AASW Social Work Podcasts
The AASW Social Work Podcasts, produced by the Australian Association of Social Workers, explores key issues affecting social workers in Australia. Episodes cover frontline practice, policy developments, workforce challenges, and professional wellbeing. The podcast aims to inform, inspire, and connect students, practitioners, and advocates within the social work community.
Episodes
Looking Ahead: How Social Workers are Shaping the Future of Mental Health
On 23 September, we brought together the local social work community for a special panel exploring the future of mental health. Our guests, including Emma Shearer from Headspace, social worker and education consultant Rachel Higginson, and Laura Fletcher from Grand Pacific Health, shared powerful insights on prevention, early intervention, and how social workers are helping to build strong, connec
National Disability Insurance Scheme: what we are doing to support you
In this episode, we bring you highlights from our 2 September 2025 webinar, National Disability Insurance Scheme, what we are doing to support you, featuring AASW leaders and the AASW National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) Working Group.Tune in as we explore:Recent advocacy with the NDIA and governmentEvidence on the effectiveness of social workers in disability and the NDISAASW’s campaign to
Pushing for change: national registration
In this episode, Matt Loads shares some information from the AASW Webinar: Pushing for Change: National Registration from 14 May 2025.Dominic Szeker, Senior Policy Officer, AASW shares an overview of how registration for social workers fits into the broader regulatory context.Jim Arneman, ACT Ambulance Service, takes us through a case study of how paramedics were able to become a nationally regist
Health through the widest lens, Part 2: Kim Hobbs and award winning teamwork
Last month we brought you a repeat of our earlier conversation with Rosalie Pockett AM. Just as we were planning to re-broadcast the follow up episode with her research partner, Kim Hobbs, Kim was named Allied Health professional of 2023 by Western Sydney, LHD. When you listen to this conversation with her, you’ll understand why. Congratulations Kim!Kim’s award:https://thepulse.org.au/2023/11/23
Social Workers Improving Healthcare: Part 1 Rosalie Pockett AM and Health Inequity
This month we bring you an encore release of our conversation with Rosalie Pocket AM who has spent years overturning the inequities and injustices built into our health system. In this conversation, Rosalie describes her abiding interests in the social and community based factors that influence people’s health. Next month we will follow this up with her research partner, Kim Hobbs, who will desc
The Social Worker in the Library
For many people who see a social worker, it is because they are already involved in our health or community services system, and they are referred by another professional. This means they have to make contact with our formal service system, and this is something that doesn’t suit everyone. What if it was possible to walk into a public place like a library, and see a social worker? Even if you didn
Out of the 'Too Hard Basket'
When young people walk through Alex Wilson’s door, they are already carrying the stigma from their long involvement in our mental health system. They know they have been called ‘Frequent Flyers’ or ‘treatment resistant’. Alex’s aim for her work with these young people is that they will feel appreciated, validated and empowered. Alex knows that this work involves risks. But Alex is not cavalier
Ethical decisions at the end of life
Jane Sullivan OAM’s career has spanned paid and unpaid work, community services and the health system, social work and psychology, church organisations and the public sector. As she looks back over her career, it is her conversations with one group of people that stay with her. These were the people who wanted to make the decision that no-one wants to have to make.Jane Sullivan’s OAM Citationhttps
“Walk With Us to a Better Future”: The Voice to Parliament and the Road Ahead
Professor Tom Calma AO is one of Australia’s most respected human rights and social justice campaigners. He is Senior Australian of the Year 2023, and he is a social work graduate.Prof Calma AO is a- Kungarakan Elder and has worked for more than 45 years at local, community, state and international levels championing the rights, responsibilities and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Supporting widowed people in rural communities
Michelle Moriarty has won an award for establishing groups for widowed people in rural Australia to support each other. But Michelle is not going to stop there, because she would like us all to be able to support young people who have been widowed. Reflecting on her own experience, Michelle realised that the reason she didn’t receive the help she needed was not that people didn’t want to help. It
Digital inclusion, community development and social justice
When a technology company invited a social worker to join their digital literacy project, it was because they hoped her social work skills would be “nice-to-have” additions to their “need-to-have” skills for teaching people how to use their digital devices. But Anna Morgan had already been contemplating digital inclusion for a long time. Anna brought her social work mindset to the project, calle
