[00:00:00] Marie Vakakis: Hello and welcome back to another collaboration, our final one for the week with the Inside Social Work Podcast hosted by me Marie Vakakis and the becoming an A-M-H-S-W, the podcast hosted by me, Ashton Hayes. And all week we’ve been reflecting on our journeys. As social workers, as accredited mental health, social workers, a little bit about being business owners, how self-doubt crept in at times.

[00:00:30] Marie Vakakis: And I guess we wanted to wrap that up with, I guess, what’s left with you. How do you feel about this week’s topics and the things that we’ve discussed so far? 

[00:00:38] Ashton Hayes: Hmm. I think we’ve covered off on a lot of information about how the winding roads we’ve taken to get to where we are today. Winding roads, that’s how I’m gonna phrase it.

[00:00:54] Marie Vakakis: I heard about a book, I haven’t actually read it yet, but I think it’s called The Squiggly Career or something [00:01:00] like that. And 

[00:01:00] Ashton Hayes: I 

[00:01:00] Marie Vakakis: think it feels 

[00:01:01] Ashton Hayes: a bit like 

[00:01:01] Marie Vakakis: that. 

[00:01:02] Ashton Hayes: Mm, I think that’s actually really apt. I like that. 

[00:01:05] Marie Vakakis: Squiggly career. 

[00:01:06] Ashton Hayes: Squiggly career. Well, I think with squiggles comes experience comes the ability to grow, develop, and provide a better service, better outcomes, but also take care of yourself.

[00:01:18] Ashton Hayes: In better ways. 

[00:01:19] Marie Vakakis: I thought about the squiggly career a lot and I sometimes recommend to people when I’m talking about it in supervision that follow what’s interesting, but try and have one thing or um, kind of north star that you can build on. I think if you have too many changes without one common thread.

[00:01:40] Marie Vakakis: You can feel like you are not really improving in anything. 

[00:01:44] Ashton Hayes: Mm. 

[00:01:44] Marie Vakakis: Does that make sense? 

[00:01:46] Ashton Hayes: Yeah, I think it does, and I think that you can have different things that you want to work on, but wild swings may not ultimately serve you. 

[00:01:59] Marie Vakakis: What it mean? Like [00:02:00] wild swings? 

[00:02:01] Ashton Hayes: Well. I think, you know, I’ve talked before to people about getting distracted by shiny things, and I think that’s, you are saying 

[00:02:10] Marie Vakakis: you get distracted by shiny things.

[00:02:12] Marie Vakakis: I absolutely do. I do too. 

[00:02:15] Ashton Hayes: And I think that’s about being curious and interested and sometimes. That’s just a fleeting, yeah, that’s just a fleeting moment of interest and curiosity that sparked, and sometimes getting too distracted by shiny things can detract from overall satisfaction. I think in the work 

[00:02:39] Marie Vakakis: I see that with the shiny things and that’s, I’m interpreting that.

[00:02:43] Marie Vakakis: In our profession as the newest training technique, modality, tech tool, whatever. What I was thinking about having one sort of. Thread that stays consistent is this can be a hobby and this can be, or a [00:03:00] piece of your work. So I guess it’s a little bit hard to articulate, but if you loved running, that can be the thread that you keep throughout your life.

[00:03:09] Marie Vakakis: And then you can use running as metaphors. You can work for a running or leisure company. You can use running as a way to promote better outcomes. So sometimes having. Something that can stay consistent throughout your life, but holding it lightly very act, so not being too fused with that idea. And in our line of work, I think that can look like maybe trauma is the underlying thread or a particular age group or presentation so that you have some way of containing.

[00:03:39] Marie Vakakis: Maybe the desire to do lots of different trainings and thinking about who am I serving? Why am I doing this? Who’s it helping? And how to neatly stack it onto something else you’ve already learned. Otherwise, you can end up with a whole bunch of trainings that you’re not particularly good at. And as one of my [00:04:00] supervisors says quite tongue in cheese, like you can just meander in mediocrity.

[00:04:04] Marie Vakakis: Mm. 

[00:04:05] Marie Vakakis: You can have. Beginners act beginner’s, DBT beginner’s, CBT, you might do level one EMDR training. You might do level one gottman training. You might do some IFS training and not feel confident or proficient in any of them. Mm-hmm. And then still be adding more. And so this is where I’m trying to encourage people to think about a, a thread or a theme so you can get proficient and comfortable and competent.

