Let's Talk Health Justice with Assunta Morrone

In this episode of Let's Talk Health Justice, Partnerships Manager at Health Justice Australia Cath Bucolo, chats with Assunta Morrone, the Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence Project Lead at Western Health. 

Assunta has been working in multicultural, women’s and youth sectors for the past twenty years, and has a passion for social justice and working to address the intersectional barriers that make and keep people unwell. Assunta speaks with us about authentically engaging people with lived experience, shares her top tips for lawyers starting out in health justice partnership in hospital settings and much more.  

For more from Health Justice Australia visit our website, at healthjustice.org.au. 

Health Justice Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters where we work, and pays respect to Elders past and present.   

This episode references sexual and family violence. For 24/7 support, contact Australia’s national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service, 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). If you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you can also reach out to 13 YARN (13 92 76) and talk with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander crisis supporter. LGBTIQ+ people looking for peer support and affirming referral pathways can contact QLIFE on 1800 184 527, 3pm to midnight 7 days a week.  

Credits 

Produced by Lizzie Marton, Content Coordinator at Health Justice Australia 

Transcript

Cath: Health Justice Australia acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we work, and pays our respect to Elders past and present. We recognise the ongoing harm of colonisation, and acknowledge the resilience, knowledge, wisdom and teachings of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This episode references sexual and family violence. For 24/7 support, contact Australia’s national domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support service, 1800 RESPECT, on 1800 737 732. If you are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander, you can also reach out to 13 YARN, on 13 92 76, and talk with an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander crisis supporter. LGBTIQ+ people looking for peer support and affirming referral pathways can contact QLIFE on 1800 184 527, 3pm to midnight 7 days a week. You’ll also find this information at the top of the show notes. 

[theme music] 

Cath: Welcome to Let's Talk Health Justice, where we explore the intersection of health and justice. We’ll be discussing how these systems can work better together, and what that means for those who rely on health social and legal services for health. For many people, the problems in their lives are not easily broken down into the narrow areas of expertise that our service systems are designed around.  

Think about women and children experiencing family violence, or people navigating mental health challenges. The problems they may face are multi-dimensional, and can require support from a range of people, including doctors, lawyers, social workers, midwives and financial counsellors. 

By working together, health, legal and social services can support people living with complex problems much better than they ever could as a single service. 

Stay tuned as we talk to people working at the intersections to transform the way people access help, including frontline practitioners in health and legal services, researchers who are trying to understand what works and why, and policy makers who shape our service systems. 

This podcast is produced by Health Justice Australia. Health Justice Australia supports the expansion and effectiveness of health justice partnership though research, capability building and strategic advocacy. 

Health justice partnership integrates legal help into services that support people’s health and wellbeing. 

To find out more about health justice partnership and the work of Health Justice Australia, visit our website at healthjustice.org.au 

Hello. I’m Cath Bucolo, Partnerships Manager at Health Justice Australia. In this episode, I chat with Assunta Morrone, the Strengthening Hospital Responses to Family Violence Project Lead at Western Health. 

Assunta has been working in multicultural, women’s and youth sectors for the past twenty years, and has a passion for social justice and working to address the intersectional barriers that make and keep people unwell. 

Assunta speaks with us about authentically engaging people with lived experience, shares her top tips for lawyers starting out in health justice partnership in hospital settings and much more. If you’re a lawyer working in health justice partnership and are wondering what’s on your health colleagues’ minds – Assunta is here to share some powerful insights. 

So, let’s hear from Assunta now, as she tells us a little about her background and how she came to work in health justice partnership. 

Assunta Morrone: So my name’s Assunta, I am on Wurundjeri Country here, I work for Western Health. I'm the Family Violence Program Lead here at the health service. You probably know that there was a royal commission into family violence after Luke Batty's tragic murder by his father Greg Anderson. And so the royal commission made 227 recommendations and one of the recommendations was that frontline response – so hospitals, education, housing – all those frontline services needed to improve their response to victim-survivors of family violence. And so out of that recommendation the government funded positions in every Victorian Public Health service, tertiary hospitals, acute hospitals, for a family violence lead. That funding has...it will finish soon. But at Western Health, the organisation has absorbed that position. So we provide secondary consult, education and training, policy advice. And in 2018, we were approached by Brimbank Community Legal Service to establish a health justice partnership in our antenatal clinic for pregnant women because we know that pregnancy is a high-risk time for family violence. 

