Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Guest Host: Kate Fylan interviews Dr Mary Jo McVeigh. Seanchaí - Social Work Wisdom

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Guest Host: Kate Fylan interviews Dr Mary Jo McVeigh. Seanchaí - Social Work Wisdom · The Trauma Therapist

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to the special guest host series of the Trauma
0:06
Speaker 1: Theverris podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
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Speaker 1: mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
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Speaker 1: hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
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Speaker 1: you in all the while keeping the heart of this
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Speaker 1: podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
0:26
Speaker 2: I'm Kate Farlan and I would like to acknowledge and
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Speaker 2: thank you guy for having me as a guest, guest editor,
0:34
Speaker 2: guest proadcaster. I don't know when you call the title
0:38
Speaker 2: of Mary Joe and as Mary John I will acknowledge
0:42
Speaker 2: each other, do you gwitch. I'm coming today from the
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Speaker 2: land of the Guy im Agle people and acknowledge and
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Speaker 2: I'm very grateful to be in this space and acknowledge
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Speaker 2: their care and ongoing custodianship. Not just the Guy A
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Speaker 2: Agle people, but all the Aboriginal peoples of Australia have.
1:01
Speaker 2: I'm very wow to be able to introduce and interview
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Speaker 2: Mary Joe today. Mary Joe mcphae is a social worker
1:10
Speaker 2: with four decades of experience, primarily in children chold protection,
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Speaker 2: children's participation, children and family services, domestic violence, recently became
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Speaker 2: Doctor mcphae or Doc mj or Doc mcphae, having completed
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Speaker 2: her PhD. So she also has the huge responsibility of
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Speaker 2: bringing our next generation of social workers into into being Wow.
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Speaker 2: She has lived experience of the British occupation of Ireland,
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Speaker 2: lived experience of the patriarchal system that is the family
1:49
Speaker 2: law court. She's an amazing mom of two beautiful grown
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Speaker 2: up boys now sometimes grown up. And I am very
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Speaker 2: very grateful to have had Mary Joe as my mentor
2:04
Speaker 2: and now Macara for coming up to yeah eighteen years
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Speaker 2: nearly So yeah, thank you mahago im j for being
2:17
Speaker 2: part of this.
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Speaker 3: Yeah wow, Lauramoga kid and which is thank you in
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Speaker 3: our indigenous tongue. And it was beautiful for you to
2:27
Speaker 3: greet me in our in our first language. And my
2:31
Speaker 3: response to Kit would be jas moragch And I'm coming
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Speaker 3: in for the land of the Wongo.
2:36
Speaker 4: People, the people of the West here in Sydney, in
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Speaker 4: the Home Bush basin, and I looked like a window.
2:41
Speaker 4: I can see one or two gom trees left before invasion,
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Speaker 4: there would have been a lot more gum trees in
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Speaker 4: the Home Bush basin. But then there's one or two
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Speaker 4: left and made those trees which are standing and enduring
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Speaker 4: invasion be representation the first nations, peoples of this country standing.
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Speaker 4: It's lovely to be here with you, and of course
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Speaker 4: with my copper tea.
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Speaker 2: Well that's where this kind of I've gotten amazing. It's
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Speaker 2: not my question, it's one that you shared with me
3:13
Speaker 2: recently that I went, wow, this is what I want.
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Speaker 2: You know, this is just the essence of the wisdom
3:20
Speaker 2: that you hold and that you share, And it's kind
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Speaker 2: of like in the tay leaves, the wisdom that is
3:26
Speaker 2: there is you. So yeah, the first question that I
3:29
Speaker 2: wanted to kind of open up today with was a
3:32
Speaker 2: participant as student. I think a social work student asked
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Speaker 2: you when you were talking, you know, I think it
3:40
Speaker 2: was a domestic violence module or a told protection module
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Speaker 2: that you were teaching or to touring guiding them in.