[00:04:29] Marie Vakakis: Then start to add new things to it. 

[00:04:32] Ashton Hayes: Okay. I think that you can get caught up in doing the latest training and the latest trend and the latest thing, and wanting to have many strings to your bow. I think you can do that, but I do agree. I think being able to deliver confidently through practice and.

[00:04:54] Ashton Hayes: Drilling down on more broader trainings. So is a really good [00:05:00] idea. Like, for example, I think I said in an earlier episode, I do encourage people to have a look at short intro trainings to see what aligns with them. But the idea around that is that you invest in the training. And development that aligns with where you want to go rather than spending a lot of money in something and never using it.

[00:05:22] Ashton Hayes: Because in actual fact you realise it doesn’t really work for you. 

[00:05:26] Marie Vakakis: I like that. And when I’m recruiting and I see graduates have on their resume proficient in, and they list like 20 modalities. Mm-hmm. Thinking what planet are you on having exposure to or doing a semester on? Does not make you proficient.

[00:05:43] Marie Vakakis: Mm, it’s beginners at best, and I think that it can be really containing for you as a therapist and for clients to have an overarching way of working. Mm. And I think. The complaints that I get from clients and when I, I did an [00:06:00] episode with the therapist from, or the podcast host, very bad therapy. And one of the difficulties that people kept bringing up over and over again of bad therapy is lack of clarity.

[00:06:11] Marie Vakakis: It just kind of airy fairy things weren’t explained. And so being able to know. This is what I do and why. This is how I help you. This is what it looks like. This is how long it’ll take. If you don’t have a framework for that, how can you provide that information, especially as an A-M-H-S-W. Mm-hmm. The whole reason to do that often is for the Medicare rebate.

[00:06:32] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. Now, under the medical model. It’s expected that you have a client see you with a diagnosis. Mm-hmm. And you have a treatment plan. Having a hairy fairy hodgepodge holistic approach does not fit in that model. I’m not saying you can’t do it elsewhere. Mm. But under that model, it’s unethical. Mm, because it’s not what it’s funded for and it’s not what is required of you.

[00:06:53] Marie Vakakis: So it’s like going to the doctor wanting an x-ray and they send you to someone who starts burning sage. That might be a [00:07:00] treatment that you want. Mm. But if you’ve been referred to for an x-ray, that’s what you need to get. So if someone has referred a client to us through Medicare, they need a treatment plan that fits that model.

[00:07:12] Ashton Hayes: I think treatment planning is something that. Wasn’t really evident in any of the work that I did in my degree, and whilst I certainly did a full year of what was called in that particular degree, psych for social work, it was actually touching on. Modalities briefly without depth of training and intervention.

[00:07:39] Ashton Hayes: And I think that we can certainly have a suite of modalities that we can use to support our clients, but. I always say that if you are going to train in a particular modality, if it’s something that you are going into in a little bit more depth, you need to do so to the point that you can administer [00:08:00] it as an intervention as opposed to using it as psychoed.

[00:08:05] Ashton Hayes: Because I think those are two different, 

[00:08:06] Marie Vakakis: for people listening who dunno the difference, how do you distinguish between administering it as an intervention versus psychoed? So let’s take. Act that we’re both mm-hmm. Trained in. How is it different as an intervention versus psycho ed? 

[00:08:22] Ashton Hayes: When you are using it as an intervention, you are doing so as the preferred intervention for a response to the presenting issues, and you’re doing so with the ultimate outcome of symptom reduction and.

[00:08:38] Ashton Hayes: In that space, you need to develop a plan that evolves along with the assessment outcomes and the client’s disclosures of need as you progress into the therapeutic relationship. And so therefore, we are always using it as an intervention, a way to reduce symptoms [00:09:00] alongside. We, of course, we all use psychoed and we all use it regularly, but if you are using it.

[00:09:05] Ashton Hayes: If you are introducing it as a modality, that can provide relief or support in a certain way, but there’s never any actual treatment plan. Using the elements of act, then it just becomes something that you describe as an option for your client. It’s never actually an intervention. 

[00:09:28] Marie Vakakis: How does that, this makes me think of, in one of the episodes this week, we touched on very briefly that some people can get disheartened by the A-M-H-S-W application.

