An interview with Vicki Shevlin, Social Work Sorted (EP.16)

Vicki Shevlins website, podcast, and new, brilliant assessment guide

BASW Child Protection Master Class Series:
https://www.basw.co.uk/basw-child-protection-masterclass-series

Relational Activism Webinar Series:
https://www.relationalactivism.com/upcoming

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Transcript

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Hi. Look into which device social work practice, poke class. Hey step by wrench. Odd. It was essential worker. His podcast is about practice related issues, self development and transformation. It will give you knowledge, ideas and practical tools for being a fantastic social worker, supporting you of assessment skills. Direct work, dealing with conflict. And importantly, helping you make a positive difference in the lives of children and families. In this episode, I speak to Vicky Shevlin, who is a social worker. Who founded social work sorted. Social work sorted. Is an online platform dedicated to new social workers. And her commitment is to provide realistic advice, guidance, and support. For new social workers. I think she provides some really fantastic, accessible and engage in resources, which you can find on her website or on her podcast. And I'll provide the details. For both of those. I was delighted to have the opportunity to speak with their key. Not least because she has a wealth of knowledge. But also, because when I wanted to set up a podcast, I'd reached out to Vicki who already had a podcast. And she was incredibly kind and generous and encourage him. And I don't think I would have set up this podcast without her support. In our conversation together. We explore and discuss the difference between short-term and long-term social work. The emotional impact of working with troubled families and being involved in care proceedings. Moving from being a social worker to a child protection conference. Restorative practice and the length of child protection plans. How Vicky started sharing her learning. Online and what her experience of that has been. And we explore how to use social media as a social worker. And finally we look at assessments. A few things before we jump into that. Firstly, I wanted to know that there are still spaces on the barrels where social work master class series that begin soon. So please do check that out. I'll be exploring topics such as direct work assessment. Effective time management. Working with parents who. Misuse substances and how to make evidentially robust decisions amongst other topics. These webinars. Are intended to be jam packed with knowledge on practical tools. For each subject. I'm drawing on 12 years of frontline practice. And a wealth of reading and research and the I've done over the years and condensing that into a 1.5 hour master class. Basically, I've done all of the reading so that you don't have to, or you don't have the time to read as much as you would like to. I know firsthand how busy social workers are. And I also know how committed social workers are to learning. So my intention is to ensure that you leave each master class. Feeling inspired. With lots of ideas and practical tools that will help you make a difference. These webinars. Do have a cost. Which I am sure you could probably seek support from your local authority. If you're employed by one. And they might be able to fund it. They might not, but you don't know sometimes until you ask. Secondly. I have another webinar series, which is completely free. That I'm running with Tim Fischer. Uh, really inspiring social worker. Which I'm super, super excited about. The first one is next week and it's on parental advocacy in a child protection context. If you've heard of parental advocacy would like to find out more, are beginning to implement it in your local authority. Then this will be. For you. After that we're going to be looking at. Topics such as working with fathers, open adoption co-design and many other fascinating issues. If you check out the relational activism website. It has a tab at the top called upcoming, where you can see the webinar series and you can register to attend. If you just Google relational activism. And the website should come up. I'll also include it in the show notes. Even if you can't attend or not interested in attendance, there's loads of amazing resources on the relational activism website. So you might want to check that out. Thirdly, thank you to those that left a review on apple podcast on Spotify. A few of you were kind enough to leave a star rating. Which I am. Super. Grateful for. I also received a lovely written review. Unfortunately, I can't see the name of the person who wrote it. But they have wrote. Thank you rich for your open, transparent detail to your childhood and unconscious rationales. On why you ended up in your job role. So much of what you talked about resonated with me and my decision. Take it. Uh, my decision making on my career choice, I look forward to hearing episodes. Whoever wrote that. I just wanted to say a massive thank you for taking the time out of what I'm sure you have as a busy day to, to write that. I can't tell you. How much it means to receive fat feedback. Even just the star rating or written feedback, like what I've just read out because recording a podcast is quite a surreal experience in that. I'm often just sat in my office on my own. Late at night. Talking into a computer essentially. So it's. Really hard to gauge how that is being received. So, if you are enjoying the podcast, then one small, but significant way you can support is to provide a starting, which takes. No less than a few seconds. And would be greatly received and appreciated. Anyhow, let's move on. Now without further ado, here is my conversation with Vicky Chaplin. Okay. Today I'm joined by Vicky Chalin. Vicky, thank you for joining us today. Just to get us started, could you tell us what inspired you to become a social worker? What was your kind of pathway into the, into the work? Yeah, so first, thanks for having me on cuz it's nice to be chatting again. So I. Did an MA in social work. That was my journey to being qualified. Prior to that, I had done an undergraduate degree in drama and theater arts because I was really passionate about drama and literature in the arts. And I focused a lot of my degree around community theater and theater with marginalized groups. And when I finished my undergraduate degree, I had a job with a community theater company who worked with adults affected by homelessness. And I also worked with adults who I worked in residential care with adults with life-limiting illness, young adults with life-limiting illnesses. And I suppose through both of those jobs, Was between going into social work or going into an area like therapy or drama therapy. And I think because I worked alongside lots of social workers and saw lots of issues around care planning and capacity, I chose social work and I was able to do that because at the time there was an N H S bursary available for social work students. So I was fortunate enough to be able to get that. And I did an MA in social work where you did two practice placements and my final practice placement was in a frontline child protection team. So I was in a duty and assessment team and then got my first job in a duty and assessment team in child protection. And then worked my way through as a newly qualified social worker up to being a senior practitioner. And then most recently I worked as a conference chair for child protection conferences. And did you know before you did the masters that you wanted to go into child protection? No, I always wanted to go on and work in adult services because that is just what I had done. I suppose that was the work experience that I had. Although I, I had different kinds of work experience and voluntary experience with children. I had just always wanted to focus on adult services. But I think then having a placement in children's services, in child protection, you working with children and with adults, you're working with whole families and I enjoyed that side of it. I enjoyed the pace I enjoyed or is it very interested in the legislation and the guidance. And I think at the time, probably my shifted now, at the time I felt more held. As a practitioner with the guidance and the legislation around children's, then perhaps I would've done that around adults. And that's not a right or a wrong thing. I think that's just how I felt at the time as a newly qualified social worker. And I think as you then move through qualification, you can start to unpick the legislation and, and the guidance and how helpful or unhelpful that is. But at the time I enjoyed working within those remits, within those frameworks, I think. And yeah, it just always stayed in children's