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Speaker 2: And the question was, you know, what is the difference
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Speaker 2: between that twenty one year old Mary Joe McVay social
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Speaker 2: worker that had completed her university to four decades later?
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Speaker 2: What is the difference?
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Speaker 4: Yeah, it was actually it was the week before I
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Speaker 4: went back to send in the university to teach social workers.
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Speaker 4: It was a agency. But again it was one of
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Speaker 4: the younger social workers. She's literally just graduated, and the
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Speaker 4: training course was engaging in kind of robust conversations with
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Speaker 4: parents and I must have been describing something and she
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Speaker 4: said to me, you mine, have I asked the question
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Speaker 4: which is not quite on the curriculum, And that was
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Speaker 4: a question she said, to know what was the difference
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Speaker 4: between the twenty one year old social worker and you
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Speaker 4: and I? And you know, those moments, Kate, were the well,
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Speaker 4: you know when Grace walks into the room and you
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Speaker 4: feel the air stirring around you, and you know it's
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Speaker 4: a significant moment. And I think her question opened that
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Speaker 4: beautiful portal for me to be thinking back on those
4:56
Speaker 4: forty plus years. And I, basically, with great honesty, said,
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Speaker 4: the twenty one year old had no godn my dear
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Speaker 4: what she was doing. She knew to be led by
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Speaker 4: her heart. That was certainly then and stillers now. I
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Speaker 4: mean the heart's probably a little bit more bruised, but
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Speaker 4: still as big. And I had the wit to not
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Speaker 4: say anything, thinking that I should be saying something because
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Speaker 4: I was so collporate, potessional. But I just remember kind
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Speaker 4: of sitting in her company. But had no sense of
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Speaker 4: where to go next, whereas over the years, sitting in
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Speaker 4: the presence of people as they generously and painfully and
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Speaker 4: bravely and all other descriptions share their life stories with me,
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Speaker 4: I know I know how to continue that conversation. And
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Speaker 4: it's interesting because at the end of that training course
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Speaker 4: and as you know, you do the Ryan and said,
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Speaker 4: so what you learn the result of this course and
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Speaker 4: I always expect, you know, the fancy footwork all this
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Speaker 4: time was content. So many of them said the thing
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Speaker 4: that was most importance that we were deeply grateful you took
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Speaker 4: the truth. And I said, well, you told the truth
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Speaker 4: that the twenty one you had no clue what you're doing.
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Speaker 4: And I said, well, sweeties, if any you know trailer
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Speaker 4: or so called guru tells you that you everything at
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Speaker 4: twenty one, it's nat true. I think we grow with
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Speaker 4: the years, and we certainly grow as we listen to
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Speaker 4: two people. So yeah, it's a very beautiful moment, and
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Speaker 4: I've held it in my heart. And then when when
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Speaker 4: it's you know, spoken out to you, and then you
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Speaker 4: said about having this conversation, so thank you here for
6:27
Speaker 4: that little bit participant was to give me that gift and.
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Speaker 2: Rolling from that I have so, you know, I have
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Speaker 2: so many questions about everything always when you think about
6:39
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of honesty in bringing yourself to
6:42
Speaker 2: that moment with like really kind of early careers social
6:45
Speaker 2: workers and balancing, you know, that kind of acknowledgment to you,
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Speaker 2: like was your experience throughout the four years of past
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Speaker 2: four decades of social work? Like was that an emergent
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Speaker 2: or did you find you were always in that place
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Speaker 2: at twenty one where you could fully show yourself, say
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Speaker 2: to somebody that was you know, a manager or you know,
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Speaker 2: even a client that might have a different you know,
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Speaker 2: like a male client that has maybe you know, a
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Speaker 2: different power dynamic or a different you know something, do
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Speaker 2: you find yeah powerful questions?
