Ep. 46 – Professional Grief and the Wilderness of the Soul

Lis Murphy  00:08

Welcome to the Social Work Stories podcast everyone. My name is Lis Murphy, and I'm here with pillows around my head, looking at Dr. Mim Fox.

Mim Fox  00:18

Hi Lis love the pillows today. 

Lis Murphy  00:22

We're being guided by our wonderful producer and we've been told we have to make a pillow.

Mim Fox  00:28

Pillow podcast fort you know podcast

Lis Murphy  00:30

A pillow podcast fort, correct.

Mim Fox  00:32

That's right. I think we've gotten pretty good at that over COVID actually getting the pillow podcast for down pat.

Lis Murphy  00:39

I've never done a pillow podcast fort I've been in the cupboard. But now I've got two pillows in either hand around my head. So again, let it be said how much we love you listeners. That's right. Now, the other exciting thing about this episode is it's if we're going back to our roots. This is one of our traditional stories, where we have a beautifully, beautifully did I say beautifully told story by a social worker. It's a practice piece.

Mim Fox  01:12

Yeah, I really liked this story, Lis it grows as you listen to it as it goes along. And I was taken by surprise, actually at the depth to which this social worker goes to.

Lis Murphy  01:24

I love it. Because, in fact, Mim well, I'll start by saying it's a beautiful practice piece where the social worker talks about her work with two men, a father and son. And the involvement that she has, at the end of this father's life. I'm not going to go into too much detail because she does that. But what she also does is she weaves in what's informing her work, and also how it felt for her working with these two men. So this is one of these classic pieces that we'd say if this kind of supervision Gosh, I'd be happy.

Mim Fox  02:10

Yeah, it's a powerful piece, actually. Isn't it Lis.

Lis Murphy  02:13

Do you know what? It's a hammock piece. Because you and I can really kick back with this one because this beautiful social worker does all the work. So listeners take a listen to this beautiful story. We will come back and we're going with the less is more this episode because this social worker's done our job for us.

Mim Fox  02:33

Yeah we'll raise a few couple of things that we really liked in this story. But we're gonna let you really enjoy the sound of this social worker going deep in her reflections. in the work. Yeah. Yeah, enjoy everyone.

Social Worker  02:53

So to give you a bit of a background of the case example I'd like to discuss today I'm talking about, a man that I met through the course of my work, his name for this podcast will be Tony. He was a man in his 60s who had a new diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. I was referred to meet with Tony, pretty much at the time of diagnosis. In the outpatient clinic setting, this was his he was in the workup process for looking at, I guess what the diagnosis means to him and what the treatment options would be. And it was also contextualized by the fact that he was the primary carer for his son, Chris, who was in his 40s, who had an intellectual disability because of a genetic condition and was largely completely dependent upon Tony. 

So my referral was to meet with Tony to get a sense of where we're sitting amidst his new diagnosis and to look at what supports we could put in place for his son Chris. So I met him there in clinic started with a psychosocial assessment. Where I learnt that it really it was just Chris and Tony, that it had been them for a long time. Chris's mum had died early in his life. There was another child, but Tony was estranged from that child, so they weren't in their lives at all anymore. And Tony had one sister and his father who was alive but had dementia, and his mum had also already died. There was a very small package of care through the NDIS, or National Disability Insurance Scheme, which for anyone unfamiliar with the NDIS is the national scheme in Australia, which basically allocates a package budget for people with disabilities under the age of 65. And they have a lot of agency over how they use this budget, what kind of core supports that they need through it. And it would have really been, Tony, who was directing how they use this budget. Because they were largely self sufficient. There wasn't a huge budget in place, there was only a few short blocks of time each week, where Chris was taken out for social outings with a carer. There was no budget for accommodation, for example, which is something that would need to be funded through the NDIS. This somebody with disability to access, say, live in respite or a placement in a group home or something, any kind of residential facility. They did have a few close friends, and had, you know, led a very interesting life together that traveled to Vietnam. And the kind of vague future plan that was in place was one day for Chris and Tony to move to Vietnam when Tony was older. And for carers to be paid, there were, the cost would be dramatically lower than in Australia.

And there was no power of attorney or Will in place.  And in that first, like a social assessment with Tony, he was quite honest about the fact that this was something he'd put off, because it was quite hard to make those choices about what would happen for Chris in the future. And I guess one thing I'm very mindful of when I meet with people, as they've been diagnosed with cancer is, you know, there's so much information that they're given in terms of the cancer, the treatment options, what this is going to mean for them, that it's often best to focus on building rapport, maybe touch on some of the interventions that we might like to consider together. But not necessarily to, you know, go gung ho from that very first meeting, but just to sit with, I guess, whatever their focus or priorities are, to offer, you know, to ask the question, what would you like to discuss how much detail do you want to go in today? And what would you like to work on together.