[00:09:40] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. Like there’s a frequently asked questions and one of the ones that I see is. But I’ve been doing this work for 20 years, I should be able to get it. Mm-hmm. And being a mental health case manager or mental health practitioner or mental health educator is not the same as doing therapy. And the A-M-H-S-W [00:10:00] qualification or certification accreditation, that’s what it’s Accreditation is very specific that you can do a treatment plan.

[00:10:08] Marie Vakakis: Correct. Based on an assessment and diagnosis with. Certain approved focus psychological strategies. That’s right. 

[00:10:17] Ashton Hayes: I think sometimes it can feel for very experienced mental health social workers, and when I say a mental health social worker, I’m speaking about within the context of casework, case management, and really high end, important work that’s done in high risk complex spaces, but is not therapeutic intervention because.

[00:10:38] Ashton Hayes: The referrals are done out to actual other treating clinicians. So what I say to people is it’s about being a treating mental health clinician, which means that there’s assessment, there’s treatment planning, there’s administering of the therapeutic intervention, and there would be ideally a reduction in symptoms.[00:11:00] 

[00:11:00] Ashton Hayes: There would be processing of trauma. There would be an outcome where the client leaves the session or sessions ultimately having achieved the feeling that they were hoping to achieve when they came to see you. I know a lot of clients will say things like, I just wanna be happy, and I’m not suggesting that therapeutic intervention will allow a blanket happiness, but.

[00:11:26] Ashton Hayes: You know when clients come to see us, we say, what do you want to be different? And hopefully the work that we do will help support that difference through intervention. 

[00:11:34] Marie Vakakis: How does it fit in with your journey into social work? So we think about everything we’ve discussed this week and how we got started.

[00:11:42] Marie Vakakis: Both of us very focused on. Advocacy change, macro stuff. Mm-hmm. To now this particular skillset is the most one-on-one you can get. We’re still looking at the impact of systems. Sure. But a referral that comes from a gp. It does not include those things. [00:12:00] We can look at the impact of housing. We can advocate for all of that stuff.

[00:12:03] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. But if someone has limited access to 10 sessions, how is that shift reconciled in your brain, or how are you understanding that and articulating it to your supervisees perhaps that it’s not that those other things aren’t valuable. They are. But in this model, under this funding arrangement. With this particular accreditation, there’s certain expectations, 

[00:12:31] Ashton Hayes: right?

[00:12:31] Ashton Hayes: So I think the way that we can think about those expectations is that we can still be, I think when I think of the term holistic, I think of it within the context of interpretation of environment and everything that has led the client to be where they are. Now. And so we can still use that lens alongside trauma informed work whilst [00:13:00] administering a treatment plan to a client.

[00:13:03] Ashton Hayes: So we are always about what’s happened to you, not what’s wrong with you, because what’s happened to you. And obviously I’m borrowing that phrase. From the well-known book by Bruce Perry and Oprah. But the idea is that when we interpret holistically, we interpret through presentation, through environment, through diagnoses or provisional diagnoses in order to ensure that we can back up what we are doing through provision of e evidence-based intervention.

[00:13:33] Ashton Hayes: But I think that we can do the two alongside each other and still fit ethically within the model as well as. Working alongside our social work ethics employees. 

[00:13:44] Marie Vakakis: And do you think that this is one of the big misconceptions about the accreditation? 

[00:13:50] Ashton Hayes: I think it is. I think that because we do need to. Work within the particular parameters of the medical model that provide us with the [00:14:00] opportunity to give rebates through the Medicare system.

[00:14:04] Ashton Hayes: It can feel like it’s very narrow and it can feel like we are working towards diagnosing and fixing. And 10 sessions, particularly when we’re working through a trauma informed model, is absolutely not enough to ground, stabilise, move through any extra needs, any extra stressors that may come up and come out the other side.

[00:14:30] Ashton Hayes: But the 10 sessions are rebated and we as. Clinicians can decide how we want to charge, what we wanna do, how we wanna be accessible to our clients. Ultimately, at the end of the day, becoming an A-M-H-S-W is about being a treating mental health clinician. You have to be supervised, you have to have particular continuing professional development, and you have to specialise in a particular area.

[00:14:58] Ashton Hayes: So the [00:15:00] idea is that our first focus is on. The presenting mental health condition, and alongside that focus is the environmental impact upon the person, and then we take that and develop interventions accordingly. It does not mean however that we are churning through people. Kicking them back, back out into a system that may be pain to them.

