Welcome to Dear Social Worker Let's Talk, the podcast that
prioritizes you the person behind the title.
I'm your host, Lisa Ann Edwards, and I'm here to help you become
an emotionally intelligent social work leader and promote
your well-being at the Social Work Coaching hub.com.
Welcome to another episode of Dear Social Worker.
Let's Talk and Today's podcast is titled Creating Trauma
Informed Social Workers with VR Service manager Shalene Lemmy.
So let's talk. Welcome to the DS Social Worker
Podcast. Thank you.
Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here
and just to talk everything VR. Yeah, I'm so excited.
And the main reason why I'm so excited is because I've tried
this. I've tried it so I know exactly
what the VR is about. I've experienced it and I still
talk about it to this day. The impact was so great, so I'm.
I'm really excited for social workers to hear about this, not
just for practice, but also we're going to touch on some
personal growth elements later on in our discussion.
What inspired you to be part of this discussion and to share
more about all things? We are.
My background's in social work, so I'm a registered social
worker with over 15 years experience in children and
families work. And actually I came across the
VR about three years ago, just quite randomly to be honest.
And what happened was is I experienced it for myself, so a
bit like you and it just blew me away.
I just felt actually this is something that we need as part
of our kind of social work training and also as part of our
continuous social worker development, and it is.
So just to kind of give a brief overview for those who haven't
seen it, what it is, is VR is used quite a lot in gaming.
So some people may have an awareness of VR in gaming and
virtual reality and how you can kind of simulate different
environments. What we've done and we were
founded by an adopter. Who felt that actually we need
to understand children's journeys a bit more in terms of
their trauma journeys. Thinking about the our most
vulnerable children that come through our social care doors,
whether that's kind of right at the early stage, early help
through to obviously the other end and be in place maybe for
adoption. And what we've done is we've
made a library of films where it puts you in the perspective of
that child. And it gives you the experience
of really walking in their footsteps, experiencing maybe
that abusive home environment, experiencing the responses from
professionals. And I think it's really
important because I think quite often we talk a lot about in
social work, child centered, child focused practice.
And sometimes it's about, well, what does that actually mean?
What does that look like? You know, what does that feel
like as well? And that's really crucial to our
social work practice. And you're put in the headset.
And you are literally that child.
You are literally having that real kind of emotional, felt
experience as well. So it is experimental, but
actually what it does is it allows you really to be in the
footsteps of that child. And I think for me as a social
worker, one of the things we would always talk about in the
office is I'd love to be a family on the wall in that home
environment to really feel what it was like for that child and
for me, the VR. That's the closest that you're
going to get without actually being there and being that
child. Just even something as simple as
in the VR, it places you at the height of a child.
So even if you're a practitioner walking into some of these home
environments, which you will do and see the environment and see
the issues and the concerns around actually.
You're still the professional, so there's a different power
dynamic. You've got a different hat on as
well. So you're still not truly seeing
it from that child's point of view.
So something as simple as being in the headset and being small
and just feeling that sense of actually I'm completely reliant
on these adults, you know, and and there's something about that
in terms of that complete shift in perspective.
So yeah, so it's just something that I felt.
Actually, this is amazing. I'm an experienced social work
manager at the time and there was still lots of learning even
for me, despite being in different roles across the
years. That actually there was just so
much learning and so much power in this experience that it just
automatically made me think of certain families that I've
worked with, certain children that I've worked with, And
reflecting really given that opportunity to really reflect on
my own practice and thinking. Actually, would I have done
things a bit differently? Would have.
I have taken different steps maybe or had different
conversations as well and discussions and in regards to
some of the assessments as well. Thanks for sharing that
Charlene. You're right, it does cause you
to reflect on what kind of conversations or how would you
change the conversations you had with parents or with children.
Knowing what you experienced through the the VR, Are you able
to share with us Charlene, some examples of specific scenarios
or experiences that the VR program offers to users?