services. And so obviously with the drama and your interest in literature, that kind of was orientated towards supporting people and community work before you then went into social work. So was there anything in terms of earlier about your life or events or situations that kind of orientated you towards supporting others? I think I, I knew what social work was because my auntie was and is a social worker, and my family members have all been in caring professions, I suppose, in inverted commerce. So kind of a lot in, in nursing and some in, in social work and social care. And I suppose within my network of, of family and friends mm-hmm. it was quite a, a common I suppose it was a common theme in terms of those, those caring and those helping professions. So it wasn't something that was brand new to me. But at the same time, I think I still, and I, I had a, a really good insight into what child protection was like because I had someone close to my family who was in, you know, working in that world. So there weren't, there's always surprises, I think, when you start a new job, but I, mm-hmm. I suppose a lot of that, I don't think it's expected, but I think it happens a lot in those caring professions that go in above and beyond and not particularly having a, a certain finished time at the end of your day. I definitely saw a lot of that happening. Mm-hmm. So yeah, that obviously, definitely influenced it, I think as well. And then you mentioned that you, the kind of roles that you took on were in, in child protection teams, and so were they in the, the duty front door service or were they long term or did you say that you did a bit of both? Yeah. So some of the teams were duty and assessment, so they would be from the point of referral up until some of them were up until like a initial court hearing. Then I worked in another team, which. Child pro only child protection. So you would start working with a family from the point of an initial child protection conference and then work long-term with that family through if there were any care proceedings. So yeah, I think different local authorities work in different ways, don't they, in terms of whether they hold or work with families for a longer amount of time. And I saw some, some benefits to the, and I suppose it was, it's a different time than it was now as well. There probably, I think there's always been turnover in social work, but it probably wasn't as high as it is now. Mm-hmm. But there was some benefits, I think to having initial assessment teams but then also lots of benefits I saw when you have that long-term working relationship with the family. So I'm, I'm glad that I was able to, to see both sides of that really. Yeah. What was your experience of the difference between working in the initial. and Assessment team versus the child protection longer term team? I think it was different because it was different local authorities. Mm-hmm. I think the, I I've been really fortunate to have, I think, good examples of social workers around me and, and really strong and calm managers. I think there are things that you pick up when you're in an office all the time and sometimes from working in a, there's definitely a difference in pace when you're on a duty team and definitely much more pressure to do things faster, which I think when you're aware of it than it's really helpful. But it means that social workers can fall into the habit making assumptions about information that they read or just taking information at surface level rather than going anything further. I learned a lot about, you know, that first knock at the door because a lot of it, it was responding and a lot about I suppose managing the, the real fear of, of families when a social worker turns up at the front door. And often I think in a, in a longer term child protection team, you or I didn't ex experience as much that initial first contact with a, a family or, or a child. Whereas I think in the duty and assessment team, that obviously happened quite a lot because of the, of the nature of it. And I don't think I ever became immune to it, but I can see how some people could become immune to. Really how scary that is for families and how it, there is so much held in that first initial contact in that first in, you know, in the way that you explain what a social worker does. There is so much held in the explanation of what an assessment is and what a family's rights are. And yeah, I suppose I really came to appreciate how much information you needed to share, but the way that you needed to share that as well to make sure that that family had everything they needed to know. And also to kind of do well initial assessments as opposed to in a very short amount of time to try and work out what was happening or what might need to happen. There's so many skills that you have, have to have. At the same time, I definitely didn't have them all because you know, from being a student and new social worker, I was really well supported. But yeah, there's a lot. Whereas I think then, like I said, the, the pace in the longer term team. without having that. Cause I know some teams kind of work longer term and they have duty at the same time, so they mm-hmm. you know, they might have three weeks and then a week of duty and everything kind of gets sent backwards. But the benefit of them working in a longer team is that you can build and establish relationships and you have a little bit more time with people and you can think about things in the longer term rather than the short term. You're not trying to stick plasters on anything, I suppose. I've never worked in the duty team, but they, I have, my experience has been the, the, some social workers are drawn to the, the, the duty and assessment side of things, because like, as you say, it's quite fast paced. Mm. Dealing with lots of new novel information and situations. And then there's a degree of. Movement in terms of the families that you work with, because obviously you're either going out and visiting them, spending time assessing, and then deciding that they move into the longer term team or deciding early help or closing the case. Yeah. Whereas the, the longer term teams tend to work with families over a prolonged period of time, so you do have more time. The challenge, I suppose, that you are, you have to cultivate and develop relationships with parents under quite difficult circumstances. Especially for example, if you need to make the decision that you're gonna go to a child protection case conference or that you're gonna go to pre precedings and you then have to maintain the relationship with the, during that process. So you have to learn to be able to weather the storms a little bit. It may be, it may be a way that you don't need to so much in the duty and assessment. but you're right. I guess you don't have to in, in the work, in the teams that I've been in, I've never been the first, it's never been the first time that social worker's gone out to see the family. I haven't thought about how Yeah. Frightening in or fearful the parents must be when you are the, the first person to knock on the door as a, as a, yeah. As a social worker in that situation. And what would you say, what were the, the, the challenging parts, the, the roles that you had in as a social worker? I think for me it was, oh, pro lots of things. I think the, the emotional side of the job in terms of the fact that you're connecting with other humans who have had. You know, experienced trauma and, you know, had extremely difficult things happen to them in their lives and just not always being able to, and I think definitely in, in the earliest stages, taking a lot of responsibility for that and trying to, you know, if I couldn't fix that, then what was going to happen? And not being as okay with, you know, this is what I can do and this is what I can't do, which I think is quite normal. Some of it, some of the harder parts were I think going into care proceeding. So in, when I was a nearly qualified social worker, I was, like I said, in the duty and assessment team, you would, you would take things to the point of initial care proceedings and I found. You know, and still do find court and care proceedings really emotional and the formality of it doesn't match up with then the, the human, the humanity and the relationships that you might have with families. And the, you know, one day you can be in their house and then the next day you can be in court and you're sat on opposite sides of the room when you've been sat on a sofa together the day before. And I found that really difficult and I found, I suppose, the frustration of services not being there for families and seeing some of that real unfairness when you are I suppose you are a representative of the local authority, and there would be times maybe when your pers my personal