Students for Sensible Drug Policy: Reducing harm by changing policy
Harm reduction is an approach to drug policy which promotes health, dignity and rights for everyone, regardless of which drugs they happen to be using. Although it is part of Australia’s National Drug Strategy, the principles of Harm Reduction aren’t always obvious to those of us in the service system. Chloe Span and the other members of Students for Sensible Drug Policy are working on changing th
History is so recent
AJ Williams-Tchen provides Mental Health First Aid training to groups and organisations; and cultural awareness training to health professionals. Throughout all this work, AJ makes sure participants spend time listening to each other’s stories. AJ believes in the power of storytelling as our most powerful tool to drive social change. He practices this himself and describes his experience as a mem
Cindy Smith: Values and Leadership
Social workers draw on knowledge, skills and experiences from their professional and personal lives in all sorts of ways, to bring about changes they want to see in their world. While some of us choose to specialise in a particular field of social work practice, others take on roles in leadership, management or governance. Knowing the importance of good plan, Cindy Smith has been able to do all
Mental Health and Human Rights: From a communal underwear cupboard to Allyship
When Anne-Maree Newbold OAM commenced her career, the residents of the large stand-alone psychiatric hospital in which she worked slept in dormitories with a shared clothing cupboard. Since then Anne-Maree’s career has been dedicated to reforming the way people experience our mental health and disability systems. Combining her experiences as a carer and her dedication to human rights, she tells us
The man with badges on his cap
For Mark Silver, improving the mental health of older people starts when we all respect their story of their lives. He has pioneered intergenerational programs which bring people together across the generations to share stories and build that respect. When it comes to Mark’s own story, it’s in the badges on his cap.Further Information about Mark and his work (including portrait with cap):Social Wo
Health through the widest lens, Part 2: Kim Hobbs and ground-breaking research
This episode follows from our previous episode with Rosalie Pockett AM. Like Rosalie, Kim Hobbs didn’t intend to make her career in hospital social work, but has ended up doing exactly that. Kim is the other half of the productive partnership between a hospital and university researching inequity in healthcare, and Kim agrees about how powerful these partnerships are in overturning inequality. She
Looking at health through the widest lens Part 1, Rosalie Pockett AM
Rosalie Pockett AM never intended to stay in hospital social work. At first its scope was too narrow, but once she ‘widened the lens’ she was using to look at it, she saw how to achieve the two things she was most interested in doing: overturning the inequities in people’s access to healthcare; and building partnerships between social workers and researchers. These are what she describes as the tw
Still Plenty to Fight For
The work and life of Max Cornwell OAM have been guided by a humanistic impulse; a preference for the democratic and emancipatory. He joined the protests against restrictions to civil liberties in Queensland in the 1970’s, he started theatre groups in Queensland prisons, and he has always been suspicious of grand theories. Even after decades as a family therapist, his advice to other practitioners
Only Everything Changes
Julie Kulikowski OAM has received an Order of Australia for her work in haematology, palliative care and bereavement counselling. She has sat beside people facing the terror of oblivion. She has been the light on the wharf, while their family was being tossed around in the stormy seas that follow a sudden terminal diagnosis and death. It’s a time a time when only everything changes; and it was on
Alliances and recognition: Pamela Cohen AM on being influential
For Pamela Cohen, it wasn’t enough that the cardiac patients in the hospital where she worked received the best care. Pamela wanted that level of care to be available to every cardiac patient, throughout Australia and overseas. She received good advice on what she needed to do to influence this field of medical practice, and she followed it.In fact, good advice from influential women is what led P
AASW responds to the ABC on the Coroner's findings on the deaths of Amber Rose Rigney and Korey Lee Mitchell - further comment
Sonya Feldhoff returns to Patricia Muncey later in the story - this follows from the previous episode.
The Deputy State Coroner has found the 2016 domestic violence deaths of two South Australian children could have been prevented if child protection authorities took a more "vigorous role" in securing their safety.
The mother Adeline Yvette Rigney was murdered also.
The findings of the Inquest can
AASW responds to the ABC on the Coroner's findings on the deaths of Amber Rose Rigney and Korey Lee Mitchell
The Deputy State Coroner has found the 2016 domestic violence deaths of two South Australian children could have been prevented if child protection authorities took a more "vigorous role" in securing their safety.
The mother Adeline Yvette Rigney was murdered also.