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Speaker 4: I tell what jumped into my head straight away is
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Speaker 4: that those of us who survived different forms of oppression
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Speaker 4: and violences know how to hold our council and when
7:30
Speaker 4: to speak out and when not to speak out, And
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Speaker 4: we need to hold our stories sometimes speaking out well,
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Speaker 4: sometimes it's dangerous and certainly my experience have been brought
7:40
Speaker 4: up in Belfast in the petitioned six counties of our
7:43
Speaker 4: beautiful land. You couldn't speak your truth always, and so
7:48
Speaker 4: it was definitely context driven. When I went to work
7:52
Speaker 4: in London, I very quickly learned that as well. And
7:55
Speaker 4: I was during a training course and I was the
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Speaker 4: only person who was Irish in the room, and I
8:02
Speaker 4: said something from a perspective which wasn't just a feminist perspective,
8:06
Speaker 4: it was also colonial post colonial analysis, and I was
8:11
Speaker 4: literally jumped upon by the participants in the room. I
8:15
Speaker 4: also remember experiences, one particular experience working in social services
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Speaker 4: South London, where the area manager thought appropriate to start
8:24
Speaker 4: the training day that we're top of the whole area
8:27
Speaker 4: with a joke which he called an Irish joke, which
8:29
Speaker 4: I said to people, by the way, it's not an
8:31
Speaker 4: Irish juke, it's anti Irish juke. But anyway, so I
8:34
Speaker 4: very quickly learned as a service from that place of
8:37
Speaker 4: survivance is when the spigoute and we're not the spig.
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Speaker 4: Iude haven't said that. The place where which for me
8:45
Speaker 4: I experienced as the more safe grid or the more
8:51
Speaker 4: generic grid, was with the people I served. And that's
8:54
Speaker 4: people we call clients, not colleagues with clients. And I
8:59
Speaker 4: mean honestly, I don't mean honestly about necessarily telling them
9:02
Speaker 4: in my story, but honestly about my practice. And I
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Speaker 4: remember one of the last, not the last, but one
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Speaker 4: of the last pieces of work I did here in
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Speaker 4: chain protection, and I made a decision to transfer the
9:15
Speaker 4: care of this young boy from his grandmother to another
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Speaker 4: family member because of her relationship with alcohol and how
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Speaker 4: that was affecting the care of our child, her grandson.
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Speaker 4: And I was leaving to she made me a present,
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Speaker 4: and you want to give it to me? And I
9:33
Speaker 4: had to say her. I said, I will accept your
9:36
Speaker 4: the gift of your giving, but not the gift because
9:38
Speaker 4: we still had to go to children's corner. And I
9:41
Speaker 4: can still see myself walking down as we pathway at
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Speaker 4: her front door, walking in the path, and she's come
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Speaker 4: with me, and I walked out the gate, and I
9:48
Speaker 4: turned around and said her, I have to ask you.
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Speaker 4: I said, why in the name of all that is
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Speaker 4: would you make me a present? Considering I've you know,
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Speaker 4: I've told you about my decision answer for care, and
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Speaker 4: mind you, I did send the report that she was
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Speaker 4: to be afforded all her your grandmotherly role and and
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Speaker 4: you know, and seeing the boy, said why would you
10:10
Speaker 4: do that? And you turned around to me and again
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Speaker 4: not my fancy skills or the fancy food work. You
10:15
Speaker 4: said from the moment I met you, you were honest,
10:18
Speaker 4: and I knew I was going to get so that
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Speaker 4: form of honesty that what you mean in practice, that's
10:23
Speaker 4: always been with me, always, always, always, but survival and
10:28
Speaker 4: greater systems, No painfully, no fearfully now.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's yeah, beautiful, thank you. I can't let
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Speaker 2: the survivans go. Yeah, yeah, I heard it. And yeah,
10:51
Speaker 2: I think you know, particularly maybe for this is that
10:53
Speaker 2: you know, aren't you know here survival survivor, But yeah,
10:59
Speaker 2: would you take a moment to talk about survivors and
11:02
Speaker 2: you know what and how it's meant for you? And yeah,
11:07
Speaker 2: I suppose how it translates into, you know, the work
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Speaker 2: that we do and the people that we serve.
