Worker perspective - Sarah

I worked in an ES agency as a PSP case worker, and experienced the transition from PSP to become a JSA stream 4 case worker. I feel I have a pretty strong understanding of the employment services system from this experience, I also have a background in psychology, and my case work practice has been informed by this.

When PSP transitioned to JSA initially there was not much change, however over the next 2 years I noticed some major changes to office culture and eventually I left as my caseload increased from around 40 clients to 110, and I felt I was no longer able to practice case management. However I did learn some new skills during this transition, like reverse marketing that are useful to me now. But I saw a lot of change in ES, and now there is high turnover of staff.

My practice is based on the belief that a strengths-based approach is the best way to motivate people to find work. I have never had to impose a participation report, in fact, the culture where I worked was one where before JSA at least, we did not have to do PRs.  I found other strategies to engage my clients which in my view worked much better. I saw what happened to the client-worker relationship after PRs had been imposed, and all the trust had gone. As soon as you PR people, they lose trust in you and you create more problems. I also found they take up an enormous amount of time, so much detail, and they don’t achieve much.

I have worked with a lot of clients who are disengaged and angry, it becomes almost impossible to build rapport with them. There are a lot of clients who become extremely challenging to work with once this happens. There was one guy I could see on the system he had a history of PRs, and a recent 8 week no payment penalty, I could just not get to engage and at appointments I feared for my personal safety.  My strategy with him was to supply him with the information about what he needed to do by correspondence.

There is a lot of undiagnosed and untreated mental health conditions in the JSA caseload. I also had people with schizophrenia, some who didn’t take their medication; they really just needed mainly crisis intervention. There was a lot of homelessness and housing related issues to deal with. There are a few clients I felt sympathy for because there personal circumstances were just so extreme. Sometimes especially in PSP, we were just in crisis management mode the whole time.

I often had to be quite creative with the strategies I employed, because everyone has different interests and  needs a different approach to get them engaged.

I dedicated a lot of effort in getting to know my clients before I would for any sort of judgement about them, it’s a very professional case management approach

There are two types I think who take advantage of the system, there’s those who come in and try to take everything they can get, a train ticket here, bus ticket there, you just have to deal with them by setting down very clear boundaries.

The other ones are those who might be working cash in hand, and who don’t really want to find a job.  My approach was to get to know them, so that I really understand their circumstances, and then use all my contact strategies including official letters, personal letters, SMS, or email. If people would not get back I had permission to contact next of kin, in case something had happened to them, like incarceration, hospital, moving interstate.

But I am not pushover, I do take a strong line on behaviour that seems like avoidance or taking advantage. A lot of avoidance is because of mental health issues but if I felt someone was taking advantage I would bring them in for a good talking to, this was the best way to get results for me.

If I thought they were avoiding appointments without a reasonable excuse, once I was able to get them in I would make sure I clarified my role and expectations with them.  I would use my authority to get in charge of the situation; I didn’t mind using the power of my authority in this situation, although some of my colleagues in PSP were reluctant to. Then after we’d had a good conversation, I would outline their options, you can either get some help for your personal issues, or I can help you find a job you want, it then became a choice that they would make, so they would feel they had some control of the situation. It’s like handing a bit of power back over to them, and then we’d take the strengths=based approach to building on an interest.

My personal view is everyone has an obligation to give something back, it’s part of the social contract. So if I was working with someone like this I would try one of my contacts methods until they finally replied.

There is one lady who I felt was taking advantage and eventually I did find out that she was working the system and working cash in hand but I had to get a translator on board to do it so it took quite some preparation. Once I’d found out the truth, the client decided to transfer to another case worker! There was nothing I could do or wanted to do about that.

I relation to discretion, my approach was always to understand the client, through the process of getting to know them.

With new staff were brought on they did not come from a welfare or human service background, and basically lacked the knowledge to work with the clients.  Job network staff are different in all aspects of the practice than we were and there was much more focus in them on using PRs and compliance as tools for engagement. Then with JSA, there were no soft outcomes, and we were driven to get mainly employment outcomes.

I often heard them speaking to clients in ways that I don’t think were appropriate, much less effective. I remember one person, who was only 25, and at least initially she didn’t have any respect for the clients. She did not have the capacity to respect or understand who they were. Over time I put some effort into mentoring her, so that she would have a better understanding of the clients. We also realised we had different strengths, and shared our caseload, she would take the more job ready clients, I would take the more complex ones.

My employer brought in a rewards system for getting more outcomes to drive up performance as this is required in JSA.  I didn’t buy into it either, it just didn’t sit right with me, and I told my supervisor I did not want to be involved. It wasn’t a point of conflict, I just felt that it wasn’t for me.

There are definitely big differences between the way I worked with clients and some of my former colleagues. There was a term I remember they used, something like deadweight caseload, it was a term that a DEEWR contract manager also used in a meeting. I never thought of my clients like that. I think they need to categorise clients like that, because it affects their confidence as workers to feel that the problem lies with the way they do things. This wasn’t so much a case of there being insufficient resources, which there is also a problem, but I believe a self-defence mechanism. Because in a job like employment services you have to maintain yourself in a positive engagement space, to operate from a base of trust, and if you start feeling like you can’t help people or help certain types of people, it takes away that confidence in your ability to do the job. I guess this is a form of denial, but I felt it was a very strong part of the new ES culture at the agency I had been at.

There’s a massive problem with lack of professional development in the sector. Staff need to learn how to develop partnerships with clients, most of them don’t understand what this is any more. They need time and support for their training from employers otherwise it’s not going to happen.

The other most significant problem I see is the high turnover of staff. Clients like continuity it helps them build trust, so now there’s a real problem with staff being able to develop effective relationships with staff.