By Celeste
I get asked surprisingly a lot by young people I see for therapy how I ended up working as a therapist. So here is a summary of the path I took to land where I am now. It’s not the right path. It’s not the wrong path. It’s just what led me to what I do. I share this for no reason other than quite a few young people I work with ask me about this (and I always like to remind them you never need to know what you want to be when your grow up – even when you’re an adult!). There are so many different ways to get to where you want to go. Or to try and find out where you want to go if you’re not sure yet. This is what I did:
When I was at school, I had no idea what I wanted to do in the future, and I mean literally no idea. So, when I say to young people “you do not need to know what you want to do in the future”, I mean it. The idea of ever having a job that I loved wasn’t on the cards.
I started off studying psychology via a Bachelor of Arts in 2000, and after a year or two decided it wasn’t for me. I’m not sure why, it just didn’t feel like the right fit (and Research Methods was not my idea of a good time at age 18). I was more interested in the other subjects in the arts degree – creative writing, philosophy, the kind of subjects I couldn’t imagine would help me get a job. I stumbled across Social Work, and it seemed to tick the boxes of what I was looking for – practical, more hands on, less clinical (at that point I didn’t envisage myself ever working in a clinical environment) and was more interested in providing direct and practical supports. So I paused the arts degree and transferred into social work.
The course itself has changed since I completed it in 2004, but at the time I was able to put my 2 years of psychology and arts study to use and add on a further 2 years to complete the accelerated Bachelor of Social Work degree – meaning 4 years of uni to graduate as a social worker.
The course was crammed with study, role plays, and 7 months of unpaid placements, which may not sound that fun but wasn’t torturous either.
After finishing my Social Work degree, family commitments meant it wasn’t the right time to start a social work carer, so I returned to complete my Arts degree but decided to focus on writing instead of psychology. I graduated with the Bachelor of Arts with a major in writing and a minor in journalism – and a set of random studies I wasn’t sure how I would use yet. So when I say to young people, “you can start one thing and move to another”, I mean it.
In the spirit of that I then decided to study law. I completed a Bachelor of Laws and a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice which meant I was admitted as an Australian Lawyer. And with that all in place…l finally decided it was time to give Social Work a go. So when I say “you can change your mind” (many times)”, I mean that too.
I worked in residential care, case management and family services before moving into mental health. Some of these experiences are the best ones I have had, and I’m grateful that pursuing a social work degree, which has such a breadth of opportunities, meant I worked in different community spaces before moving into a clinical space.
To gain mental health accreditation as a social worker, you are required to complete two years of work with the predominant focus being on providing Focussed Psychological Strategies (you can see our other blog post for a run down of what on earth that means, but essentially, they are the type of therapies that Medicare are happy to provide rebates for). During these two years I completed additional training in various areas of therapeutic intervention – for example Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), and a bunch of other types of interventions with not so fun acronyms.
So, 6 years for most people from beginning social work (or about 12 in my case given some detours along the way (when I say its ok to take detours…I mean it) you can practice as a Mental Health Social Worker.
There are so many pathways to land where you want to go…and if you don’t know where you want to land that is so fine as well. Take the pathways, take the detours and drop the expectations.
What an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker has completed – In a nutshell:
-A minimum of 4 years of university studies with either a Bachelor or Masters qualification
-2 years of work experience providing psychological interventions under supervision with additional trainings in Focussed Psychological Strategies
-Hopefully a bunch of non-clinical roles to help them better understand the individual not just in the therapy room but beyond