Cath: Mmm. Well, what is your role then, in the health justice partnership? 

Assunta Morrone: So I sort of have a coordinating role. You know, I collaborate with the lawyer, basically I make sure that we've got room and that it's running smoothly and that they feel supported and they feel orientated into the organization. Because you can probably imagine coming to a large hospital – just walking in here, it can be really daunting, even for someone as confident as lawyers who, you know, are used to dealing with a complex justice system. But this is a different beast. You know, even... I just make sure that, you know, things like, that they've got a car park, access to get out, that they know where the room is, that they've got a phone number if anything happens. You know, if there's any problems – yeah, they can call me. So that's sort of that coordinating role. Day-to-day on the ground, really, the lawyer really engages with our social work team and our midwifery team. So I just provide that coordination. I have meetings with HJP just to see how referrals are going, if there's any way we can improve referrals. During COVID, you know, it was quite tricky because we were in a situation where we couldn't let people in. So, it was trying to work out, you know, how do we continue the referrals going and we had to provide the service over the phone. Part of the health justice partnership is also providing education to our staff. So, you know, I help coordinate that because the social workers and midwives are just too busy. You know, I'll meet with them and say “Okay, what education do we want to provide this month?” 

Cath: I think we can't understate that many health justice partnerships don't actually have that role. So that coordination work that you're doing, sometimes is being done by the social worker for example or the lawyer or both of them sharing it – but not everyone has a dedicated coordinating role. 

Assunta Morrone:  Yeah, I guess that could happen in a small organization. But for us, you know, we're pretty big. And you’re right, those little things like walking into a hospital and understanding what those codes are that come over the system, if you're coming in and you're talking to a patient and all of a sudden you hear code purple, code blue, code orange – and you're like “oh what's happening there?” I mean you know, those are things that you need to know because often we have to act, and there's a code happening right now, I hope you can’t hear it. 

 Cath: I did hear it [laughs] 

Assunta Morrone: [Laughs] And also, I mean, every profession I guess has their own culture ...and yes lawyers have a culture and that system, the justice system, has a culture, and Health has a culture. And Health is very hierarchical, structured, regimented, and even for a confident lawyer to go up to a nurse or a nurse unit manager, you know, knowing who to go up to, to say “hey I need some support” or “I need help,” or “this patient's feeling sick.” To know that if this patient starts to feel sick – this is what you need to do, this is who you need to speak to. I think those things are really important. So when we get a new lawyer, we spend a bit of time with them orientating them to the service and yeah.  

Cath: Yeah I think it’s a really...you're painting a really great picture. And again you can't underestimate how different it is to walk into such a new work environment that you're not used to. And you've yeah, you've described that beautifully. Is there any advice that you would give to lawyers who might be starting out new in a health justice partnership when they're walking into a hospital, like a huge hospital like Sunshine? 

Assunta Morrone:  I'll give you a big tip – nurses love chocolate, pens, any type of food. So if you want to get a friend – come with, bearing sweets and sugar or pens.  

Cathy: {laughs] Fabulous. Or pens did you say?  

Assunta Morrone: Or pens. Yeah, pens! 

Cathy: Everyone loses their pen!  

Assunta Morrone: Everyone loses their pen!  

Cathy: That’s right.  

Assunta Morrone: Years ago, we had a great lawyer. And she'd come up, every time she had chocolate or something and she'd just walk up to nurses’ station, go “hi guys, I'm here!” And sometimes there's no patients booked in to your service, but that doesn’t mean you just sit in the room and wait, sometimes, you know, she'd sit in the nurses’ station and she'd just have a conversation, you know, “Did you have any questions? What have you been hearing?” People would say, “oh I had this woman and I thought, you know, she needed some legal help, but I didn't know how to ask her, I wasn't sure if this is what you do.” And them getting to know your face is going to make it easier for them to say to the woman, “hey we've got a really good lawyer. They're really nice, they're really helpful. They won't make you do anything you don’t want to do – how about you just have a chat?” Those sort of conversations – because often people are scared to see a lawyer. Because your referrers are the midwives – so they've got to get to know you and they've got to trust you. The nurses and the clinicians become very protective of their patients. They want to know that if they're going to refer you to someone, it’s going to be useful for the patient or the client.  And actually last year I think we did a Legal Myth Busters, that was really good, staff really enjoyed that. 