And at that point, Tony, was quite clear that, you know, he was just trying to get his head around all of this, and what it would mean for him, and for Chris, the diagnosis was a big surprise to them. And, you know, he was happy for us to work on that in coming meetings. So the plan, you know, where we left it was to figure out exactly what was going to happen with the cancer treatment and to pick back up. And we kind of went over, you know, the importance of getting some of that advanced care planning or legal arrangements in place.  Unfortunately, within a week, Tony had a lot of abdominal symptoms and was admitted to hospital, this is a sudden admission. And just because of the sheer lack of other supports in their lives, Chris was also admitted alongside him as a social admission, for anybody who's not familiar with what a social admission means. It's really, you know, as it sounds, when there's no medical reason for them to be in an acute care hospital. But because of caring responsibilities or a lack of safety in the community, they're offered a hospital bed, it's usually something that's done for, you know, 24 to 48 hours while we make another plan. But unfortunately, in this case, there really was no other options immediately available for this family.

Also, unfortunately, within those first few days, scans were completed. And there was a dramatic spread to the disease. And the plan and treatment kind of rapidly shifted from what chemo was available to palliative care, the window for treatment had been missed. So this kind of rapidly intensified in terms of social work intervention, because it had gone from something where we had a bit of time and space to plan for the future to a prognosis of short weeks of life left for Tony. So understandably, you know, his biggest concern was, well, what's going to happen with Chris. There was a small amount of apprehension that maybe the estranged sibling might come back into the picture and that was something that Tony felt very strongly shouldn't happen.  So really, there was a focus on Okay, well, we need to get your wishes known and documented. Just so that they're there. You know that you've been the one and only primary care for Chris for his entire life, you know, they knew each other so intimately.

Tony really, you know, communicated beautifully with Chris who was nonverbal, and understood what he wanted and needed at all times, when nobody else really had that knowledge. He did have, you know, a couple of close carers Chris did who saw him and kept visiting him at their usual schedule during hospital, that obviously, you know, Tony was going through lots of different, you know, scans and kind of immediate treatments where he was maybe unavailable for a couple of hours, and we needed some backup support for Chris, in those hours, you know, the nurses couldn't provide him that one to one support all day. So it kind of quickly became very focused on well, what's the current package of care from the NDIS? Is there more respite, carers support funding available so that we could get carers in every day to be with Chris. During the day while Tony was occupied with a view to what's going to happen, as Tony's condition worsens, and he ultimately dies. 

So as you can imagine, there was a lot of calls to be made, you know, contacting the existing agency involved to find out if there had any scope for more carers to be put in place, they bent over backwards to find available carriers, to try to have a seven day coverage with a very meagre budget. The other focus was obviously on organizing a review of the NDIS plan urgently and escalating that through all of the available channels, to try to get a new, a new package of care for Chris, that would include accommodation, because he would need residential placement. As soon as possible, really. It was then also, you know, Tony's been playing the role of Support Coordinator of allocating the budget through Chris's life, we're going to need somebody to step into that role, because he's not able to do it. So, there was lots of calling around. As part of the review process as anyone who's done it before would know there's a lot of gathering history gathering information. And Chris, who is I guess, credit was very healthy, he'd had almost no contact with doctors, he didn't have a strong relationship with any GP, that only kind of newlyish moved home from Vietnam. So there was no you know, they didn't have the support network around them to gather that information easily. I was calling carers from you know, 10-15 years ago trying to gather a bit of history for Chris to put together for the plan review.

Unfortunately, there had also been incidents in the past where Chris had become quite aggressive, or when he was agitated, understandably. And they were always caused by a separation from Tony. So anytime that they were apart for more than a few hours, Chris didn't tolerate that change to his daily routine, and could become a bit aggressive. Which was definitely something to worry about as well within a hospital planning sense, because we need to make sure that Chris is safe, but also that all the workers are safe in the hospital, that we had a good risk management plan in place. He was a big man in his 40s very tall and physically imposing. So we wanted to make sure that it didn't escalate to the point where there was any physical threats to anybody.