The findings of the Inquest can be found here.
The ABC's coverage can be found here: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-21/hillier-ch
Leaving no one behind
What kind of world do we want? The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals describe one vision of a world which respects rights, shares prosperity and protects the planet: a world in which no-one has been left behind. Every member state of the UN has endorsed that vision.That vision is also endorsed by the International Federation of Social Workers, who have made it their theme for World Social Work Da
The Rights of the Child and the 7C’s of Reform
Since Dr Robyn Miller started working with isolated, vulnerable families 40 years ago, she has seen enormous changes in the way that children’s needs are understood and responded to. When the Victorian child protection system was overhauled to enshrine the rights of the child as its guiding principle, Robyn became its inaugural Principal Practitioner. In that role she translated the rights of th
#HomeToBilo: Speaking a language that politicians can’t speak
Since March 2018, Bronwyn Dendle and Angela Fredericks have been campaigning for the Murugappan family to be released from detention and returned to their home in Biloela. The story of the family is complicated. It spans continents, decades, and multiple changes in Australia’s immigration laws. The facts of this story can become lost, hidden behind divisive, politically motivated expression of
Orienteers, Pilgrims, Explorers
Dr Ann O’Neill AM has survived the unimaginable. In fact she has done more than survive: Ann has used her experience as the basis for further research, from which she has created her own model of recovery. And to make sure that other people have the best opportunity to recover as well, she has established an organisation specifically to do this work. For this work, Ann has received an Order of Aus
Social work registration: ABC Mornings South Australia interview
This is an interview with Angela Coe Smallacombe of ABC Mornings in South Australia, discussing the registration of social workers in South Australia, following the historic passing of the legislation on 1 December with AASW South Australian Branch President Patricia Muncey.
For more information on the AASW's 50-year long campaign to register the profession, see our website: https://www.aasw.asn.a
Not ‘international’ but ‘global’
Australia’s first Professor of Pasifika heritage, Jioji Ravulo, is the Chair of Social Work and Policy Studies at the University of Sydney. His story starts at a barbeque in Western Sydney in the 1970’s. His work combines the perspectives of both his Western and his Pasifika heritages and it shows how, instead of competing against each other, different world views can be blended into holistic and
Imelda, Michael and his Fairweather Friends
Imelda Dodds was in her first job as a social worker when she came across Michael who needed to be protected from his ‘fair-weather friends’. At that time the only way to protect Michael was to place limitations on him, rather than the people who were attempting to exploit him. Now this is a challenge that has run through political and social reform from the earliest days of welfare state, and tha
Holding onto the core throughout a lifetime of change
For Margarita Frederico, AM the core of social work is its drive for social justice and its respect for human rights; and its richness comes from the way it is constantly evolving. Social work has taken her from seminars with Anna Freud, to anti-Vietnam war protests; from The Royal Children’s Hospital to Myanmar; from childhood trauma to environmental rights. Through a lifetime of change she has h
One good brick in the edifice of life
When Norma Tracey AM started working in Sydney’s Children’s Hospital, the children were tied to their beds and their parents were allowed to visit for an hour in the evening. Norma was already drawing on the psychotherapeutic insights of John Bowlby and attempting to make changes to the way that the children were cared for. So she was excited and honoured to be given the opportunity to meet him an
Leaving Matilda: From Elite Sport to Social Work
When Ellen Beaumont was in the Young Matildas, she trained every minute that she wasn’t working, eating or sleeping. She put her education and career on hold, she missed family events and had no social life. All the while she knew that if she’d been a man she would have been well paid and sponsored, whereas Ellen was paid nothing to work this hard and represent her country. But for Ellen this was
Brave and Impactful: Pat Turner, AM on Reconciliation
The theme for National Reconciliation Week 2021 is ’More than a word, Reconciliation takes action’. It recognises that many of us are aware of the issues, but that is not enough. For Reconciliation, we need to take brave and impactful action.To help us understand what that action might be, today we bring you a conversation with Ms Pat Turner AM. Her long and distinguished career in public and co
The Storehouse of Wisdom
From the day she graduated from Queens University Belfast, Mary Jo McVeigh OAM has maintained her absolute faith in her social work profession. She established Cara Care and Cara house where she has been working with children who have been recovering from trauma. For that work, she has been awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia. For Mary Jo, our imagination is the storehouse of our wisdom, an
Gender, Climate Change and Other People’s Blindspots