views, didn't necessarily align with, you know, the local authority views of, of what should happen next. I found that quite difficult. Mm-hmm. I would always, I, I was quite confident in speaking up, in raising that, and I was, I always very clear when my evidence was, my evidence and when it wasn't, if that makes sense. But yeah, definitely the, the challenges were around the, the emotional side of it really, and, and not being able to fix everything. Not that it's our job as social workers to, to fix everything, but even sometimes not being able, not knowing what to offer to make things better for people. Really. And then some of the conflict around that as well, probably. So, you know, not being liked, not being wanted in somebody's home, but still having to be there. Not, you know, not saying the right thing because how can a social worker ever really say the right thing when, you know, when families, I suppose families being really angry at me and not, it wasn't necessarily because of anything I had personally done, but being angry at me because I was a social worker. I was the face of that system. And, and I suppose then holding that and, and going home and trying to then have the rest of your evening or have your weekend with that as well. So yeah, the challenges for me were al always more the, the sort of emotional side of things. Yeah. I, I think that taking responsibility or feeling like you, I, I, I was responsible for fixing the family's problems, was definitely, The burden that I carried in, in the first few years of my practice. Mm-hmm. And I think part of that stems from the kind of importation of c counseling or psychotherapeutic methods into social work where you're taught about the, the value of relationship building and the using the self as a leverage to facilitate change for people, which in, in theory and in some context is, is really relevant and the most appropriate thing to do, but that can be extremely hard to do. Yeah. In the context of child protection, where as you just mentioned, that parents perceive you as the face of a system, of a statutory system, and you have to kind of make really difficult decisions about whether their children is on a child protection plan or whether they're, whether you're gonna have to issue care proceedings and in those kind of situations. it almost doesn't matter how skilled or kind or compassionate and considerate you are as a practitioner, parents are still gonna be upset and frustrated and disappointed and angry. And, and that's kind of emotionally very like you, you were talking about quite challenging to, to deal with. Yeah. And I think as, as I've like, moved on through my career and maybe being in a bit of a different role as a conference chair, you, you become maybe a bit more confident or a bit more able to name those things when they're happening. So say in, you know, this feels really unfair because someone's written that you haven't engaged for six months, but actually no one tried to visit you for this period of time. Or naming the fact, just being really open. Actually we're all talking about a parent who needs a specific type of support, but we also know that waiting list is this long. So we need to balance that. And. Yeah, becoming a bit more confident in naming those things. Whereas I think as a new social worker, I was almost like, what can I say? What can't I say? I, I, I, I didn't want to I suppose I didn't wanna undermine any work that had or hadn't been done by another social worker, or I didn't want to say, you know, the local authority was at fault or not, or, you know, all those things. You kind of don't know what to say. So sometimes say nothing really, which, and I think some of that comes from, from experience, doesn't it? But yeah. Did you, I remember it very well. Did your how did, how did things change or what lessons did you learn when you moved from being a social worker into being a conference chair? Because I guess that's a very different angle through which you're viewing some of the same issues that parents are experiencing. Mm-hmm. do you think you are able to see. More empathically with the parents because you weren't so caught up in the, the relational dynamics. How did it, yeah, what was your experience with that? I it was a re it was a really interesting experience. I think the first thing was that I was on a team with a lot of people who had, you know, we'd all been social workers. Not many of us had been in management. We'd kind of gone from social work through to conference home, which I think is sometimes a little bit different than it might not be, but might, it felt like it was a little bit different from going to, to management. So, you know, our, our experience of, of social work was not a very, was not a distant, distant memory of going, you know, knocking on that front door wasn't a distant, distant memory. I suppose it's just that, can't remember what that theory is. My manager used talk about it all the time when you're kind of on the balcony instead of on the dance floor. Wow. And you just have a completely different, you know, it's a different perspective because you are seeing things from, from everybody's view, really. Yeah. We did restorative conferencing and, and I suppose also that it was post covid as well, so it was also the move back from conferences being held virtually to going in person. I think there is, there, there could be. And I could see why many conference chairs would feel a tendency to almost have that relief of thinking, no, I'm not, I'm not the bad guy anymore. Mm-hmm. And you have to be really mindful of that in the world as a conference chair, that you actually, your role is to facilitate and, and not, you know, be as, as neutral as possible. And I don't think I was any less empath, I suppose I don't think I was any more empathetic to perman than I was as a social worker, but you're just in a different position to be able to communicate that, if that makes sense. So yeah, it was, it was interesting to, to move into that role. And but I think I, as a team, we tried to stay as, as connected to social work practice as, as possible. And in terms of doing independent visits and still having that contact, and that's time with children and families as well. Mm-hmm. But also it, yeah, it's then the complication of doing that post pandemic and, and moving back into seeing people. But it's and I had an amazing, amazing manager who was very, you know, straight talking and grounded and rooted and if, you know, would always kind of Just make us check ourselves, you know, if you kind of said or did anything. And she'd always like remind you of, of social work practice and values and, and of also children and parents experiences as well. And she works really closely and had, continues to work really closely with the, the parents' advocacy group within that local authority as well. So a lot of what, what was done was, was informed by them. So yeah, I feel fortunate in that role. I mean, it's probably, it's probably lots of people would say lots of different things about the shift from social work to being a conference chair. But I learned a lot. Yeah. I think when I was a social worker in the long term teams, I think I, I found it very difficult to hear about any criticism levy towards social work in, in, in general because it just felt like an inordinately difficult job to be able to do and to be able to do as well as you would've liked to. And so I think when I was a social worker and you're working 50, 60, 70 hours a week and you are trying to do your very best to support parents, some of the parents you work with are very unhappy and dissatisfied and that sometimes they take that out on you to then hear that you are not doing good enough or that there's certain issues or whatever that might be. Even if it was like legitimate and fair, I think is quite difficult. It's difficult to hear that or to take that on board fully. Whereas where I've taken a step back and do community-based assessments now I can much more readily hear the perspective of parents and, and have a more balanced view in terms of hearing both the social worker's point of view, but also hearing it from the, from the parents' point of view and what may or may not be. Helpful in terms of relational dynamics. Just going back to your you mentioning about the restorative conferences. I know nothing about restorative practice or I don't even think I've heard of restorative conferences. What, what does that look like and what do they mean? So restorative conferencing, I suppose it was, it's about removing some of that hierarchy around meetings and I suppose trying to shift the meeting from being, you know, a, a, a formal meeting that is very intimidating and scary for families. And try and make it more. As inclusive as possible. So being really clear on