And I guess I, you know, this time period, I think I could say, was an incredibly busy time period, lots of calling around that, that everybody who heard this story, essentially, you know, jumped over backwards to try to find a solution to make things happen far quicker than they normally would to support both Chris and Tony.  The NDIS was obviously kind of the big the big cog that needed to turn to get things happening. Ideally, we were looking towards, I guess, expanding the carers who Chris knew and trusted and then also building towards Tony being able to have a say in which facility he was most comfortable with finding the right home environment for Chris, and Chris, hopefully building up from, you know, perhaps spending a couple of hours to maybe even sleepovers and slowly building that comfort with the separation from Tony.

 Obviously, there was also the emotional aspect of well, how are we going to support Chris in his grief? What's it going to look like? You know, I have a small background in disability but not, you know, not enough that I felt comfortable with knowing what's the best thing to do in this situation. So it was really turning to the experts like the intellectual disability clinical nurse consultant that the hospital employed as well as the NDIS contacts. And I guess, because of the emotional nature of the case, you know, explaining to everybody involved and unfortunately, this is a new diagnosis, but the prognosis is measured in weeks, people were really willing to say, well, this is a contacted a support coordinator, who I know is fantastic and skilled in this area. And this is a psychologist who's skilled with people from neurodiverse, backgrounds and grief. And we were able to really harness all of the networks that we had to find the right supports for this family outside of the NDIS, or also just the practicalities of, you know, contacting the real estate, for example, to let them know why rent hadn't been paid, and that the tenancy would need to end.  Again, organizing a solicitor to finalize the paperwork, we were able to utilize the pro bono service through counts Council, New South Wales, to prioritize that and make sure that Tony was able to get his wishes down legally.

And, you know, amongst all of this frantic problem solving, there was also then, you know, myself having to take a deep breath before I went into the room each time to make sure that I was still presenting us calm and centered and offering that steadiness that I think social workers often bring in times of crisis, to move in slowly, and sit with Tony and talk about what this means for him, giving him the opportunity to reflect on his life, and the meanings that he'd attributed to his life events. The love that he had for Chris, and how important that had been that it had really directed his entire life. He, you know, having spent that time in Vietnam had some Buddhist leanings. So philosophically, there was a lot he wanted to reflect on, you know, what he believed as purpose in life through, you know, serving others, and having deep abiding connections with other humans. I think something that he was really proud of that he had been able to support his son as beautifully as he had throughout his life. 

There were also, I think, quite difficult conversations. That required, I think, a lot of bravery on both of our behalf, stepping into that space of what do you want for Chris, after you're gone? Both in the general, lifelong sense, but also in that really immediate sense of once you've died? Would you like him to have the opportunity to see your body? How could we support him best in that moment? Recognizing, you know, he's the expert on on, Chris, how would he see that happening? And I think I was very moved by Tony's capacity to imagine that, and to direct that he felt it was important that Chris be given the opportunity to see his body to maybe hold his hand. He said that, you know, Chris often woke him up in the morning by touching him. So that that, you know, he would imagine that would be a moment where Chris would come to touch him and nothing happened. And that might be when the reality set in for him, but that we should give him the opportunity. He was also a little concerned that maybe this would lead to, you know, a lot of agitation for Chris and how we could manage that.  That we also then looked at more, what does Chris enjoy what suits him he loved coloring in so can we make sure that that's available so that he can dip in and out of that intensity of seeing his father's body as he needed? He also loves snacks. Could we have some snacks, ready, some chocolates, any of that really soothing grounding stuff that any of us turn to in moments of stress, and just make sure that that was well documented? Did so whether it happened at 2am, or on a weekend that everybody there knew what was available, what the plan was, what their role could be.

I think through these conversations, I was really guided by the Companionship Model of Grief, which was set out by Dr. Alan Wolfelt, who I think is a grief educator and counselor. And he really talks about that importance in grief that I really use it for all of my practice, about focusing on curiosity over expertise, that can companioning is about being present, but being present and bearing witness to struggles without directing or trying to take those struggles away. But that's not within our capacity. We're not there to be experts. But it's about bearing witness, in going into the wilderness of the soul with another with another human being, it's not about thinking you're responsible for finding the way out. And about listening with the heart. Not just analyzing with the head.  And I think that that's something that I you know, I think all of us feel that drive, we're part of why we get into this work is to fix and to help and to feel like we've contributed that it's also giving ourselves the freedom to not feel like that's, you know, something that we can do, we can't take this pain away, I couldn't cure his cancer, but I could be there with him. I could walk alongside. And I learned from him about what he felt was best, which is definitely something I've taken away from the experience. 

