11th Biennial National Rural Remote Social Work Conference 25th & 26th July in Victoria.

Jo and I have had our Abstracts accepted for presentation at the:

 11th Biennial National Rural Remote Social Work Conference 25^th & 26^th July in Victoria.  

“Working with a social worker who displays change-resistant unprofessional behaviour”

Jo Parkinson, Social Work Department, St John of God Hospital, Bunbury, Western Australia

“As a city social worker struggling to be ‘professional’, I possessed a fragile professional identity when commencing a position in a regional community.  Facing the dissonance between trusting my professional self and recognising aspects which required change was challenging."

"I engaged in non-authoritative, authentic dialogue with three mentors.  My social work supervisor and I developed and applied a practice tool to identify, monitor and change my behaviours.  Drawing on an auto-ethnographic account of my journey through supervision, I will provide practical ideas to assist organisations, supervisors and supervisees to improve professional behaviour in a safe, supportive environment.”

“think global, act local: a good place to start ...

a case for country social work centres: starting point services”

L Pianta, Independent Social Worker Collie WA

“Services “in the country” may be ... non-existent, outreached, out-sourced, wait-listed, micro-focussed, unsuitable, inequitably created, distributed & implemented by well-intentioned coordinators, managers and grounded in policy and models of service delivery that may be metro or city-centric: having often-times been developed by project, policy, program people in cities whose context may be the urban landscape and existing funding sources. Then, these are transplanted into places and people beyond the major population areas (a one size fits all approach).

“Social workers are best-positioned to drive a “starting point service model” given the profession’s knowledge, training, values, skill-base, unique position and understanding of the complexities of: diversity, power, gender, culture > structural disadvantage > dominant discourses > social determinants of health & wellbeing > social justice > micro, mezzo & macro practice > research, policy and the political.”

... “I will provide an outline of a proposed ‘starting point service model’ for country social work centres beyond the cities and regional centres: for and with unique and diverse communities.”