harm caused and, and how harm has been caused, but being open to listening to everybody really. So I think there's, there's a lot of crossovers, ands in, in terms of restorative practice and other different types of practice. But yeah, it's, it, it's about, I suppose, holding families and, and children and families' views in, in mind and making it a bit more of, of a, of an open space, which is a, isn't easy to do because we are also then working within, you know, statutory guidance as well and, and looking at ideas around threshold and risk. So, yeah, it's not necessarily an, an easy thing to try and manage, but it's also remembering, you know, how if you. If a child protection plan is gonna be put in place, and if that is necessary, and I mean, it's a big, it's a bigger topic anyway in terms of child protection plans or overuse of child protection plans. But if, if it's determined that threshold is met for a child protection plan, it's about that being as effective as possible rather than having actions on plans that, you know, aren't relevant in, you know, almost tick box exercises and aren't realistic for people to meet because it just, it means things are, you know, then prolonged and it's not actually helpful or relevant for a, for a child or a young person. Yeah. I think on the topic of child protection plans, one of the things that I found quite frustrating was that you'd often, there'd be like 20 point child protection plans where you'd just have a, like a massive list of services or actions that would need to be taken. Rather than thinking about what, what, is there like a critical cause of concern here? And, and if so, what could we do to address that particular issue? So for example, if you look at like substance issues, if, if you have a parent who has a significant substance issues issue, that would of often create difficulties in then providing the children with routine or boundaries or getting the children to school and issues around finances and potentially contributing to neglectful home conditions, et cetera. And sometimes I'd find we'd be trying to treat all of those various different symptoms of the underlying problem, which was around the substance misuse, rather than taking a kind of targeted approach to the fundamental issue i e substance misuses, but then potentially what's, what's beneath the substance misuses. I suppose that's the, challenge of, of, of developing plans that I don't know if we get a lot of supportive as a, as a newly qualified social worker. My my manager was very again, very straight talking in terms of there would never be more than five or six actions on a planner. If there were, she would be saying, why are there so many actions on a plan? Why, you know, and who are these actions for? Because if we're asking a family to do lots of different things, but actually the, the multi-agency group around it don't have any actions on that plan. How is that fair? Or how is that justified? And is this relevant and is this too vague? You know, you've written support on here. What does support re what do you mean by support? So yeah, I think when you have that kind of critical overview, it's really helpful because otherwise it's, it's just words, isn't it? And it then just becomes unrealistic expectations for. For families that then aren't met and it, it just builds into that cycle, doesn't it? Whereas it's, it's better to have, you know, three things on the plan that can, you know, are actually achievable and, and realistic, and then be able to review those than, like you say, have 20 different things that just, just aren't relevant. And I've definitely seen plans like that before. I think I saw plans like that when I was a student. And, and you know, it, it's not helpful, is it? No, I don't think it's helpful. I think it must impart from the like professional anxiety about needing to be seen to be doing something about a particularly concerning set of issues within a family and therefore having lots of things to do. Looks like we're doing lots of things obviously. And so it obviously, I think it does require a degree of bravery or courage. And it sounds like that's what your manager was, was able to afford you. I was wondering, were there any kind of views or ideas on how to help children that, that changed over your time as a social worker from being doing the duty and assessment into the long term, into being the conference chair for example? When I look back, one of the things I would, I think about is how my views on the impact of children being removed into care has probably altered now. Because when you have the experience of bringing children into care and in not producing the kind of in outcomes that you'd kind, you'd hoped that it would produce, you'd then become a little bit more reserved or reticent about pursuing the plan of removal without really fully doing everything within your power to try and support the children. Because there are instances, for example, where children have come into care and then you see that they've had multiple placements, and then you start to question, oh, is that experience potentially worse than what it would've been if they remained at home, even though remaining at home was clearly quite harmful and unhelpful for the children. Yeah, I very similar to you. I, I think, I think my, I think over my time in social work, the way that I've worked with children has changed. I think it changed when I had children as well, which it, I think it's often, it's difficult to talk about. I don't think it, I don't think having children necessarily has to change the way you practice in social work. And I think it's, it's not a difficult topic, but obviously it's a predominantly female workforce and I think there's a lot attached to. Mothering or not mothering and you know, it's probably too big for this podcast, but for me anyway, having children definitely changed my perception. And I often think back to as a newly qualified social worker when I didn't have children you know, I just think I'd, you know, in so many ways I just didn't have a clue about parenting. And yeah, what I thought I knew, or what I assumed was yeah, was just, you know, very surface level to an extent. And I definitely, definitely agree with you in terms of the, the outcome of, of care proceedings. I think when I was a new social worker, Court was very, it, it, it changed quite quickly. But the idea of, of court and legal proceed proceedings was exciting. And I actually do a court skills training and I tell Stu students that I say, I, I know you think it's exciting that, you know, you might say I'm really nervous about giving evidence, but it's also yeah, I think because Ko, I think because we see in the media, in in, I'm talking about kind of films or television shows, you know, KO is this, it, it's part of this bigger movie Hollywood narrative quite a lot of the time. And I think that adds into this sense of, yeah, excitement. It doesn't sound like the wrong word, but I, I know that certainly comes up for people. And then actually when. See what that looks like as a social worker. And you see, like I was talking about before, you know that one minute you could be sat on somebody's sofa and the next day you are in a courtroom or, or in a court waiting room and you're not, you know, nobody's talking to each other and it's really tense and it, you know, it becomes so formal. And then the outcome of that, like you said, and, and I, I say this again when I do court skills that often it's framed as a, you know, some people win at court and some people lose. And I just say nobody wins. No one wins. You know, the, even if you get the outcome that you went in for whoever, you know, whether that's the local authority gets the outcome that they went in for, or a parent gets the outcome that they went in for. You know, it traumatizes families and, and children. It breaks down relationships with social workers. I'm not saying it's not necessary some of the time, obviously I know, I know that it is, but. You know, I, I never kind of fluff the reality of that for, for students and new social workers, and like you say, it's, there's very much this. And, and if for me, sometimes it comes from other profess professionals outside of social work that care is this sort of happy ending. And when they're finding things really difficult or they are, are not able to empathize with a, a family and what they're going through and, you know, they see something happening for a child or young person that is obviously, you know, really, really difficult. It's often this or they need to come into care, they need to go into foster care. But you know, like you said, the reality of that can be numerous place. You know, the reality of that is, is being taken from, from what you know to strangers, and I'm, I'm talking about this as a social