So one afternoon, it was a Friday afternoon, it was, you know, becoming obvious that time was limited that, you know, anytime I left for the day could be the last time that I saw him. So I went back in really just to have that conversation that we had done everything that we needed to do that all of the plans were in place. There's a bit of a belief, I suppose in palliative care that people really need that permission to die. And it's not a role that I would ever see as being part of my role. That's the family, that's the gift that they give their loved ones. But in this instance, I knew that it was unlikely that anyone in his life was having that conversation with him. I still didn't want to have you know, as intimate relationships, as I'm sure many of those are. But I wanted to let him know that all of the practical things or the things that he thought were important for Chris's future were done. So we had that conversation, everything was in place that he now could just be at peace and focus on what was most important to him. I said goodbye, leaving him with the idea that he should be so proud of himself for what he'd achieved. And I went back to my office and probably 15 minutes later, as I was packing up, I think I was writing my notes for the day, got the page that he had died. So I went back around. And unfortunately, in the nature of the way that he died, there was some blood involved, Chris witnessed it all. But, you know, we had so much thought and planning into how we would manage it, that everybody went right into the roles that they had prepared. The nurses, the doctors, they were all supporting Tony, I went and was relieved by several different nursing staff and sitting with Chris in offering in that calm presence and engaging him with the things he enjoyed and coloring in with chocolates.

And when it was time we offered him we decided it would be less confronting for him if I was alone in the room with him with him and Tony but two nursing staff did wait outside listening in in case he did get agitated. And we offered him that time to say goodbye to his dad.  So as we discussed earlier, I explained to him that unfortunately, his dad had died and now is the time to say goodbye. And would it be okay if I pulled the curtain open? He said it was and he actually was fairly reluctant to get up to see his dad, which I really took as a sign he knew exactly what had happened. He very tentatively did come over eventually slowly at his own pace and did touch his dad once and then kind of quickly retreated back to his spot on the chair and picked up the coloring again. To me, it was very clear that, you know, it was important that he'd had this time to have the opportunity that also that he, you know, he'd done as much as he could tolerate. And that would say goodbye. 

Shortly after that, everything that we'd put in place was kind of enacted. The next morning we organised for Chris to be transferred to the residential facility that he'd been spending a bit of time at with the carer that he was most comfortable with. The psychologist was planning to meet with him in the coming days. And, you know, really support him through that grief. And I heard several weeks later that it had really gone pretty smoothly that he settled in well, to his new facility, he was enjoying his time outside. But there were still many moments where it was obvious, he was missing his dad, that he was grieving in his way. But, you know, the worst of what we'd expected could happen, the agitation, aggression, aggression, you know, pure distress hadn't happened. And I really believe that's because, you know, in this case, it was the multidisciplinary team, both in hospital and in the community, that it was the sum of all parts working together for the best possible outcome in a really tragic situation.  I heard several weeks later, from the facility that he was at that it that he'd settled in really well, that he was engaging with the psychologist, he was still seeing those same carers who had met both before and during hospital. You know, that there were times where it was, you know, pretty obvious he was missing Tony. But that he was, you know, enjoying settling into his new home, which was really nice to hear. I guess for us is somebody described the process, the next day is transformative, of kind of witnessing the pain that we all felt in that moment, but that we just all stayed calm and focused on the work ahead of us.

And I think that's something that I've really taken away, I guess there's this emerging concept of professional grief, which is something I've only come across in literature, probably the last year or year and a half. That it was kind of, I think, this really shows it that we work with such suffering, there's so much intensity and intimacy to the work that we do everywhere in social work. I mean, this is an example about end of life that everywhere, has that same shared personal nature to it. And that there's a quote from Dr. Rachel Rehman. And I guess the crux of it is dealing with suffering every day and not expecting to be touched by it is as realistic as walking through water and expecting not to get wet. And I think that's something that's come out for me is that no amount of self care or good supervision none of that will protect us from the feeling of professional grief ourselves grief for the people that we've known for the losses that we've witnessed, and that it's more about than creating those little rituals ourselves to say goodbye to the people that we've known in the course of our work, to grieve the losses that we ourselves feel. And that's not a sign of poor boundaries or transference. It's just a sign of being humans doing human work, a sign of our compassion that should be honored, not protected against. And I think that's, you know, probably the message that I most want to share is that that's a normal healthy part of social work is feeling those different griefs and finding a way to work through them ourselves.