[00:15:23] Ashton Hayes: What it means is that much is going to a physiotherapist, much is going to an ot, much is going to a speech he or so on. We are going to somebody for a specific treatment and that’s what being an A-M-H-S-W is. But it in no way diminishes the extraordinary work that people do in other fields. It’s just that that’s the field that they’re specialising.

[00:15:45] Marie Vakakis: As I think about all of these different bits, if you put them on a, like a Venn diagram. Mm-hmm. Getting the accreditation is almost like being a graduate again. Like it’s then the basic bit again, you’re back at that. Starting point of [00:16:00] essentially a different career path. Mm-hmm. Because working in intake or triage or something like that where you might have had decades of experience, there are some transferable skills, but the art and science of therapy, and that’s what it is as a treaty mental health.

[00:16:19] Marie Vakakis: A clinician or therapist, it’s a whole other skill set again. It is. And so you are pulling out those modalities. You are matching your treatment to what the person wants. You’re holding all these other things in mind based on your, I guess, theoretical background. You might have attachment of theory, trauma informed.

[00:16:39] Marie Vakakis: You might be thinking about their system around them. What is influencing that? And then you’re looking at that within the framework of the funding or whatever. Limitations that is. Mm-hmm. And articulating that to the client and not trying to overstuff them with information because you’re charging for it.

[00:16:57] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. I don’t see people get their [00:17:00] accreditation. To work in non-for-profits, for example, ’cause they don’t need it. Mm-hmm. The, the real benefit seems to be just to access the Medicare rebates and other third party funders, so people aren’t traditionally getting it for a pay rise or for some other thing.

[00:17:13] Marie Vakakis: In industry, it’s not really needed. And so a lot of people doing it are working either as contractors or subcontractors or in private practice somehow. And I think when we talk, do a series about money stories, that’s gonna be very interesting there because that’s whole one other bit the money side. But the skill side is we then go into the same mixing pot as mental health OTs, as general psychologists, as clinical psychologist.

[00:17:36] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. And then your point of difference becomes. Either your modality or who you work with. So you might become a specialist practitioner or kind of advanced in your, I guess, understanding of EMDR, for example. Sure. And so then you become, you can establish being known for. EMDR therapy or working with, I dunno, eating [00:18:00] disorders.

[00:18:00] Marie Vakakis: So then the A-M-H-S-W title kind of goes to the bottom of the resume and all the other training you’ve done and what you start to hone your skills and refine your skills on that then becomes, I guess, the important thing. So it’s sort of like, you know, I was talking to my physio about this, like there’s an overlap between let’s say physio, osteo chiropractic, exercise, physiology, and maybe a really experienced personal trainer.

[00:18:25] Marie Vakakis: So it depends on what you need, who you might go to. Yeah. And it’s then, depending on. Maybe what either ailment they work with or what sport they work with. So you might have a very, very experienced physio who specialises in pelvic health. Now that’s gonna be of not much use to you. Mm. If you’re going in for tennis elbow.

[00:18:47] Marie Vakakis: Correct. So we struggle sometimes to communicate that messaging to her. To clients or to the general public, and I think to each other as well, it’s how do you hold lightly that A-M-H-S-W status? That’s just now the [00:19:00] starting point again, how do you then refine your expertise so you know who you can help, how you help them, how you then the referral pathways, what you screen for, how you cross refer.

[00:19:12] Marie Vakakis: I dunno, that was just a bit of a ramble, but I think that there’s, it’s a lot more. It’s another a lot more broad once you even get into that. So sometimes we think that that’s further specialising, but it’s almost like a sidestep and it opens up a whole other industry. 

[00:19:26] Ashton Hayes: Yeah, and I think it’s really interesting, and there’s a couple of things that you said that I wanted to expand upon.

[00:19:34] Ashton Hayes: The first one was that, you know, if we think about the difference between say, a mental health social worker on a. Secure site cord and an A-M-H-S-W and if someone’s in case management and casework and, and case coordination and feeling like, you know, I should be able to get the mental health accreditation.

[00:19:56] Ashton Hayes: The question I ask people when they’re unsure about [00:20:00] their role meeting criteria is if you were experiencing. Anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, whatever, borderline personality disorder or so on, would you go to you for treatment of that condition? And if the answer is no, I’d go to a treating mental health clinician, then it’s possible Your role doesn’t meet criteria, and that’s the way that you have to think about it.

