A new way of working?
As a result of COVID-19 are we developing a new way of working or just making some changes for a time?
Today in our group supervision session, we discussed the changes in the work we are doing as a result of moving to online platforms for assessment and therapy. During our discussion we talked about whether this was the way of the world moving forward or just a temporary measure to get through COVID-19. One of our team had been engaged in a training session run by some of the Universities in relation to Telehealth and how this may look in the future as something to work toward and another had been in a forum the previous day with the Children’s Court Clinic.
We spoke about our experiences so far and how we felt about conducting both assessments and therapy online, initially with divided views, some saying that there was no substitute for face to face and others talking about a lack of difference between the methods. What we realised as a group is that it is really case dependent, and we need to be informed by our clients as to what is comfortable and what is going to work. Some clients shift to this change easily and find the secure web platforms preferable, whereas some struggle with the technology. Some of our therapy clients need a safe physical space, a room that can contain their feelings and a therapist to ground them in order to achieve introception or internal safety over what they are working through. Some can do this in a safe space in their home. Some are single parents and are unable to process big feelings with their children around and Telehealth sessions is just helping maintain their coping in the window of tolerance.
In relation to assessments, we spoke about the key being creativity, introducing other measures into the conversation, using apps and pre-preparing drawing and other things to engage with children like a virtual tour of their room. Staying online in an assessment and taking breaks so the potential carers can move around their home and engage in their lives. We also spoke about our toolkit as social workers or our micro skills and how we may need to use different micro skills. Some of us spoke about being more fatigued after an online interview due to the differing levels of attunement required to pick up on body language and nuance in speech to determine discomfort or emotion related to the content of discussion.
Some of us noticed that the recommendations were more specific as a result of the limitations and we spoke about the need for more opportunity to triangulate our information, between a caseworker’s observations of a child or an interaction with the carer and potentially a school teacher or day care that continue to observe a child’s behaviour.
Overall, what we agreed upon was that our work is becoming more dynamic and changing quickly, we need to move with the times, but not at the detriment of children, young people, families, and their safety. We need to be guided by our clients and meet them where they are at with safety and predictability. We need to be innovative, creative and strive for better teamwork to come up with recommendations and strategies to benefit our clients.