Yeah. So in terms of how it works, is
our. Local authorities will contract
with us and get the headsets. We will train them up and then
practitioners will use them in their work.
And like I was saying earlier in terms of we very much were
founded by an adopter. So it started in the fostering
and adoption world, and the aims around some of that was really
to help our foster carers and our doctors really understand
the children that they're going to be caring for.
But then also to help them understand why we as the social
care practitioners are coming in and saying, well, actually you
need to parent differently than maybe what you may have seen in
your families. Or if you've got children
yourself, how you've parented your own children.
Because actually it's about thinking about their journey.
And that looks very different to maybe some of the children that
you have had just around you, really.
So it's about kind of really connecting the dots around.
Trauma, but also that felt experience because I think
there's a lot of kind of particularly in the fostering
and adoption mode and kind of the processes.
There's lots of obviously training, there's lots of
preparation and a lot of it can be really kind of theory based.
So a bit like some of our social care training as well, you know,
lots of theories and actually. Connecting that theory into
practice can be very difficult. So as well As for our
practitioners, it can be the same for our foster carers and
our adopters as well. And I think that's where it the
VR was born out of that kind of disconnect because I don't think
everybody can translate that into practice in the same way or
quite easily as well. And it's about how do we support
people to do that. And so that's kind of where we
started. So that's where it has been
used. For the last kind of four years
is very much within kind of the skills to Foster and the
adoption preparation groups and really kind of going back to the
beginning like you're saying the unborn child and that particular
experience. We've all been in the womb but
none of us can remember that experience.
None of us can really kind of make that tangible connection.
But actually what we do know from research is that
development is already happening.
You know, actually to harm is already happening if that's the
environment that that. Particular parent is in and we
can hear that and we can feel that.
So how it then kind of translate is into training.
So again social care training. So it also is being used in
terms of inductions for newly qualified social workers and
your ASYES as well. I'm thinking about that real
induction process. So one of the ways that I talk
to a lot of our partners to use it particularly around kind of
your newly qualifieds is around recording.
You know, recording is a huge amount of social work, practice,
think and observational skills as well and thinking about what
are you seeing when you're going out.
So as well as kind of some of those discussions that you're
having with the families, it's about what else are you
observing, what else is kind of happening.
And so you can go in the headset, you can watch vanilla
films come out, and then there can be a task about actually now
you record what you've just seen.
What are the variations of recordings you've had as part of
that training? So I think what we've what we've
got is a lot more child focus recording.
It's about actually thinking from the child's perspective
because again as I was saying earlier, I think some people
find that difficult to place themselves in the child.
So actually what you was getting recording would be kind of these
statements or these lines that you'd mostly pick up in quite a
few of the cases. But actually what does that mean
and what does it mean for that child and the uniqueness of that
child as well, you know, actually.
So what we have been finding is that actually the recordings are
more specific to that child. Thinking about that individual
child and their circumstances, we are finding less of the
jargon as well. So you know some of these clear
jargon statements that we would get and we pick up quite quickly
in social care. Because again, it's about that
interpretation. It's about actually what does
that mean And what one of our partners found as well is they
found from their assessments that actually the quality of
their assessments improved since doing this piece of work.
You know, they were a group, A team that actually the
assessments through audits wasn't very good.
You know, it wasn't really the child wasn't leaping off the
page. You know, we they weren't
getting a clear message of who that child is.
And actually they've done this piece of work and then they
audited again. And what they found was they
knew who the children were in these cases from picking up the
case notes or the assessment because actually it was more
drilled down and focused on who is this child.
What are the issues and how are they impacting this child and
less adult focused, which is what we want.
We want to know what is the impact on the child if this
continues and then what those next steps need to be.
Thanks for sharing that Charlene.
There might be some social workers here that might be
thinking, how do I write in a trauma informed way?
And one thing that came up for me while you were talking was
just including how they're feeling after seeing or
observing or experiencing the family home.