worker, I'm not care experienced either as, you know, so I can't even really speak about what that must feel like. Yeah, I think that's for, I'm always really clear when I do court skills training about that element of it, because I think that's one of the most important things to, to talk about really. That, and, and we have to be as realistic about it as as possible, because otherwise new social workers won't, won't get that un until, like you say, maybe you, you see that at the other side. Mm-hmm. That it isn't necessarily, it, it's not the end of a journey, is it? It's just the, the start of another one. Yeah. I think the issue around children is really interesting because sometimes so you hear parents say, oh, you, you know, they ask if you've got children or not, and then some social workers are quite apprehensive about answering that. My sense is that you should probably just say whether you have children or not, and then, and then use that as a opportunity to be curious about what impact that, that, that. The parent thinks that having children or not having children might have, because either way, either you have children and you can potentially relate with them more, or you don't have children, and then you can say, look, I don't have children. Help me understand what that, what that might be like for you. But also there does seem to be a reality around having children does allow you to experientially understand just how unbelievably challenging it can be to bring, bring up children and how, how stressful it can be e even when you are in a relatively well supported context. And so it does, I think, create a degree of empathy that's hard to otherwise have unless you've had children. And then the issue around court being kind of exciting. It it is, it is was also my experience and I think that's partly because it signifies. Development in your career as well as a social worker because obviously you're not allowed, well, you shouldn't be allowed care proceedings within the first several months. And so part of it is a wrap about, you say that Hollywood representation in the media of what court is like and then part of it reflects progressed in progression in your career development. But I also really liked what you said about, although it's framed in terms of there being winners and losers, really fundamentally there there isn't I, I remember walking court once with the family that we'd been in care proceedings for over 12 months and this was after quite a lengthy period of having worked with the family under child in need, then child protection, then pre proceedings and and we were grant, the local authority was granted care orders. And I remember walking out just feeling com completely and utterly deflated even though. We'd secured the orders that essentially we had been advocating and fighting for, for the previous 12 months. Mm-hmm. and, and for, which I think was in the best interest of the children because you are just, you just experienced the kind of reality of the trauma that the parents have been through throughout the whole process. The loss that they're now experienced, the encounter result of no longer having their children. And, and often the parents in my experience have, were completely traumatized in their own childhood and that's contribute to them and difficulties in their adulthood, which have then undermined their ability to safely look after their children. So it's not even like they're deliberate, purposeful child abusers, they're often just traumatized adults that haven't been supported throughout their kind of whole lives. and then yeah. And so you're just left with this horrible mix of feelings or of, of guilt and a little bit of shame for participating in a system that does this to people. A bit of relief that it's the conclusion of the care proceedings and, and, and that the children are gonna be in foster care, albeit permanently ed from their parents. Yeah, it's a lot. Is it, it's hard and it, yeah, I dunno what the answer is cuz it's, you know, with lack of, of funding and lack of services, it, it just seems to escalate things to legal proceeding. Where there hasn't been enough early intervention because the early intervention isn't there, which I think is happening, you know, everywhere at the moment. It's, you know, it's a, it's a, a wider issue, isn't it? Yeah, I think so. And probably having conversations such as this one for there being some acknowledgement for social workers about just how emotionally complex and demanding this role is to be involved, children and families who've experienced the difficulties they have, and then be subject to care proceedings. And I don't think there's any other job like it where, like you, you've mentioned, you, you, in the morning, you could be in some of the most deprived, impoverished communities in the country, in, in the homes of some of the most traumatized families. And then in the afternoon, you are dressed up in a suit and during a, in, in a courtroom surrounded by lawyers and barristers and judges and mm-hmm. they're kind of having to adapt your communication style from being in one setting to another, setting it and the kind of skills that's required to, to be able to operate in both of those contexts is, I think phenomenal. Really. Like, that's a, like, it's a, it's a privileged role to have, but it also requires such a, a significant amount of skill and ability to, to, to manage the emotional experience of those different contexts that we have to operate in. Yeah, definitely. So I wanted to ask you about how you've kind of transitioned from being a practitioner and, and then moved into the online supporting a S Y E space that you are. Currently in, cause you've got social work sorted. So can you talk a little bit about how that came about and how you've moved into that area? Yeah, so I, I suppose obviously I have that moved from being a newly qualified social worker and in, through, into being a senior practitioner, had always supported students and then moved into supporting new social workers in practice and had always wanted to, it started with we wanted to write something. I, I wanted to write a book or a guide and I thought, well, I need people to know about this. And I think it was one of my friends who then suggested, well, why don't you go on on Instagram? And I wasn't like a big social media person prior to that. Like I was saying to you off. So I didn't, didn't have Twitter or anything. So I started. Posting on Instagram for social workers in store, like a huge amount of social workers in the us. Kind of had different Instagram accounts and it all seemed kind of really supportive and really uplifting for social workers. And I kind of started to share little words, the advice I suppose, and guidance and different support for new social workers. And it, it was really popular and it really took off. And I, I suppose I was focusing on lots of practice issues and, and listening to then social workers who would contact me and say, I'm, you know, new social workers who would contact me and say, I'm really struggling with this. I'm really struggling with this. And I suppose post pandemic, I'll, I'll call it, I, being in practice and, and seeing what was happening as well as sort of having this sort of online platform. I was noticing more and more that. New social workers were coming into practice having done their studying and their placements in a virtual world, which was not the same experience as probably you and I had as, as training to to be social workers. And they were really nervous and anxious about a lot of the face-to-face interaction that they were having. So I focused a, a lot really on some of those. I don't know whether it's a other, I'd call them kind of practice issues or not, but sort of, you know, how do you knock on somebody's front door? How do you explain it? You're a social worker. So even things like, do you take your shoes off in somebody's house? Or where do you sit on a home visit? And all these things that, you know, it's not, it's not new, but it was probably the way that it was communicated and, and really I suppose, meeting new social workers where they were at, which was on Instagram, and they were busy and rushing through their day. And actually I started to think, well, if they just stop and read something that I write and that might make a difference to them on their next home visit, it might remind them to do something or not to do something or check in on a habit or say something in a certain way. then that is, is gonna be helpful for them. So yeah, it grew from, from Instagram, I'd have a blog. And then my podcast began as a bit of an extension of that because there's only so much you can say in a certain amount of, of space on social media. And I started off, I suppose explaining, you know, going through those things as