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Speaker 4: Yeah, deeply, deeply, deeply grateful for the First Nations, American
11:16
Speaker 4: First Nations writer Great Turtleland I call it America writer
11:21
Speaker 4: at Visnor and Vile who put that they give me
11:25
Speaker 4: that word when they were talking about their people. As
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Speaker 4: I was reading it, I'm even getting goosebumps, I kid,
11:31
Speaker 4: as I was reading, I'll go, oh my gosh, all
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Speaker 4: my life I have searched for a word about certainly
11:38
Speaker 4: my experience, my personal experience, and I'm assuming experience a
11:41
Speaker 4: lot of my Irish ancestry and peers who knew how
11:48
Speaker 4: to not just survive what we went through, but do
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Speaker 4: so with like space, you know, survival with attitude basically,
12:01
Speaker 4: and visitor talked about like kind of joined the word
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Speaker 4: survival and resistance and joining that word, and sometimes the
12:10
Speaker 4: words resistance and rebel come into my hand when I
12:13
Speaker 4: think about it. I'm also aware that some of those
12:16
Speaker 4: terms for other people can be connected to armed struggle
12:21
Speaker 4: and like war, and as someone who's lived under the
12:25
Speaker 4: shadow men in an army tankle and gun, I cannot
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Speaker 4: you know, not come. I do use the words like resistance, rebel, against,
12:33
Speaker 4: but for me survivance was, ah, that's it, so, you know,
12:39
Speaker 4: maintaining yourself and your life. And then I noticed my
12:43
Speaker 4: work with people who have been oppressed by different forms
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Speaker 4: of violence, and the people that I happen to work with,
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Speaker 4: mostly children, young people and adults who have been oppressed
12:53
Speaker 4: by different forms of violences which we call malt treatment
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Speaker 4: or abuse, and thinking about some of the most incredible
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Speaker 4: moments and conversation whe would be laughing like would be laughing,
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Speaker 4: would be spicy about the odd curse word was thrown in.
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Speaker 4: There was that creative ways of them that these children
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Speaker 4: young people are adults were telling me that they navigated
13:23
Speaker 4: their life through those little different phones vinds. I'm also
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Speaker 4: thinking about again with the Irish people by our songs
13:32
Speaker 4: at our music, at our dance, and I watched the
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Speaker 4: piece on YouTube the other day and I don't know,
13:38
Speaker 4: it still makes me cry when I hear people singing
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Speaker 4: and Irish because you know, my first tongue was so
13:46
Speaker 4: deprived and from me probably why it makes me cry.
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Speaker 4: But also when they were singing the night and someone
13:51
Speaker 4: was dancing, and you'll know this kid and anybody who's
13:54
Speaker 4: listening who hasn't seen Iris dancing, please watch it. Those
13:57
Speaker 4: of you have. Despite some of the I don't know,
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Speaker 4: the unfortunate and the Irish sentiments I've seen around Irish dancing,
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Speaker 4: it's a very powerful and I will say the word
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Speaker 4: resistance movement and the energy of the body and the
14:16
Speaker 4: uplifting of it, and so again from a personal experience,
14:21
Speaker 4: but they're also the same with doing therapeutic work, where
14:24
Speaker 4: I've done singing, dancing, garden and Painton. What have we
14:28
Speaker 4: not told the children, young people? And so it's that lovely,
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Speaker 4: lovely energy, which is, we are more than the sum
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Speaker 4: of the oppression that you put us through. And we're
14:39
Speaker 4: still here and we're still laughing and dancing, ancing and gardening.