Just on that point in terms of how they would be feeling after
kind of seeing a home or environment, I think the VR
really kind of gives that opportunity for that to be kind
of tested out because actually what it does give you is it
gives you a really difficult environment to be in and you are
in that environment and actually it really allows for.
Reflection and I think definitely for social workers,
day-to-day practice, you know, it can be really busy.
There's you're jumping kind of from one environment to the
next, you're jumping from maybe writing one assessment and then
maybe a court statement. And actually, there's so much
that you're juggling and you don't always get the time to
reflect on actually what you've just seen, what you've just
experienced, what you've just felt yourself and.
By having AVR experience and being placed in that, you
immediately come out and like you were saying earlier that
anxiety that you felt, you can really kind of use that to have
that reflection space because it's about really digging deep
within yourself In terms of I need to now reflect on what does
that mean, what has that brought up for me?
You know, #1, because actually what we do know is that our own
personal circumstances carries fruit in all of our work.
You know, our own values, our morals, our ethics.
That's really important. And we do obviously start
talking about that as we train, but it's about how do we kind of
keep resetting and keep coming back to that through our social
work journey and through the day-to-day, To be honest, Yeah,
yeah. So I think one of the things is
you can use that, you can use the VR, you can use your peers,
you can use it in supervision to really reflect on where you're
at, how you've kind of felt to be really open with that.
Because I think what's important is if we're not sharing that or
if we don't have an outlet for how we feel when we have just
been in some of these environments, we are going to
keep carrying it. You know, and then what we do
and what we're at risk of is being desensitized to situations
and to environments and therefore kind of picking up on
the trauma informed stuff. We're not really recognizing the
extent of maybe a child's trauma because maybe what we're doing
is actually that wasn't as bad as the house I was in yesterday.
What I'm hearing is it sounds there is a a balance between
managing your own emotions and and then stepping out of your
own emotions to step into the child's emotions.
Yeah, yeah, exactly that. Because you know and and it's
recognizing that because actually that's what's going to
drive what we're writing down on paper and what we're recording,
isn't it? You know, and if we're recording
our own emotions rather than what's happening for the child
or we kind of. Lessened it in some way because
we've been in worse houses a few days before or met children with
worse circumstances, then actually we're doing that
childhood this justice, aren't we?
You know, we're not an injustice in terms of what their actual
situation is. And I think, you know, we talk a
lot about reflection in social work.
And again, it's about. Having the space to do that,
it's about being open and honest about that, you know and
thinking about what do I bring to the table.
And I think the VR helps with that as well in terms of some of
the values and and base that people have in terms of when we
are looking at situations and how much of that are we bringing
into that because of our own experiences and thoughts and
opinions and how much of that is actually the child's experiences
as well. And I think that reset.
Is what the VR helps with. Thanks for sharing actually.
And this is such an insightful conversation to hear how much VR
brings the realities and their child's world to life.
And one thing that came up for me while you were talking there
was around cultural competence. How does it play a part in
either A the training or B, the recording, That reflection
process, thinking about how we integrate the child's world in
our recording based upon the trauma informed approach that
we've now got. Now we've done the the VR
training. One of our partners, that's a
really good point that you've made.
So we've got films where one of the children is Joe Heritage and
it's an adoption team. And what they've used is they
followed her story to really look at the matching process.
And and to really raise that cultural and that ethnicity and
that diversity conversation And what was quite interesting was
that obviously these conversations are being had.
You know they are being had, we know they're being had.
But actually how deep are those conversations going?
And So what they've done is they've used this Charles
process and her whole kind of journey, which you can
experience through the VR. They've used that to really step
in a bit deeper about what is the best match for that child,
you know. So if we can't find a dual
heritage family that reflects her ethnicity, then what are we
looking for? But then break it down again in
terms of the cultural asset. But also, you know, she may be
and as she is in there, she is a dual heritage child, but she's
predominantly lived with white parents.
Then she's moved into say a white foster placement.