[00:20:22] Ashton Hayes: Right? So like you said, you’re not going to go to a pelvic floor physio for tennis elbow. So it is important to have a think about what is the actual work that you are doing, and would you. Consider you the right clinician for that work 

[00:20:41] Marie Vakakis: or your child. I think sometimes people will be like, oh yeah, I might give it a go sick.

[00:20:44] Marie Vakakis: Okay. If your child, your 14-year-old daughter had signs of an eating disorder mm-hmm. And the GP referred them to your clone. Would that be suitable? Yeah. Yeah. And it’s not to diminish the skill, like you’re saying. It’s recognising that this is a [00:21:00] different skill within a certain funding model that can be learned.

[00:21:04] Marie Vakakis: We’ve learned it. I wasn’t born knowing this. Yeah. And not to feel disheartened. There might be things that you need to do to fill in the gaps, and that might be extra hours or a side hustle or working in a tangential kind of way until you build up that. Skillset. 

[00:21:22] Ashton Hayes: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, that was one of the things that I really struggled with when I decided on wanting to take the A-M-H-S-W pathway, and that was that.

[00:21:33] Ashton Hayes: Despite running therapeutic casework programs and teaching and trauma informed care and making sure that, you know, all of the caseworkers that were in my teams were trauma informed and providing that therapeutic support in terms of therapeutic casework, that I actually didn’t meet the criteria ’cause I wasn’t working as a treating clinician.

[00:21:53] Ashton Hayes: I’d been doing this work for a decade and I felt very confident in where I wanted to go, but I realised that I [00:22:00] had to add. Something else to the work that I was doing. The other thing that you mentioned was about the A-M-H-S-W being about getting a Medicare number essentially, and that is the major benefit of it, is that you can offer a rebate.

[00:22:14] Ashton Hayes: One thing that I’m noticing more and more is that there are agencies now asking for it, and I sometimes wonder. If they’re aware that the point of it is to get a Medicare number, the biggest benefit I should say, is to have a Medicare number. Now, certainly I’ve worked with a lot of really amazing supervisees who’ve said that, you know, for them it’s about professional development.

[00:22:37] Ashton Hayes: They don’t necessarily need the Medicare number right now, but it was something that they wanted to drill down on and and become focused on. Yeah, I’m always really curious about agencies who are asking for it, particularly those agencies who wouldn’t be in a position to be calling themselves Medicare providers.

[00:22:53] Marie Vakakis: I haven’t seen much of that. I can understand as someone who would recruit, why that would [00:23:00] be helpful considering we’re not a mandatory registered profession. Sure. And so to maintain your A-M-H-S-W status. You have to continue to meet those professional development hours and have supervision hours. So maybe it is a way to maintain a level of fidelity.

[00:23:18] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. Potentially. Or have a high level of maybe trust that these hours have been met. Rather than we have to have a kind of criteria as an organisation to self audit that it’s sort of an external body has recognised these hours count for this thing, and we can more comfortably say that this person has those particular skills.

[00:23:41] Ashton Hayes: Yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And I think. I just wanna reiterate that there have been times when I’ve spoken to people who get really upset about their roles not meeting criteria. Your role not meeting criteria is no indication of your skill or lack thereof. [00:24:00] It’s not about that at all. It’s simply a particular area that requires particular training.

[00:24:06] Ashton Hayes: The same as. Being a policy writing social worker, or the same as being a social worker who works in homelessness services or domestic and family violence services or eating disorders or whatever. Each particular area requires particular training, and there is no hierarchy of who’s better than whom.

[00:24:27] Ashton Hayes: It’s just about the areas that you wanna focus on. 

[00:24:29] Marie Vakakis: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s exciting that we have that pathway and it’s just one pathway. I’ve seen some and I have a number of team members who haven’t applied for their accreditation for a number of various reasons, and they’re fantastic therapists.

[00:24:46] Marie Vakakis: Yeah, of course. And then I have people who I’ve also employed, who are registered counselors who don’t attract a Medicare rebate. And are in high demand because they are excellent. And especially in the EMDR [00:25:00] space, you can’t do EMDR training without a certain level of qualification. So even just having an accredited EMDR practitioner mm-hmm.

[00:25:08] Marie Vakakis: That already speaks volumes about the work you’ve had to do, the supervision, you’ve had to do the fidelity checks in those videos that you submit. Yeah. So we can have some flexibility there. It’s just one pathway, and I think it’s, if I had known, I don’t know if I would’ve done this intentionally. It’s sort of, I stumbled across the pathway.

[00:25:27] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. 

