Making sense of our working life…..

I have had the opportunity on many occasions to work with a supervisee who is heading towards and preparing for retirement from their profession and work. To sit with them, sometimes for years, months or weeks before the final retirement date, while they emotionally, psychologically, and practically prepare and transition to this next stage of life is such honoring and thrilling work. Listening to reflection on a life/career of service and care within their community, hearing of what they have achieved, hearing what they have learned and planning for what will still come and what they hope to move onto next. It is an opportunity to look back and to look forward and each person I have worked with has come to the decision to retire and the timing of retirement and the ideas of what life post paid work will look like in their own unique way. It has taught me so much of what I will need to consider when the time is in front of me. These times has been an ako experience. It is privileged work.

One person I have recently worked through this transition with, has been open to sharing their reflections wider as they transition to their next stage of life. Karen…….

RETIREMENT:

#1713 Registered Social Worker, retiring 31 January 2024.

I have done a lot of reflection over the past 28 years of Social Work after being capped at Massey University in 1996. I came into Social Work from an early age. Raised as a Jehovah Witness, I was conscious, even as a kid, of what I perceived to be injustice in the world and I began to question the theology, wanting to make a difference for people I loved who were not part of the Jehovah Witness community. I had no understanding of what change might look like, but believe that was the Social Work fire burning inside me at a very early age.

Before I go any further, I want to say a huge thank you to my wife, Joanne, who has supported me for the past 17 years of this journey. Working in the social service sector requires ongoing support from our loved ones. Jo, you have always supported me; you have given me a shoulder to cry on when I needed it and celebrated with me when it was needed. Thank you.

What a challenging, incredible, amazing, and humbling journey I have been on. I have often wondered “Are Social Workers born or are they made?”   Now that I am at the pinnacle of my career, I believe we are both born and made. The made part is how and what we learn, and how we put that into practice. The learning is something that is ongoing. I have never, throughout the past 28 years, thought that I was at a place where I didn’t need to learn anything more for my “job”. Every day, there are new learnings that I have driven my practice and helped me as a person.

I have worked with many Social Workers in my career. Some were brilliant and some not so brilliant. Some had that natural ability to walk alongside and awhi Whanau and others who leaned heavily on “book learning.”

I learned early on to just be myself. No pretenses; none of the “expert model” that permeates many of the agencies in which Social Workers are employed in. I have been so humbled along my journey. I have heard some pretty awful stories about how Whanau have been judged and treated according to those judgements. I learned to walk alongside, not in front and not behind, each and every one I have worked with, sharing their journey. Sharing the good, the bad and sometimes the ugly side of humanity. I have celebrated with young ones and their parents, as they have become well and more in control of their own lives.

I have laughed and cried with Whanau I have worked with. I’ve cried at the injustice of a single Mum bringing up her children; then passing away far too early. I went to her funeral and was shocked at how many people were there. Where were they when she most needed them? I learned to think about how people often pigeonhole their own family members and that hurts can cross generations.

I cried at the injustice of a caregiver having the child she was caring for placed, through the Family Court, with a biological parent to whom the child was not attached. This led me to make the decision to leave what was then known as CYFs (now Oranga Tamariki) and move into a mental health role. I learned that I wasn’t suited to statutory Social Work and the prescriptive way in which they expected us all to work. I learned very quickly that “magic happens in the in-between places” and that the most fulfilling way to work alongside people was from a Solutions Focused/Narrative/Whare Tapa Wha approach. I learned about my own resilience and how to support others to tap into theirs.

I learned by sitting beside a family whose daughter chose to take her own life and who invited me and one of my colleagues into their home to celebrate her life. What an amazing gift they gave to me and my colleague. Acceptance. Thankfulness. Trust. Aroha. I can still see that young person’s face if I close my eyes. A beautiful young woman with their life ahead of her. I learned that parents accept what they understand, and that the pain parents feel can also be associated with the “not knowing,” or not being fully informed and prepared for what may lay ahead of them.

I’ve sat with many “beginning” Social Workers on placement and learned from them as they have from me. I’ve seen some amazing Social Workers ready to stand up with Whanau. I tautoko all of them, and have watched and worked with some as they came out of placements. What a privilege and an honor it has been to mentor and share knowledge and skills with them. Kara Coombes, an amazing, talented, and extraordinary social worker, who I have the privilege to work with had a huge impact on me when I first started working in the secondary mental health sector. She encouraged and provided incredible awhi. Her words still resonate with me many years after her passing “You and Sue must be the ones to grow the next generation of Social Workers.”   Until Sue left, she did provide that support, just as I hope I have.

I have shared so many of my challenges and successes in supervision with Karen over the years. Karen has been the only constant in my Social Work journey. Colleagues come and go, but Karen has been there – in person while I worked in the Manawatu and then on zoom when I moved to Tairawhiti. Supervision has been the mainstay of my whole career. It’s a special time that promotes self-reflection and growth opportunities. I hope that I have made the most of both of these over the years. I’ve already said it, but thank you Karen for keeping me sane at times. I say goodbye to the formal supervision relationship I have had with Karen as I move into another phase of knowing each other.

I decided that I would retire early 2023. Then Cyclone Hale, followed by Cyclone Gabrielle devastated our area. I thought I was ready to retire, but instead I asked to come back full time to be part of the (emotional) “clean up” of Tairawhiti. The past year has been a roller coaster. Maybe the hardest of my Social Work career. I have had lots of time for self-reflection. Friends and family have been “in my ear” encouraging me to retire, and now, here I am doing just that, on my own terms, because I am now ready to hang up my official social work hat, coat, and boots.

I have spent the past month winding down my current “case load.”  So many goodbyes, in contrast to when I left Palmerston North where I had been a crisis worker with no case load. It has been bittersweet. The one thing that has kept me working this long, are those wonderful people who sit with me and trust me to hold their pain and walk alongside them as they work through it. The finality of formal retirement as a Social Worker doesn’t phase me. The goodbyes include colleagues, both within the organisation I work for and those in the community whose lives have touched mine over the years.

My own values have never changed over the years. I am who I am. No pretenses; no judgement of others. One of our Pakeke said at my farewell “you have a big heart Maureen, maybe too big and too caring sometimes. You care for our people.” 

I sign off knowing “retirement” for me means a formal severing of (paid) employment ties, not a severance of the core of who I am and will always be.

Maureen Macann. Proud to be a Social Worker. Born and made.