Mim Fox  29:17

Lis I really love this story. It swept me away. And mainly it's because when I started listening to it, I thought we were listening to a story about disability support and case coordination. It's an end of life piece. I kept getting a bit confused and I kept and I knew I knew it was an end stage story. And it was about grief but because the social worker went into such depth and detail around the Disability Support and case coordination, the NDIS and the back and forth of all that work. I kind of got sidetracked and got stuck into that. And then I kept getting pulled back and remembering that actually this is a story about grief. And it made me think about the fact that there is no story that's just about grief because grief interweaves into all of our work all of the time. There's never a possible start point and end point for grief work.

Lis Murphy  30:15

No. And so when you're thinking about well, this is a beautiful piece of therapy that she is doing with Tony. And linking it to that beautiful model of companioning.

Mim Fox  30:28

Oh, yeah. Yes. That I think she Yes, she did speak about the companionship model and described it in a way actually, Lis, I haven't heard it described like that, before. She summarized it, and all the stages and elements of it perfectly.

Lis Murphy  30:41

But it's a model that suits social work. Yeah, that's a non expertise role that she played. Yeah, the pacing herself with Tony. And also with Chris, a very, it actually sounded like it was a gentle model for a gentle social worker.

Mim Fox  30:57

You know, what the phrase I loved was the diving into the wilderness of the soul, or stop it center. Beautiful. I just thought that's exactly what grief is like that, actually, you're in the wilderness with someone. And what she said was the social worker role isn't about guiding that person out. It's about sitting with them in the wilderness, witnessing the wilderness.

Lis Murphy  31:20

And so back to your point, then, yeah, so there were those beautiful moments where it was pure grief work? Yeah. But there was lots and lots and lots of task- focused work that she had to get through in order to do that work. So they couldn't have been done. The grief work couldn't have been done in isolation from the the work that she had to do with NDIS.

Mim Fox  31:45

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Because he actually, as she said, he couldn't really seek permission to die before those elements of the care for his son were resolved right?

Lis Murphy  31:58

No parent could have died, knowing that or not knowing that their son was going to be cared for.

Mim Fox  32:05

And the honoring that she did have the relationship that he had had with his son, right. The absolute honoring of the beauty of that connection, astounding,

Lis Murphy  32:14

I've got to say, Yeah, hats off to that oncology Ward, because it wouldn't be a lot of oncology wards that would have had the son admitted in the same Ward as the dad I mean, such compassion.

Mim Fox  32:29

And the support that they showed when the man actually died, to follow the plan that had been laid out. And when she went to check on the ward, and she saw that they were actually being faithful to the plan, and that they were all on the same page. I mean, my heart was breaking listening to that Lis, because actually, that's exactly what coordinated care should look like.

Lis Murphy  32:48

And Tony's timing was fine. You know, Friday afternoon, Friday afternoon death is never ever one of those ones that you particularly want. Yes, social worker noted that she was packing up, yes. But that he did it so that she was able to get back. So she was able to be present. for that. Yeah. Be there with Chris.

Mim Fox  33:11

It's a beautiful sense of closure. You don't always get right. Yeah, half an hour later. And she wouldn't have known about this until Monday morning.

Lis Murphy  33:19

They might have brought it they might have brought in an on call social worker, I don't know. But they wouldn't have had the consistency in relation to the staff , the clients. And I would imagine that Chris needed that as much as possible.

Mim Fox  33:34

Absolutely, absolutely. Lis Can we touch on professional grief?

Lis Murphy  33:39

I want to touch on that. Definitely. The notion of professional grief.

Mim Fox  33:43

This not one that we talk about much. We've talked in this podcast about compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma, the impact of our work on ourselves. But this notion of professional grief is really an interesting one. And she was talking about the need for us to have a ritual or to really acknowledge the impact that working with grief and suffering everyday has on us. And it took me right back Lis to when I used to work in the intensive care unit. And I used to there were a lot of people who died who didn't have family and friends support around them. The area I was working in there actually was quite a high number of people who died in that situation. And what I found was that for those people, particularly but then it became for everybody who died in the unit. I needed to acknowledge the end of their life in some way. And so I remember that I used to go and light candles it was I didn't have a fire alarm in my office. And so I would actually light a candle for each death as I walk worked in that unit, just to take a moment and acknowledge the life that was and the life that ended and it took me right back there Lis because I love that it was so important to me.  And what a beautiful way of acknowledging those people's lives and the impact that they had just for those moments that you had with them. But did you share that with anyone?  Never, I never spoke because I thought it would be weird. And that's what she said, actually, what this social worker said was that often it's not a socially supported thing to think about the impact of grief on ourselves, because we're supposed to be stoic. But actually, that's really interesting s that I never actually spoke to anyone about it, I felt like it would be seen as me not being strong enough or not coping. Whereas I know, for me, it was really important. And it was an intensive care unit. So it's not like I've even spoken with these people. Right. But I had done so much work around them while they were on the ventilators and with their families or not, in the case of people who had no one that actually was more an acknowledgment of a life that was lived and a life that ended.

