When I was studying to become a social worker I got the hare-brained idea to do a five month placement here in New Zealand. With a three year old child in tow. (Okay, there was a pretty important Kiwi boy involved too). The only problem was that I had four days of placement here and one day of classes… back in Canada. This was before webinars, Zoom and Teams. It had never been done before and I was told it couldn’t be done. When I challenged why not, I had three amazing people behind my programme really step up to support me. They ensured financially that I got here, and funded installing technology into my home classroom so that I could call into and listen to my lectures and email questions back in real time. I learned SO much in that placement, not only about te ao Māori and social work, but about myself and who I wanted to be as a practitioner.

Their belief in me helped to transform my learning and solidify the idea that when looking at obstacles the most useful question is “How can I?” Without that support and the risk those three people took, my career path would have taken a very different trajectory. I swore that at every chance I would pay that belief forward to others.

To this day, the work I do, whether in supervision, training or consultation, is all about levelling the playing field, lifting other people up and supporting them to do the things they think they can’t do alone. It’s about creating easy to use resources that are accessible, supervision that is more like sitting down with a trusted colleague for a cup of tea, and trainings that give you tangible things to incorporate into your practice.