How many of us feel that when we have a conversation, we never really hear what the other person is saying? Or feel that we ourselves are not being heard? So many of us fall into the pattern of talking at each other, waiting for the other person to finish talking so we can share our thoughts rather than really listening to and being engaged with the other person and what they are wanting to share with us. It’s a habit I’m all too familiar with and I know that it’s something I

The ongoing issue of whether small organisations can survive can been lost in the frenzy about size. The simple fact is that big or small, organisations need to all do the following: Understand and articulate your purpose; Have a plan but more importantly, the discipline to stick with it; Effective leadership; Knowledge and understanding of your customers and; A dedicated and skilled workforce. The size of the business really matters little; small organisations can be ineffec

Social care practitioners have to let go of their obsession with assessment. There are more assessment tools out there than I care to mention. The ONI, I-Can, Headspace Psychosocial Assessment for Young People, The ADAT, Scales of Independent Behaviour - Revised (SIB-R), Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) Screening Too, Cognitive Failures Questionnaire (CFQ), Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA). I will stop listing them now, but you get the picture. The push to target resources e

I am glad I chose Social Work and am privileged to have worked with so many people and their communities. I’ve worked in nursing homes, “group homes” for people with disability, youth detention centres, jails, hospitals, people’s homes and “the streets”. I did my work in Sydney, remote Indigenous communities, the USA, England and in Greece. There is no doubt my choice to work in social care has led me to meet people and experience things that have shaped my view of the world.

We must admit, that despite the best intentions, social care engineers don’t always get it right. Some of our most “seemingly logical” social policies of our time have led to the deep and lasting disadvantage. Remember adoption laws and practices for “wayward” mothers? What about the “almost” compulsory relinquishment of children with disability to the state’s institutions? And of course Australia’s biggest shame, The Stolen Generation. As a young Social Worker, some things n

This time thirty two years ago, I just finished my HSC and was set to start my new job at Grosvenor Hospital in Summer Hill, Sydney. As a nearly 18 year old I got a job through a contact to work with children with disability. My job was to care for them in their residential care setting. My supervisor was Sister Winifred. It was nearly Christmas 1983 and a significant change in care and support was about to begin. The deinstitutionalisation of care was picking up pace and aft

Just when you thought you had it all under control, something changes. Most organisations are aware of the ‘’hyper-connected consumer’’ … we have been told that people are now connected 24 hours a day; if they don’t like something there is a website they can criticise you on; if you don’t have multiple social media channels, no-one knows who you are, etc. – the reality is that is true and with the advent of a more ‘’open market’’, many organisations in the social care sector