I would with any student, as a practice educator, you know, what do you need to consider before you do a home visit? How do you plan for that? How do you prepare for it? What do you do when you're inside somebody's home? How do you consider your safety? How can you communicate different things? And then it grew from, you know, from that to having guests on as well. So it's a bit of a, a mix and, and all I suppose alongside that, while that was happening, I was moving into doing lots of training within my role and then externally. And yeah, I suppose it, it's, it's grown from there, but it's It's, it's demonstrated to me the gaps that there are for new social workers. And I suppose what I feel fortunate to have is a, a really strong feedback loop with people that I'm connected with who say, you know, this has happened or this has happened and, you know, what would you advise? Or, I dunno what to do in this situation, or, I'm afraid to ask this, or, can you write something on this or do a p podcast on this? And it shows a lot of the, the gaps, which I don't think are everywhere because every local authority's different, but there certainly still are gaps. And I, I think some of that is the political climate that we're in. I think a lot of that is, is post covid. A lot of social workers who might not necessarily be newly qualified but did their newly qualified year virtually. So they're still relearning some of the skills that they might have have picked up if they were doing things, you know, in, in face-to-face practice. Mm. So yeah, that's, that's how it, it's built really, I suppose it, it grew quite. organically to begin with and then has become a little bit more formal. Yeah, I, I came across your writing I think probably several months ago, and I was really impressed by two, two things. One was the fact that you were talking about and exploring issues that I think frontline social workers experience on a kind of day-to-day basis and, and issues which are surprisingly neglected I think, in potentially in, arguably in university education, but also in terms of other social work advice and guidance platforms that are available. And then secondly that you had a really engaging way of talking about some of the issues, a really relatable kind of down to earth way of explaining some of the issues and difficulties that social workers are likely to be grappling with during the first few years of their practice. Were what, what areas did you see that social workers weren't getting enough advice or support with? Were there kind of themes or particular topics that kept reemerging? For, for me there was a lot around the face-to-face contact with people, like I said, cuz I think that was a massive gap when things turned virtual. Mm-hmm. So just, you know, being with somebody on a home vi visit, how to manage different conversations, how to manage questions coming up. So, for example, like we talked about, you know, you know, how are you gonna respond if someone says, well, have you got kids? Or, well, you've not been through this before. So some of, some of those kind of initial responses to questions are probably quite common for social workers to be asked a lot around assessment skills, which is, you know, that's so broad and is so transferable, but. in terms of you know, explaining what an assessment is, how you can prepare for an assessment, how you actually meet the requirements, your statutory requirements of an assessment, but then also how to balance the the context that we're, we are working in with, I suppose, working for a local authority whilst managing the current political climate. So a a lot of things around self-care and how to manage time and how to switch off and, yeah. And again, most of it would just call a lot of like how to manage meetings again, because meetings were virtual. So how do you then, Sit in a meeting with people direct work, like we talked about when you came on my podcast. How do you know, how do, how do you do that? Because some social workers say, oh, we're gonna do direct work. And they might just think it's just, that's a worksheet and that's it. And like, have a, an episode on it. And I think we talked about it a little bit that, you know, we'll, I'll take out the three houses and, and do that, you know, without anything underlying it. So yeah, lots of thing. And, and it all comes from, from social workers. And I think it, you know, I am always thinking about who I am writing for, and that is new social workers who are extremely busy and extremely overwhelmed and who desperately want to be reading the piece of research and who desperately want to be sitting with their books and looking through theory, but don't have time. And it's never my intention to try and oversimplify very complex things. but I suppose in the same way that we would do with a family who are completely overwhelmed and, and cannot, you know, only have a certain capacity for some information, I would rather a new social worker have something simple and be able to digest that, you know, that little reminder, you know, that before you go in a home visit to you know, check your facial facial expression before you walk in the door or take a deep breath and, and, you know, think about where you're sitting in a room. I'd rather them have that something small that they can actually manage and implement and put into practice than be completely overwhelmed. So, yeah, I always kind of say that what I. Do is never intended to be, instead of it's as well as in terms of support for new social workers. And it, and it's, I suppose in the same way that we meet families where they're at, it's meeting new social workers where they're at. Like I said, sometimes there's just scr aimlessly scrolling to try and switch their mind off. And if they happen to spot something that then they put into practice tomorrow or help them, you know, center a child's views in a meeting in the morning, I would rather them have that than nothing, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think the list of things were de were definitely areas that I think your contribution has been really valuable. And like for, for example, even an assessment, writing an assessment, there is surprisingly little guidance or support or not, or guidance and support that I've read that that isn't particularly helpful. But I'm reading a book at the moment on assessment and decision making, and it's so abstract and kind of academically that it's just not particularly, you can tell it's not being produced by somebody who's a, a, a practicing social worker because it just doesn't resonate or allow, it doesn't, the ideas don't connect with my experience of writing and the writing and assessment. Yeah. And I know that you've produced a guide on on writing assessments. Do you wanna talk a little bit about that and what you've included to help social workers with this, with this piece of work? Yeah, I suppose that came from a number of things. Like I said, that was what I initially wanted to do because I, I saw that throughout practice really, I'd seen lots of aids as opposed to assessments where you might have some prompt questions that I would say Quite often would lead to what, what I'd call like a surface level assessment. So, you know, under the, the domains, the the common assessment framework for, for health, you would, you know, have this child's registered with this gp. There's either no health concerns or there are health concerns, but they might not be significant. And then that's the end of it. And, and you know, and again, in being in duty and assessment team and, and picking up, you know, or seeing some of those bad habits, you might, that might be something that you could see. There's often some assessments that you could maybe, they're not necessarily copy and pasted, but you could almost write them off off and see how they would be written. And I just think that, you know, yes, we have to. You know, we have to work within the legislation and the strategy guidance because it's there. And if you work for local authority, you have policy around that that you have to meet. But then we also have social workers who want to adhere to their ethics and values and want to think of things contextually and be systemic in that. So maybe we could think a little bit more about, well, what does healthy mean to that child or that family? What does that look like for them? If they had to describe someone healthy and someone unhealthy, then, then what would that mean? Because then we get a little bit of context and understanding around Any health needs that if you know if they're there or if they're not there. The same for education, you could almost write the similar sort of thing. You know, this child has this ex attendance these are the favorite subjects, these are the things that they're struggling