[00:25:27] Marie Vakakis: I was happy. I was actually really thinking of going back and doing either a Master’s of Counseling and Psychotherapy or Masters of Public Health. I had both those interests. I keep flipping between the macro and micro, and I’m just as interested in both. And the job that I got, just focused more on the.

[00:25:45] Marie Vakakis: Counseling roles. And so I just went with that. But it’s never too, I might go back to something more. It’s never too late. Broad. Yeah. So that’s, it’s interesting how it evolves and how we get a squiggly career. But one thing I did actually, I was interviewed on a [00:26:00] podcast, I cannot remember whose podcast it was.

[00:26:02] Marie Vakakis: ’cause I, I do quite a few interviews and they asked me for a piece of advice for. I guess people starting out, and my big one was to have a hobby that has nothing to do with work that you can stay consistent with, and it can be pickleball, tennis, your local park run, rock climbing, knitting. I don’t care. I wish I had one consistent thing that when I was traveling, I could use that as a bit of an anchor point.

[00:26:30] Marie Vakakis: Mm-hmm. 

[00:26:31] Marie Vakakis: Preferably, I’m just saying preferably something creative or movement based. I think that compliments. The work we do, but we also know that’s really good for general mental health. 

[00:26:39] Ashton Hayes: Yeah. 

[00:26:40] Marie Vakakis: And to have people that you can be around, even if you’re in a, one of those knitting groups where you are sitting in silence.

[00:26:46] Marie Vakakis: But there’s something that we benefit from having places we can connect over a hobby or an interest that can span over our career and that can, we can take with us if we move states or move jobs or [00:27:00] sort of ground us. And I know that when we’re studying we can lose all our. Because it can feel really overwhelming at times, yet doing a, I know park runs a really good example, 5K run on a Saturday.

[00:27:12] Marie Vakakis: You’re over and done in an hour. If you maintain that every week or every fortnight for however many years, you slowly build community, you build connection, you have an anchor point and you can do it anywhere in the world. So that’s one of the things that I share with some of my supervisees is what do you have that’s.

[00:27:29] Marie Vakakis: A hobby that’s connecting. So not just read books is great. Join a book club. Like I’m really, I’m a really big advocate for having those connecting touchpoints. Mm-hmm. Uh, so I’ve started dance classes and an art class at the moment, so, and yoga’s probably been my most consistent theme. So if I’m traveling, I’ll find yoga classes or yoga workshops and connect with other yogis.

[00:27:51] Ashton Hayes: Do you have anything like that? Do you wanna come dancing with me? I do. Uh, do I wanna come dancing with you? Let’s discuss that. Do, how do your hips move? They [00:28:00] don’t move well these days. Uh, I used to love doing park run, but that’s, uh, long since passed for me. I crochet. I really enjoy crochet. It’s something that I learned to do in grade four at one of those school holiday programs, and it’s a hobby that I share with other members of my family.

[00:28:17] Ashton Hayes: And I think I connect with people through food. Anyone who follows my Instagram will see that every time I come to Melbourne there’s almost always posts about good food and coffee. So conversation with other people over food is on that. I very much enjoy. Yeah, I like food too. 

[00:28:37] Marie Vakakis: Any last minute or kind of final thoughts about this week’s topic?

[00:28:43] Marie Vakakis: ’cause next week we’ve got another juicy one around money. Money, mindset, money, beliefs, dollar signs. Yeah. 

[00:28:49] Ashton Hayes: I’m looking forward to talking about that. I think I just wanna wrap up by saying that as long as you feel inspired and. Split up [00:29:00] and engaged in what you’re doing. There is no. Specific defined quote unquote right path that you should be following.

[00:29:10] Ashton Hayes: Allow your career to be squiggly. Have those anchor points that you talked about and yeah, stay engaged with other social workers. We’re a great bunch. Yeah, we’re 

[00:29:21] Marie Vakakis: pretty good. I guess that’s it for this, this week’s series. Great. Hopefully folks have found it interesting and if you have a question you would like us to answer or a topic you think is.

[00:29:32] Marie Vakakis: Interesting. Let us know. We’d love to hear from you. You can, all the links to all our socials will be in the show notes, but let us know. This work can be sometimes a little bit isolating and lonely, and we feel like we’ve got a megaphone just speaking out into the unknown. So get in touch. Let us know what you think and how your squiggly journey’s going.

[00:29:49] Marie Vakakis: We’d love to hear from you.