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Speaker 2: And sewing as well. And I would like to bring
14:51
Speaker 2: to awareness you're amazing Wrapped, which is a therapeutic sewing
14:56
Speaker 2: program for children and adults with the years of data
15:01
Speaker 2: to support the Yeah, the outcome. I knew we'd struggle
15:06
Speaker 2: with time, Amjay, this is yeah, so we're getting but
15:13
Speaker 2: I suppose I wanted to kind of bring it back
15:16
Speaker 2: to you know, survivance, bringing yourself to the work, that
15:20
Speaker 2: honesty that for so, how we started off was you
15:25
Speaker 2: or my clinical supervisor being told to go because it
15:29
Speaker 2: was a service requirement, not because I was naughty too
15:32
Speaker 2: much or.
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Speaker 4: A rebel too much.
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Speaker 2: But for me that was like the first experience of
15:41
Speaker 2: being able to bring myself to my full self in
15:44
Speaker 2: terms of you know, to somebody that was in a
15:47
Speaker 2: position of you know power or you know authority, which
15:51
Speaker 2: you know, clinical supervision still holds that element of the
15:55
Speaker 2: supervisor holding that and however, my experience was you know
16:00
Speaker 2: the space where yes, I could be completely honest on
16:05
Speaker 2: the you know, the you know the mistakes, the celebrated
16:09
Speaker 2: for the stuff that I did well and fully held
16:11
Speaker 2: in those moments were you know, you do struggle, and
16:16
Speaker 2: I wondered whether there was you know, a journey that
16:20
Speaker 2: that became you know, your place or you know, what
16:25
Speaker 2: was it about you that you know, brought not just
16:28
Speaker 2: from your experience of doing and bringing yourself, but bringing
16:32
Speaker 2: that into four say, early years social workers that you
16:37
Speaker 2: have yeah, guided.
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Speaker 4: Well, beautiful question and again in a place of truth.
16:43
Speaker 4: I was fed up with the pain of internalized colonization.
16:46
Speaker 4: I was fed up with a kid. I was fed
16:49
Speaker 4: up with the pain. And not just like Irish colonization.
16:52
Speaker 4: I'm taught about a Western biomedical model of human suffering
16:57
Speaker 4: and human healing and me, well, I mean, you know,
17:01
Speaker 4: you don't study into a PhD without reading lots and
17:03
Speaker 4: lots and lots of stuff. So I'm not sending to
17:05
Speaker 4: throw that all out, but within it words like emmissionment
17:10
Speaker 4: and keep your boundaries, and I'm curious about the purpose
17:14
Speaker 4: of that, what does it exclude and what it said
17:17
Speaker 4: to us as practitioners out there. And then so that
17:20
Speaker 4: for me, there's that struggle, and I thought, do not
17:22
Speaker 4: be yourself major, do not be yourself in the same
17:25
Speaker 4: with colleagues and whatnot. Yet find the self that I
17:29
Speaker 4: used in service of my plans was exactly the self
17:32
Speaker 4: that was the most effective. And then I started noticing
17:35
Speaker 4: when people asked me to supervise them, consult them the same.
17:39
Speaker 4: I can't say pain because I don't know if they
17:41
Speaker 4: would use that word, but certainly as a witness, and
17:44
Speaker 4: I just wanted to say, be the self, like when
17:48
Speaker 4: I think about you, Oh my gosh, I delightful. You
17:52
Speaker 4: use yourself and servers of others. Why would any profession
17:57
Speaker 4: want to box that and say no, you can't do that.