with, and that could be the end of it. Or you could say, well, actually, how do the teachers in school describe this child? You know, what words do they use? What's the narrative about education in the family? And some of those things might be second, you know, there's a lot of social workers. That kind of assessment might be second nature to them. But for a lot of new social workers, it, it isn't, it's always kind of coming back to the fact that a lot of new social workers, they, they will only have examples of very simple assessments and they don't have anything to work from apart from a few sort of prompts. So my aim with the guide really is, again, as it's a bit of an, as well as not an, instead of it's for new social workers to work through the framework of a child and family assessment. Having some prompts, some reminders, some reflective questions that they can either consider when they're writing up or they can consider and, and maybe sit with a child or a family and, and use them. So it makes sure that, I suppose it's the aim is to ensure that they meet the criteria that they need to meet, to complete an assessment, but that it isn't a useless document. It can actually be helpful, it can actually talk about some of the, the wider systemic or political issues which then work. You know, we can have, I think some of the worst assessments are ones that just, you know, attribute blame to individuals without thinking about context. And I suppose my aim is to try and find a way to move away from that, but within the constraints of, of the current system. Mm-hmm. And yeah, like I said, a lot of, you know, it's about remembering that. every new social worker is having a different experience depending on the time that they qualified, where they qualified, the type of job they have, the team that they're in, and, you know, no systems are perfect and there'll be a lot, there are a lot of new social workers who just don't have a, you know, any kind of guidance around assessments. So that's, that's the aim of the guide Yeah. In a very long-winded way. I think that's exactly what social workers need is some kind of guidance or structure that they, that, that can be used to compliment whatever process they have within their local authority in terms of undertaking an assessment, because I think there's a kind of balance to be struck. When I first qualified in, in 2010, we used to have something called the initial assessment and the core assessment and the core assessment. Would have under each category. So you'd have like the child's needs, education, health identity, et cetera. And then under each of those categories, you would have about between 20 and 30 questions. And then, so the core assessment would even, would essentially be you to see the family and asking anywhere between 103 hundred questions. And the vast majority of those were particularly relevant or useful to, to what the purpose of the assessment was. But it did at least give you a very, very clear structure and set of guidance. And then the, the following, the kind of Mon Monroe review where she advocated for less prescriptive methods to assessment and to working with fam children and families, which I think was definitely needed. The, the core assessment was way too question led and focused. they then moved into assessments where there's almost very little structure and guidance. So you just have to, in some assessments, they'll just have the child's needs, the parents functioning, family history and functioning categories without much in the way of guidance and support. And so I, I wouldn't cope as a newly qualified with the current way the assessment is formatted because I just wouldn't know where to go or what to ask how, how to undertake the assessment. So I think it sounds like your, your guide will provide a useful middle ground between the, the current assessment templates that many local authorities have, which provide a basic infrastructure that enables people to complete the assessment and then be you being able to use the guide that you've produced to kind of guide and influence and help social workers during, in, in that, in that process. Yeah. And hope, you know, there will be, I'm sure lots of local authorities who, who have something similar, I hope. But it, you know, it's like I said, I, I feel fortunate to have a, a feedback loop of, of social workers who will say, this is what I need or this is what I'm struggling with. And, and it does seem to be a, a bit of a gap. And I suppose I've seen that in lots of different ways in practice of reading lots of different assessments and having some oversight of that and being in a more auditing role as well. And it, it's about what, what children, young people and families will also read about themselves. It's remembering who it's for and, and who we're trying to help and support. And, you know, being balanced in that is, is so important. Even if it's you. You never know when you are, you know, quite often in assessment or, you know, under section 17, like I said, might be the first point of contact that you have with a child or a young person, but you don't know how long that journey is then going to be. That might be the, you know, it might be the end of that journey, but that what's written will then stay with them rightly or wrongly throughout their life. And it's not easy because, you know, social workers are completely overwhelmed and, and overworked and, and spread very thinly as well. So, you know, it's not about saying every single assessment is going to be the, the same level of You know, high quality, and it's gonna be completely, completely holistic. But it's about slowly, slowly bringing in some of those ideas into your practice as a newly qualified social worker that, you know, if you have one, one question that you might ask. Mm-hmm. that includes something in an assessment, rather than trying to, you know, and always say to when I'm doing training, whatever I'm saying now, please don't expect that you know, you're gonna go into practice tomorrow and implement this with every single person that you work with, because it's not realistic in terms of the the context that you are in. But yeah, it's just trying to, to do as much as you can with the time that new social workers have, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. And I think one of the things I think about assessments is that often social workers can feel like they're a slightly unnecessary. Bureaucratic task that kind of just prevents them from doing the work, which is direct work with children and families. But like you say, this is a, an assessment that's gonna be stored on, on a file and being provided to the family that talks about some of the most intimate elements of their life. And so you want that to be undertaken with a degree of care and compassion for the, the parents' difficulties. And I also think that assessment is one of the ways I think there's two, two elements to assessment. One is that I think it's one of the most effective ways that you improve your ability as a social worker because it can be a really powerful way of clarifying your thinking because you're thinking, kind of guides your behavior. And so the more clearer you can write about a parent's difficulties and the experiences of a child, I think potentially the more effective you can be as a practitioner in helping them. And secondly, the, the way to help the family is to develop a reasonably accurate understanding of the problems that they're experiencing. And, and writing is a really effective way of making sense of multiple sources of information often that are sometimes kind of contradicting one another. You might get one report from one person within the family that doesn't line up with another person's point of view in the family, one professional fixes the other professional thinks that. And so you've got, you know, several sources of information coming from different places. They don't always align with each other. And the assessment is a way to integrate all of this complex information in a way that will hopefully, Help you provide a meaningful plan of support for the family? Yeah. So where, where, where could people find that guide if they were interested in looking at it? So it's through my website, which is social sorted training.com. Or they can send me an email. So that's social outlook.com. Great. And then one of the things I wanted to ask before we wrap up and I take up any more of your time is what's been your experience of writing and podcasting online? Because I can imagine that being, well, I don't have to imagine it cause I've done it, but it, it is quite a scary an intimidating thing to do. and I just, and I wonder how you found that experience, that process. Yeah. It's, I suppose when I started social sorted, because I wasn't in my role as a