So again, thinking about her transitions and thinking about
that differently. So cultural aspects are really
important and I think what the VR has allowed is for that team
to really dig deep about. So what are we looking for?
What would be the best match for her?
You know given her experiences giving her a kind of knowledge
what does that actually look like for her you know and not
maybe thinking automatically it looks like a when actually it
may be beef is the right situation for her and I think
that's really important and that's a really kind of creative
way to use the VR again so we can have those non judge mental
conversations and discussions but start digging deeper about.
The different layers to this for the children that we are working
for in terms of to find them a placement, A lifelong placement
that will meet all of their needs and actually thinking
about what is being prioritized for that child as well.
You know, what does that look like?
That also, how do we then help that child transition through
the different kind of cultural aspects if they are going
through foster care and then ultimately ending up in an
adoptive placement as well? So that's just one example of
how it's being used in adoption around that kind of cultural
competency and really digging deep about what are we talking
about here. And this isn't a tip box
exercise. You know, we need to really have
these really deep, honest, open conversations and be thinking
about actually, because we've got two children who may have
the same ethnicity or heritage or cultures.
Doesn't mean they will be having the same placements because we
need to consider other factors within that as well and their
experiences. So it's just not kind of
thinking about A1 size fits all because we're maybe looking at
one area. We need to consider that whole
child's experience and that whole child's cultural aspect,
you know, religious aspect, you know, there's so much that comes
into play and I think the VR allows for that discussion.
So we are thinking about all those different factors and not
maybe just one. And then actually what we may
find is the placement isn't a good match because we haven't
considered everything for that child.
Thank you, Chalene, Thank you. Could you share some insights or
data on the effectiveness of your VR enabled program in terms
of promoting behavior change or enhancing the ability of social
workers to support children who have experienced trauma?
Yeah. So in terms of what we do is we
deliver the training and practitioners will be come
certified to use the VR. And what we found is that
actually everybody who comes through our training already
kind of qualified been through significant amount of training.
And we what we found is at least 8 out of 10 practitioners will
say actually this is will strongly agree that this
training has. Changed how they think about,
you know, the child they will, they will also kind of that they
understand more about from the child's perspective.
You know, so actually they've got the theory, they've got the
learning, but actually that real understanding about being in the
child's footsteps, you know, actually walking in their shoes,
you know, and then thinking about what do I now need to
consider, you know, we've got 80% saying actually this is
strongly agreed, this has improved our understanding.
And that's massive because like I said, you know, you don't
become a social worker overnight.
There's there's a lot of training.
You know, there's a lot of theory, there's placements that
you would have been involved in. And so actually, it shows that
this level of learning has something to offer.
You know, it. It takes it that step further.
And I think, you know, one of the things that I said to you on
the day after you watched it, you know, I'll come back to you
in a year's time and you will tell me what you've seen.
You will tell me, be able to tell me how it's changed, how
you may approach certain situations.
You will be able to tell me as well kind of what were those
kind of take away messages that you took from that experience.
Whereas if I gave you a case study it wouldn't have been the
same. And and and that's the beauty of
it, we've also had some. So it has been used with young
people and their families as part of a Triborough project
last year. And that was around children and
young people who were identified being at risk of child sexual
exploitation and child criminal exploitation as well.
And again, what we found in that is the practitioners who first
done the training, they actually strongly agreed that by doing
the training, they felt more confident to have these
conversations and to practice where CSE and CCE was a concern.
And again, that's really important because actually these
are practitioners who were already working in this area and
the VR training still had something to offer in terms of
that They felt they had more understanding of the issues
because they actually kind of walked through it as part of the
VR experience. But also in terms of that level
of confidence. And again that's really
important you know for our social work practitioners that
they do feel confident in the work that they're doing because
again then they're able to really kind of get to grips with
the work. But also in terms of having some
of those may be difficult and challenging conversations, but
also being very self aware you know through that confidence in
terms of what they also bring to the table picking up on the
conversation that we had earlier as well you know and how that
may impact their practice and that's really important.