Cathy: Was that a presentation? 

Assunta Morrone: Yeah, it was a presentation by the HJP. We just did a Zoom. Often now our  presentations are on Zoom because yeah, just for space and convenience. So we did a bit of a mythbuster. We've done ‘what is an IVO?’, ‘What's the difference between an intervention order and a personal safety order, an interim order?’ You know, stuff – it's confusing. They have to have a little bit of an understanding about what it is so that they can let patients know “hey, you might need to talk to a lawyer.” So those things can be really useful, I think those education sessions can be really useful. It debunks a lot of those, lot of those myths about legal systems. 

Cathy: So Assunta, I’ve heard you talk about the need to authentically engage people with lived experience when working in health justice partnership. Can you talk about this more, and particularly how it relates to working in health and the impact power dynamics have? 

Assunta Morrone: Oh, how much time have we got? Well, look I think...I think that, you know, engaging with people, or your client, or your patient whoever that you know, whatever context you're working in – it needs to be in a person-centered, strength-based, rights-based framework, right? So yes, people make decisions we don't agree with but if they have capacity, they can make those decisions. And often there's a lot of...I won't talk about Justice because it's not my area but I'll talk about Health. We have committees, where we put consumers on committees and we ask them what they think about the program and if there's anything that we should do differently. And often really, that's not real power sharing, right? Because there is a power imbalance. Those people with lived experience, regardless of, you know, they may be lawyers, or they may be doctors, or whatever, but in that context – they're consumers with lived experience sitting in a committee. So they're participating on our turf, in our structures, in the way we want them to and ultimately, we still hold the decision-making power. So, you know, unless we recognize this power imbalance – and this is what I mean by, we need to tackle those systems of oppression – those structures that stop people from participating are these white colonial structures that we put in. Yeah, they're there for a reason of course, but they often are a roadblock to participation. Or they only get one type of person participating, who has, you know, maybe the education, the means, the ability to participate. If you really want lived experience and genuine participation, you have to be able to give up power, and I don't see a health system or a justice system giving up power very quickly. But at an individual level, we can all do things to share power. So you know, I always say to clinicians, “So after you've done your intervention you say to the person, ‘How... how did you find our service today? You know, did I answer all your questions? Are you happy with what's happened?’” Now, they may or may not tell you, but you know, at least it's a conversation and if you build up that rapport and trust, then they may, they may tell you. Sometimes they tell you more than you want to hear but you know, that's positive as well. But, yeah, you know, participation and representation and true sharing decision-making is a very complex thing because, you know, we're so embedded in our white colonial structures that unless we reorientate and change who has the power then we really won't get true participation. It's complicated and especially in hospital, people are sick, they’re worried. You know, even if they're recovered, there's trauma – they're not at their best. And I suspect in a justice system too, you know, you're going to see people in crisis. You're not going to see them on a happy day. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for participation, but I think we’ve just got to be aware of those power imbalances and do everything we can to eliminate them. 

Cath: Mmm. Really be aware of them. Alright, maybe just to finish up, when you're working in partnership, it's not easy, and there isn't a playbook or one way to go about it. So, what drives you to work in partnership and keeps you motivated and passionate about that health justice partnership that you're coordinating? 

 Assunta Morrone: Yeah I think that, for Western Health, we are one of the biggest employers in the west and it's our responsibility not just to be in the community but to be part of the community. And so, as a large service, we have a responsibility to engage with our stakeholders in the west, and the health justice partnerships is one of our stakeholders. And we also have a responsibility to bring in any service that can help not just our patients but anyone in the west. And the partnership for us – having it in the hospital is a perfect opportunity for women who can't get to a lawyer because they're being monitored and the only safe place they can come to is the hospital. For me, it's always about patient safety. It's always about women's safety and supporting those women to make whatever decision they need to, to keep themselves safe. And if we didn't have the partnership here then, you know, those women may never speak to a lawyer or know their rights or get access to their kids or you know, know what to do with the house and how it's divided, or get parenting orders. A lot of people are not going to access a lawyer. Yeah, I think for me, that's...that's what drives me. It’s the impact that this partnership makes on women's lives and children's lives as well. 

[theme music] 

Cath: Thanks for listening to this episode of Let's Talk Health Justice. And thank you to Assunta for sharing your experiences, insights and advice with us – we loved chatting with you. 

For more from Health Justice Australia visit our website, at healthjustice.org.au.