conference chair at the time, I was in practice, it was anonymous, so I didn't kind of sh I shared my name. I didn't ever do any kind of videos. It was all as anonymous as possible. And I think I did that to protect the ch children families that I was working with, because I was very, very conscious that I didn't want to breach any confidentiality and also to protect myself because I, you know, remember very well being in university and having a big speech on, have all your social media private and you know, the risks of, of being a social worker and, and speaking publicly and things. So there's a, there was a lot of I wouldn't say there was, wasn't fear around that for me. I was very conscious of it. And then as I moved into a different role and it was really honest with my manager about what I was doing, cuz that on the side being a bit more public facing and, and having a podcast, I suppose it's, I always, I always get feedback, like I said, from new social workers, so I know how helpful that is. So I that is what helps me continue that because I'm always responding, whether it, whether it's obvious or not, I'm always responding to a question that I've had about something, whereas that, that might turn into a podcast episode about a topic or it might turn into a blog post. And I, like I said, I think, You know, as well as so many other things. And it's not, instead of, it's not intended to replace, you know, I massively value my university education. It gave me such a, a solid grounding for social work. In particular, you know, the political context of social work that I wouldn't have had in any other way, I don't think. And I suppose my, the only thing that I feel really conscious of is that, you know, that the new social workers that I'm working with know how much I've, I value and respect theory and research and academics and social work. And I, I don't think it, you should have to choose between one and the other. I know that so many new social workers find it so hard to connect theory to practice and find it so difficult to connect the academic ideas with what is going on on the ground. But I. Doing our social workers is, is trying to bring those things together as much as possible. And the only thing that I'm ever conscious of in terms of having an online platform is that that doesn't come across enough. That in what I'm trying to do for new social workers, like I talked about in giving them, you know, the most simple possible information that they need at the time, I never want it to be presented that that is just instead of everything else that they also need as well. Mm-hmm. what, what would be your advice to somebody who was either newly qualified or a couple of years in and were wanting to develop a public profile, either through logging or podcasting, or posted on social media? Would you recommend it, would you? I would say to be very careful I think if you are starting anything that is, you know, online or in the public domain, you have to be really clear about who it's for and why you're doing it. I do social work training and consultancy, and so sharing things on, on Instagram and having a podcast is a part of that. It's not all of what I do, it's just a part of it. And I'm quite careful about, you know, other parts of my life that I share or don't share because it's, it's purely work-based. There's a, you know, I think it's positive that there are so many more social workers in the online space. I don't think we can have enough podcasts to be honest. Social work is just about listening to different people's views and opinions. And I think the more of, of that the better because, you know, listening is always a good thing. Mm-hmm. But I, I think I'm, I'm always checking in on how I'm adhering to social work, ethics, ethics and, and values and trying to reflect on that as much as possible and make changes if I'm ever thinking that I haven't done something in line with, with social work ethics and values and, and kind of, you know, following guidance around social media as well is really important. And so, yeah, I would say if there were students or newly qualified social workers doing that and, and using social media to connect and cause I think it's an amazing way to connect mm-hmm. And it's an amazing way for new social workers to feel less lonely. And, you know, we don't want people to feel like they're the only ones struggling with something when they're not. But it's just doing it with, as with as much care as possible. And, you know, any mistakes that you make now on, on social media online, they're there aren't they? You, you can't erase them. What, what do you think? Yeah, I think I agree with everything that, that you've just said. I, I feel I have two competing thoughts really. One is that I feel like there, that, that there's definitely room for more people to contribute online in the way of blogs or podcasts. And yet at the same time, I, I don't, I don't know if I would have wanted to have done that earlier on in my career during the first few years, which is a bit, a bit of a shame really, because sometimes the best time to learn or share something with someone is when you've just gone through learning a, a particular thing. So for example, if you are been doing social work for one year, sharing what you've done over the course of that year would be really good to. A student, if you are two or three years in sharing what you've learned and what you've been through, would be really useful to somebody that's one or two years through. And so there is a value in sharing what you are learning as you are learning it. It and yeah, at the same time, I, I would be a bit wary about that, partly because when you are, when you are new, it's not obvious to you what the consequences are in terms of loosening the boundaries and what you're willing to share, especially online. So, for example, there's some parents that you work with where if you share some personal information, which you think might help them in the context of a difficulty that they're going through, or to convey a degree of empathy that can sometimes backfire and get used against you if you then have to make a really difficult decision about their child. And that might lead to you being. Emotionally hurt or compromised in some kind of way. And so that's not to say that you shouldn't use self-disclosure as a form of cultivating relationships, but it's just when you are new, you don't know where the boundaries should be. So you tend to ha, my, my position was to be much more risk averse than at the beginning. Then I was later on when I knew where I could play around with those boundaries. And that's what I would say about being online really. And I think on, on Twitter especially, which is the main social media platform, it can be very negative at times and quite critical of social work or just generally speaking. So I tend to, I'm quite clear that on online, I only want to contribute in a, in a positive. So even though I might have a particular reaction to certain things or certain situations that that are happening, I tend not to use social media as a way to communicate that just because I want, yeah, that, that's my mentality a little bit is if I'm gonna be on social media, it will, I'll only share positive elements of what's happening, which I suppose is presents a bit of a bias and skewed view. But yeah, no, I I think it's abouting yourself as well and protecting your energy, cuz social media can be so draining. Like, I, I, I think the same with, I found Twitter just really difficult. I, I always left using the app just feeling like there was no hope whereas I've never found that with any other, it, it's a personal thing, but I've never found that with any other kind of social media. So yeah, I ju I think you just have to, to protect. yeah. Constantly reflect on, on what you're doing and if you're doing something that isn't aligned with, with your values as they change or as they develop, then you know, to, to stop doing it and just try and make changes to that, I suppose. Yeah. Excellent. Well, I do not want to take up any more of your time cause I know how busy you are with everything that you do. If people wanna find out more about you and your writing and your podcasting, where, where would be the best place for them to find that? So, so the podcast is social work Sorted, the podcast, and that's something. Apple and on Spotify, or you can get it on Buzz Sprout if you need transcripts. So there are transcripts on there. And my website is social work sorted.com, so you can find me on there or on Instagram, which is again social work sorted. And, oh, I'm on on LinkedIn as well and I don't really understand it, but I sort of thought I'd get it as an alternative to Twitter. So I'm on LinkedIn as well. That's on as Vicky Chevlin. Brilliant. Thanks very much Vicky.