So we've been seeing some really good results from social work
practitioners using it as well as their results that they've
seen from it being used with families as well.
Could you confirm, is it a one off training or is it something
that's ongoing just so the listeners have an understanding
because we've got listeners across the world and shout.
Out to New Zealand, I see you. And we've got some listeners who
may be thinking how how can we use that?
Just before you do, I just want to remind everyone if you are
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Come straight to you. If you would like to find out
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hub. We have lots of resources there
for you to get involved in. On that note, I'll come back to
you, Charlene, to share a bit more about which the VR
programme works. Thank you.
You did shout out New Zealand.
We do have the VR in New Zealand as well, so another shout new.
Zealand, so yeah, other side. So yeah, how it works is that
our partners, the local authorities will contract with
us. So say they kind of standard
packages, they would get 12 headsets and we would train them
up and it is a day's training to use them and then they will
start using them in their practice and we can keep doing
more training so we can do more specific training around trauma.
We've got also training that we deliver around CSE and CECE as
well and we will do refreshers and we offer support groups.
So it is an ongoing and kind of package and program.
And then what I do is part of my role as the VR Service manager
is I will regularly support our partners in their day-to-day
practice and how they really implement the VR.
So I will meet with them regularly.
I will go and turn up to events and help support them, deliver
the sessions. Also I will go and deliver
support sessions. So again, if they're thinking
about actually there's a new area that we want to use the VR.
I will go in and support them in being able thinking about OK,
where it could be used, what that program would look like as
well. And if they or you've got some
kind of training materials, I will look through those and say,
well actually this is where you could fit in the VR, this would
be really helpful. And we also have developed some
session plans that we would give to the practitioners as well to
help with their use really of the VR.
How does the VR program not only enhance the social workers
practice, but also how does it enhance their personal growth?
Yeah, I think it really goes back to, you know, kind of some
of the Fred that I've been saying throughout is around.
It puts you in a space where once you come out, you have to
reflect. And if that is really kind of
tapping into something for you on a personal level, then it
really allows you to almost hold a mirror up and and start
working through some of that and start thinking about what does
that look like, you know and how will that have some kind of
impact, you know. And I think again it really
allows for those opportunities in supervision to really be
thinking about what you may bring to the table in terms of
maybe your own experiences and thinking about how you look
after yourself. You know, well-being is so
important, you know, in terms of in any job, but particularly
social care because I've been there, You know, it's really
important that we do look after our own well-being and actually
we do think about our own journey and our own growth
journey. And I think what the VR does is
really allows for that reflection space.
And I can't say that enough because I think that's really
important that we are constantly reflecting and that's how we
grow. We grow through that reflection
process and that reflection in action on action.
And it's about thinking about those different points in our
journey and in our growth journey and having that space to
do that. Lean It's been a pleasure with
you being here on this podcast and sharing more about the VR
and supporting social workers. With that trauma informed
approach, I ask every guest to write a verbal letter to the
social workers, listening and starting it with Dear Social
Worker. And it could be any point of
reference, poor inspiration, whatever is on your heart to
share with social workers. Dear Social Worker, one of the
quotes that we really embody here is our police quote.
We never really understand a person until you consider things
from his point of view until you climb into his skin and walk
around in it. And I think that is so important
to everything that we do. And so I would just like to say,
hold on to that really in terms of every day when you're going
out to do your work, but also hold on to your curiosity.
Always be curious, you know, in everything that you do.
And thank you, thank you for everything that you're doing day
in and day out for our most vulnerable children and
families. Thank you, Charlene.
Where can people find you? You can find us on LinkedIn as
answer that is ANTSER or you can find our website which is
www.ans-wer.com and I'm also on LinkedIn Shalene Lemmy as you
can see my name so please connect.
Thank you Shalene for being a guest here on the Dear Social
Worker Let's Talk podcast. We'll be back next week for
another instalment. I will see you then.
And don't forget to click subscribe.