Lis Murphy  35:58

What if? What if we, as social workers, acknowledged our professional grief more? Could there be a link with the vicarious trauma, that compassion fatigue that we're seeing? What if this is part of it? What if social workers are not feeling like they're able to discuss the impact of their work in a way that you've just described, or this particular social workers described? What if that could be one way that social workers could care for themselves in the work that they do, to be able to talk about it with their supervisor, to be able to reflect on what they're needing to do in order to honor the work that they had done with that particular client? Yeah, to give themselves permission to actually feel a sense of loss. As a result of working with that particular person.

Mim Fox  36:58

And to not see that sense of loss as a deficit, right, to actually embrace the vulnerability that comes with being a worker, and coming close to issues of mortality, and the very vulnerable and emotional space that we work in all the time to rather than seeing that emotional and vulnerable space as the other to actually see it as a part of something that we are interwoven with. Right.

Lis Murphy  37:25

I think you're right.

Mim Fox  37:26

I think that that feels like a missing piece.

Lis Murphy  37:31

That's what we need to do some reflection and conversations around more.

Mim Fox  37:36

Yeah, I think so too. And I think when we talk about self care, it often becomes this very vague abstract notion, or it becomes extremely practical. Have you gone to yoga? Have you done meditation? Have you had your lunch break? Right? But this is the intangible around self care, right? That it's actually not about fixing it. It's not about the solution. It's about how you cope with the ongoing process of your work. Yes, the every day, and

Lis Murphy  38:09

And about paralleling some of the support or information that we would we would provide to our clients about grief? What if some of that is very useful for ourselves in relation to professional grief? So normalizing processing? Rituals? Yeah. Being vulnerable in that space, in a safe space? Yeah.

Mim Fox  38:39

Well, this was not where this conversation was gonna go. Never is where we started. This was not the place where we're heading. But listeners, welcome to the inside of our brains, and, and our hearts. And and I guess this is a challenge that we put out there to our listeners, right is do some thinking around where where does this conversation land for you?

Lis Murphy  39:01

But we said from the outset, that if this, this social worker brought this to supervision, yeah, what a beautiful, what a beautiful session. That would be. Yeah. And that's what we're talking about. This is what supervision can sound like,

Mim Fox  39:19

yeah, I Yes, I agree with you. And actually, if you're willing to be vulnerable in supervision, and if you, as a supervisor, are willing to create that safe, safe space and honor the process for your supervisee then actually, this is the dialogue you can be having. Right. It's a really significant shift.

Lis Murphy  39:38

And such a rich conversation and so useful in our work.

Mim Fox  39:43

Yeah, completely completely. Lis, I'm thinking we leave it there. And I am really looking forward to hearing from the listeners whether this has landed with them and you know, what's resonated about this conversation? I'm good, I think I'm going to be sitting with it for a little while, actually, my mind is still churning it over. Listeners, please get in touch. And let us know your thoughts and where you're at at the moment. And at the moment, we're also doing a call out for stories. So if any social workers out there have some interesting stories from their practice at the moment that they'd like to record on a Voice Memo app and send it in for us, or if there's been a story that has been impacted, because of COVID, some of your practice that's been backed up by COVID, we're particularly interested in hearing stories about that, and being able to showcase that sort of work. And in order to do that Lis, people need to contact us through social media, which is fantastic. So it's socialworkstories pod, and we are on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook now. Amazing. And, of course, we have our website, www.socialwork stories.com. So our website is going through a bit of a revival. So people may see some changes coming in the next few weeks or so, and, and we're hoping that we can link some more information to the episodes and transcripts and things like that. And if you're not sure how to get in contact with us, even after this amazing little spiel that I've just done. It's all in your show notes at the bottom on your podcast app. So please reach out and get in touch. Did you like that Lis?

Lis Murphy  41:31

I loved it? Yeah. Which leaves me with goodbye.

Mim Fox  41:36

Farewell everyone. Take care of yourselves. See you soon.