is not uncommon to the United States. Austin, Texas practices this same method in their space called Baylor Street Art. Venice Beach in California also has a space for legal graffiti.

From what we have seen, Victoria also has very similar national parks, comparable to those in the US. However, this is only one small portion of Australia. There is still this whole other side of the country that is uninhabited by humans and covered with some of the deadliest creatures in the world. There are small towns where it rains spiders and coasts with paralyzing jellyfish. So yes, in the city of Melbourne where we are doing our studies, there are some physical traits that is similar to the U.S. But in reality, the physical traits of this land are so diverse and so large, its like comparing apples and crocodiles.

-Australia’s People

When we first arrived in Melbourne, we spent some time learning about the first inhabitants of Australia – the Aboriginals. Over the past couple of weeks, we have observed that Melbourne is now home to people from all over the world. On our trip with Outback Billy we learned more facts about the increasing diversity in Australia. It is estimated that over 1 in 4 of Australia’s 24 million people were born overseas. In the last six years, the Chinese population has increased by 60%, while the Indian population has increased 100%! Australia is also the third largest country for the number of people who speak Greek (including Greece).

Similar to the U.S., many immigrants come into Australia and end up living and working in rural areas on the farms surrounding the larger cities. For example, there are many Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese people working the farms on the outskirts of Melbourne. Within Melbourne, many different countries and cultures are represented. We have walked through Chinatown, Little Italy, and Little Vietnam. We have also seen many Greek and Indian restaurants throughout the city. Outback Billy gave us some facts on recent trends in regards to religion in Australia as well. About 50% of Australians identify as Christian, however less than 5% go to church more than twice a year. The average church population is over 60. Outback Billy pointed out a few churches for sale along our drive out in the more rural parts outside of Melbourne. We even saw a church that had been converted into a Mexican restaurant. This says a lot about how Australia’s religious trends have changed, and continue to change, over recent years.

-Chloe and Kathryn

First Impressions –

Melbourne is definitely not the stereotypical image of Australia. We weren’t exactly sure what to expect upon arrival to Southern Victoria – maybe something along the lines of shaking hands with a kangaroo fresh off the plane. However, as we made our way to our extended stay hotel in Preston, it became apparent that we underestimated the industrialized city. Instead of dry lands and ‘roos, we found ourselves in awe of the urban art on every wall and an amazing collection of Asian markets and cuisine. Though Melbourne is lacking in those typical Australian outback stereotypes, it is quite abundant in culture. This is obvious through the diverse peoples and multicultural areas. One moment we were walking through China Town and the next we were under English Victorian style arch ways. We then had an Indonesian dinner followed by amazing gelato. After gelato, we watched a clock tower open up and play a tribute song to Australia. Our day was almost as unpredictable as the weather…We weren’t sure what we would see next! And speaking of weather, it is wise to always have an umbrella handy because Mother Nature likes to randomly start spitting on Melbourne. Sometimes the rain only lasts for a few short minutes and then the sun shows its face again. It’s a fun game trying to keep up!

VACCA Visit –

When one thinks of Australia, the general stereotype is the “Steve Irwin type outback lifestyle”, or a society still consisting of convicts from England. We also expected lots of desert and anticipated occasionally dodging some kind of poisonous animal during our stay here. What we did not expect to learn, is that there was a whole population of indigenous peoples living here already. The Aboriginal people have a history not unlike the Native Americans in the United States. Even as recently as the late 1900’s, Australians have been marginalizing and stigmatizing the Aboriginals. It wasn’t until 2008 that the government finally issued a public apology and began to try to make reparations for the Aboriginal people…

Kathryn – “I had this idea in my head that Australia was vacant until England decided to drop off their murderous convicts. I couldn’t of been more wrong. First of all the “convicts” were more or less people being arrested for population control in England. These men and women were arrested for a range of misdemeanors from stealing a book to impersonating an Egyptian. Furthermore, the land was less than vacant. The fact is the longest surviving culture in the world inhabited the dangerous planes of Australia before England came and did what England does, colonize. The Aboriginal people were an intelligent and thriving society. However, because England didn’t recognize the practices the land was considered fair game. Families were torn apart and the Aboriginals were forced to thrive in frameworks that weren’t built for them.”

While we learned a lot about the traumatic history of the Aboriginal people, we also learned about their resilience and how they have been able to stick together as a community and support one another through it all. There are many efforts being made, like at VACCA- Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency, to restore pride in being Aboriginal and to start owning their culture and past traditions that have been lost over time.

Chloe – “My major take away from this visit is the quote ‘from victim to survivor to achiever’. I am interning with the Salvation Army right now for my placement on the anti-human trafficking committee. This idea of having victims instead see themselves as survivors is a crucial part of their healing. It is also important for them to then see themselves as achievers so that they can truly begin to move forward with their lives. Everyone’s journey is different, but it is good to know that we can all be connected through this concept of helping each other become achievers in our own way. It was very inspiring to learn about how supportive Aboriginal people are for one another in their communities. They work to build each other up and constantly look out for one another. I think that without this supportive network, the concept of victim, to survivor, to achiever would be much harder to attain.”

Royal Children’s Hospital Visit –

Our group visited the Royal Children’s Hospital on two different days. The staff there had individualized itineraries planned for each of us before we arrived, which was amazing. They catered to each of our interests and ensured that we got to fully experience different aspects of what a social worker does in different departments of the hospital. For example, Chloe is interning with the Salvation Army back in Delaware, OH doing anti-human trafficking education, awareness and prevention. Part of her schedule involved a meeting with the social workers practicing in the Gatehouse, which is the program where they counsel children who are victims of sexual assault…

Chloe – “I really appreciated the emphasis on family systems approaches to counseling children in the Gatehouse. They take a very holistic approach to the rehabilitation process and attempt to address all aspects of the child’s environment. I also appreciated the way social workers take responsibility for their patients in the emergency department. They follow up with patients even after they have left the hospital to make sure they are receiving necessary services after referrals are made from the hospital.”

Kathryn’s schedule included shadowing adolescent psychiatrist Andrew Court and neonatal social worker Dani Gold. This was great because Kathryn works with children with disabilities back in OH. This a lot of the time means working with families for the best educational outcome for the child.

Kathryn – “Royal Children’s Hospital really had a great emphasis on supporting the family in order to support the child. I found this incredibly helpful to learn how it is they provide these supports because often, when working with children who have special needs, it can be easy to forget that the parents are  experiencing a range of emotions like, grief and frustration. In order for my students to succeed, I need to make sure my families have the correct supports to create a positive cycle of learning in all environments.This is exactly what RCH does with their patients. I really appreciated this approach as it not only creates a swifter recovery, but also encourages healthy generalization and maintenance.”

-Kathryn & Chloe