18:00
Speaker 4: But because within that is still disciplined. We're not meshed,
18:05
Speaker 4: we don't have pro boundaries. In fact, is very very
18:07
Speaker 4: disciplined to be able to use the self and service
18:10
Speaker 4: of father. And you celebrate holding. I think it's very polite,
18:14
Speaker 4: he said about hold infirmly. I certainly do also, and
18:19
Speaker 4: I do you know, I'm curious about how we do
18:22
Speaker 4: hold the self and give space for the people that
18:24
Speaker 4: we serve. But you could hold someone firmly and say
18:28
Speaker 4: and yes, let's celebrate. Let's celebrate who you are and
18:31
Speaker 4: what you bring to the people you serve, because I
18:34
Speaker 4: can tell you and myself certainly having experiences of being
18:37
Speaker 4: in places of loneliness and pain and suffering, et cetera,
18:40
Speaker 4: et cetera, et cetera, the last thing you need is
18:43
Speaker 4: some distant person who lords over you and gives you
18:50
Speaker 4: advice which just echoes into nothingness. Because I've had that
18:53
Speaker 4: experience as well. That's not what you need. You're a
18:55
Speaker 4: genuine person to turn up. That's and you certainly turned
19:00
Speaker 4: up with supervision. Wow, you certainly did kill. That's abs
19:04
Speaker 4: an honor.
19:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, there might have been some mutterings in my head
19:08
Speaker 2: and some of those supervisions, and I.
19:11
Speaker 4: Might you'll tell people, don't send your name. And the
19:13
Speaker 4: very first time I told to do such and such,
19:15
Speaker 4: the look.
19:16
Speaker 5: The daggers, the biggers, and yet I knew, like you
19:22
Speaker 5: and other practice, I thought, No, you so strong enough,
19:25
Speaker 5: you're ethical enough that you will let me invite you
19:29
Speaker 5: into discomfort.
19:30
Speaker 4: Because if I didn't love you, I wouldn't bring you
19:32
Speaker 4: into discomfort. If I didn't love my profession, I wouldn't
19:35
Speaker 4: put myself into discomfort. And we owe it to the
19:38
Speaker 4: people that we served to move into discomfort, to learn
19:41
Speaker 4: and always polish, polish our skills and polish in our wisdom.
19:45
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I did. I a me to feel
19:47
Speaker 4: in pop for a few days. What that is there?
19:50
Speaker 4: Would I do it again? Absolutely?
19:53
Speaker 2: And I hope that yes, because that is the essence
19:56
Speaker 2: of growing and learning. And you know, you know, turning
19:59
Speaker 2: up for the work is knowing that you know, we
20:02
Speaker 2: are human and I think for me as well, the
20:07
Speaker 2: experience of not having to be that perfect you know, boundary,
20:14
Speaker 2: non emmeshed and this is not letting go our social
20:17
Speaker 2: theory practice, that all that learnings that we bring, but
20:21
Speaker 2: being able to go okay, I don't. I am not
20:24
Speaker 2: the expert in the person that I'm sitting with. I'm
20:27
Speaker 2: not the expert in their life. I'm you know, a
20:30
Speaker 2: scaffold when I'm needed. If I'm not, I'm a super side.
20:34
Speaker 2: And yes, I'm very grateful for all your little bits
20:40
Speaker 2: that are inside me and leading and guiding.
20:47
Speaker 4: While we.
20:49
Speaker 2: Come to an end, I thought you'll love your tea,
20:54
Speaker 2: our tay as we say, what would be your wisdom
20:59
Speaker 2: and your tailor if you had a sentence or three
21:02
Speaker 2: words that you would pass on to.
21:05
Speaker 4: Twenty one year.
21:06
Speaker 2: Old Mary Joe from Mary Joe four decades later, three
21:14
Speaker 2: were social worker or person?
21:17
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, straight away. Believe in yourself. Yeah, it's true
21:21
Speaker 4: because the love was there. The love was always said,
21:23
Speaker 4: the love was there. You know, we don't have time
21:26
Speaker 4: to talk. When I knew that I was going to
21:28
Speaker 4: dedicate my life to serving people, So believe in yourself.
21:32
Speaker 4: I understand to every twenty one year old social worker
21:35
Speaker 4: listened to this. Please believe in yourself, mahath or.
21:43
Speaker 2: In my orchet.
21:47
Speaker 4: And slow it's too slow.
22:00
Speaker 5: In May Eve nommon