As she was observing the consequences of the millennium drought on her rural community, Margaret Alston realised that there was hardly any discussion of the social consequences of the drought and almost nothing that examined the experiences of rural women. For Margaret, a focus on social justice means that you can see what is in other people’s blindspots, and this points the way to a new area of s
Where two waters meet: Decolonising the human services
Although she has two Ph D's, Dr Lorraine Muller considers herself only one among many knowledge holders. Her book proposes a process for decolonising our work in the human services and contains many messages for social workers. In this conversation, she describes why and how we can all commence this journey with hope and respect.SHOW NOTESMuller, L. A Theory for Indigenous Health and Human Service
Public Disaster and Private Trauma
Like many people we at the AASW watched the January 2020 bushfires with horror. In late January 2020, host Angela Scarfe contacted a member, Jo, who was living and working in one of the areas that was badly burnt, and they talked about what Jo thought her community needed. They have kept in touch throughout the year, and it is fair to say that they didn’t anticipate some of the events that 2020 ha
The Right to Shelter, Colonialism and Leonard Cohen
When members of the public complain about homeless people in their local park to Kate Incerti she thanks them. It’s her way of demonstrating what it means to take a human rights approach to homelessness. In this episode she tells us what human rights mean for homelessness, how it connects with our colonial history and what COVID-19 has shown us about providing more housing. Leonard Cohen helps u
Christine Craik discusses proposed changes to fees for social work degrees with ABC Radio Adelaide's David Bevan
On Friday, 19 June, the government announced proposed changes to higher education funding. AASW National President Christine Craik is interviewed about the implications of increasing fees for social work degrees with ABC Radio Adelaide Mornings host David Bevan. Hear from others in the field as well for a lively discussion.
National Reconciliation Week: In This Together 2020
AASW Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Board Director Linda Ford and AASW National President Christine Craik discuss what the Reconciliation means for social workers this National Reconciliation Week, discussing the theme In This Together.
See more about AASW's National Reconciliation Week activities on our website: https://www.aasw.asn.au/social-policy-advocacy/national-reconciliation-week/na
Christine Craik on ABC Radio Adelaide Drive with Jules Schiller
National President Christine Craik discusses COVID-19, mental health and addressing increasing rates of suicide. She says that the number of therapy sessions under the Medicare Benefits Scheme should be increased from 10 to 20.
To find out more about how a social worker can help you with mental health, visit our website: https://www.aasw.asn.au/information-for-the-community/accredited-mental-healt
National President Christine Craik updates social workers on COVID-19
We encourage members to also consider their self-care during this time and understand the ongoing need to take care of ourselves and each other as we approach our work. This can take many forms but central to this is the ability rest and stay connected with family, friends and support systems. See our website for more updates on COVID-19: https://www.aasw.asn.au/social-policy-advocacy/covid-19-cor
CEO Cindy Smith explains AASW's transformational changes
The AASW is transforming and improving the way you access member services and information - these include the closure of state offices and the adoption of "flexible offices".
Breakfast radio interview: Linda Ford chats to Greg Reid of Black Star Radio about Indigenous Languages on International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples
Black Star Radio in Queensland speaks to Linda Ford about Indigenous Languages for breakfast radio. Follow Black Star Radio on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-289073557
International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples 2019: Celebrating Indigenous Languages with Candice Butler
An interview with Candice Butler, Queensland Branch Management Committee member celebrating IDOWIP and the UN-declared Year of Indigenous Languages - 2019
National Reconciliation Week 2019: Grounded in Truth, Walk Together with Courage
This episode is a conversation between AASW National President Christine Craik and AASW Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander board representative Linda Ford to discuss 2019's National Reconciliation Week theme.
AASW Constitution webinar: In conversation with Christine Craik and Brooke Kooymans
AASW National President Christine Craik and director Brooke Kooymans discuss the proposed changes to the Constitution with members.
International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples - yarn with Josephine Lee, winner of the Northern Territory Mary Moylan Award for excellence in social work
An interview with Josephine Lee, winner of the Northern Territory Mary Moylan Award for excellence in social work on International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples. Josephine tells us to look to Indigenous culture when seeking solutions to environmental problems. Next year will commemorate the world's Indigenous languages - people, language and culture need investing in, Josephine powerfully
