The MTU Wellbeing Podcast
The MTU Wellbeing Podcast
Recovery Pathways: Transforming Trauma into Healing
We showcase the Communities of Practice event organized by MTU's Department of Applied Social Studies, featuring expert speakers on recovery, addiction, and trauma-informed approaches that support student wellbeing.
• Communities of Practice bring together students, academics, practitioners, and placement hosts to explore current trends in social care
• Mark Wright shares his journey from addiction to working with the Recovery Academy, emphasizing multiple pathways to recovery
• Dr. Sharon Lambert advocates for "radical self-compassion" and creating trauma-sensitive university environments that prioritize diversity
• Dr. Jane Mulcahy explains how trauma affects neurophysiology and suggests curiosity rather than judgment when supporting individuals with trauma
• Trauma training should be available across all university departments, not just in mental health-related disciplines
• Recovery requires breaking down silos between stakeholders and creating collaborative approaches that acknowledge lived experience
• Self-care strategies for practitioners include setting boundaries, physical movement, connecting with nature, and seeking proper clinical supervision
Hello and you're very welcome to the MTU Wellbeing Podcast. In this episode we try something different because I recently attended a Communities of Practice event organised by the Department of Applied Social Studies, and I would like to use this podcast episode to showcase and evidence some of the great work been done by departments to support their students, done by departments to support their students. This event was organised for students and was attended by key stakeholders within the community and some national speakers. These included Professor Johanna Ivers, associate Professor in Addiction in Trinity College Dublin, dr Sharon Lambert, senior Lecturer from Applied Psychology at UCC, dr Jane Mulcahy from the Irish Probation Service and Mark Wright from the Recovery Academy. I will hear from some of these guest speakers later, but I started off the podcast by catching up with Louise Beecher who, along with her colleague Aoife Stack, was one of the main drivers for this event. Louise started off by telling us about these communities of practice.
Speaker 2:So we run a communities of practice, one each semester. This was our third communities of practice on different themes, and really what they're about is we're inviting people that are out there working in the sector, we're inviting academics, we're inviting placement hosts and we're inviting students to come together as a community, as a practice, so that we're keeping up to date with current trends in social care settings. So it's really a space for all stakeholders to come together and explore different trends, keep up to date with different trends that are happening in the sector and that we're embedding that then back into our course in MTU and Cork.
Speaker 1:Okay, so maybe tell us a little bit about this community practice.
Speaker 2:the third one that you're hosting so we were really excited for this one. We got some really good speakers, so I suppose the theme of it was on recovery. So we had professor joanna ivers from trinity, we had dr sharon lambert from ucc, we had dr jane mulcahy from the probation service, and so again a range of different professionals, each with their own lens on recovery, coming together to speak to the students.
Speaker 1:And why would that be important for your students to hear about?
Speaker 2:I suppose social care is such a broad setting and our students are going out doing placements in a range of services. They're going into working in addiction services, working in homeless services, working with young people in care, working in mental health services. So it's really broad and it's really important for them to know what services are out there, to to look to the academics for their learnings on current trends and just really as us, like I said, kind of coming together as a community and seeing what's happening in Cork, what's current at the moment in Cork.
Speaker 1:Good, and I know this was part of Innovation and Enterprise Month in NTU. How did that work out or how did you get involved with?
Speaker 2:that and how did that work out or how did you get involved with that? Yeah, so my colleague, aoife Stack, saw that the Innovation and Enterprise Month had some funding come available, so Aoife applied and she got some funding, which we were really grateful for, for this event. And so, yeah, we were in conjunction with MTU in Kerry as well for hosting this event and it helped us make it a bigger event than other ones previously, so we're very grateful for that.
Speaker 1:And was there any, I suppose, your key takeaways for maybe the students that didn't get there on the day? Have you any one or two takeaways that you could maybe share with the student listening here? That might be good for them to hear.
Speaker 2:I know there were so many I think. I think it was really interesting for the Q&A. At the end a lot of the questions went to Mark, who's working in the Recovery Academy, and there was a real kind of key interest from students in it's one of our placement settings there, kinvara House, the Drug and Alcohol Task Force. So I suppose for students who might have missed it, maybe to look that up, look up the services, our slides will be available as well. If students would like to access those. They can contact any of us on the placement team and we'd be happy to share those slides as well.
Speaker 1:Great. Well look, louise, I must say, as someone who was at the event, really enjoyed it. Very well organised. The speakers were our top class and in the podcast episode today we'll hear from some of those speakers and what they shared with the group. So thanks, well done. I think it's really powerful bringing the stakeholders together, you know, the students together and the lecturers together and then hearing from top class speakers absolutely yeah, and thanks to you too, thomas, for recording the podcast.
Speaker 1:We really appreciate it getting it out there to the wider community as well no problem, I think, anything that can maybe inform our students or educate our students or, and as well as great to see the great work that that staff are doing to go the extra mile, I think, to support their students. So I commend you and Aoife and the team there.
Speaker 2:It's a whole team involvement there and there's great support in that and it's exciting. It's really exciting seeing new developments in the social care area and being able to kind of focus on those for these communities of practice as well.
Speaker 1:After this I caught up with Mark Wright, who's the coordinator of the Recovery Academy in Cork. Mark tells us about the Recovery Academy, his journey so far and also tells us how he continues to manage his health and well-being. Mark, you're very welcome to the MTU Wellbeing Podcast. Mark, you're here speaking at an event today in MTU. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what you're talking to the students about?
Speaker 3:Yep, thanks for the invitation. Today I was speaking about a service called the Recovery Academy of Ireland, which I run in the Cork and Kerry community. It's about recovery, addiction, mental health, physical fitness, well-being all stuff that is beneficial to someone's recovery capital.
Speaker 1:Why are you talking about this, Mark? Why do you think your students should be hearing about the Recovery Academy?
Speaker 3:I suppose I come from an addiction background myself, so I would have been caught up in addiction from a very young age and coming onto different campuses. So drugs are everywhere, in every part of the community. So there is drug use on the campus and people struggle in silence and isolation. So I suppose it's to bring awareness to people that there is supports out there and that there is groups and that there you can access residential treatment or do it in the community if possible. But just to make, to make people safe and to reduce the stigma and reduce the harm if you are using and just again to highlight and bring awareness that recovery is possible.
Speaker 1:And what advice would you give to students then that are maybe in addiction or might be thinking I might need help here.
Speaker 3:So I suppose for me it was a very lonely like um. It's a very isolating place and the stigma that's associated with and it's a very you're extremely vulnerable, you know, and you feel like that that you've let people down and but, like, my advice to students if you are suffering with addiction issues is to put the hand out. There is help there. There is someone that knows or someone that will go and give you that extra 10% of whatever they have left to meet you where you're at, or even if it's a coffee, just to speak to someone, just to remind yourself that you weren't alone, because the unfortunate reality of this is that people die from addiction. People die from suicide. Mental health and addiction both come hand in hand, you know. So my advice to someone is to seek help, because it is there. What signs?
Speaker 1:might a student, you know, if I was a friend and I'm concerned about a friend, what could I do for that person? Is there anything you could say?
Speaker 3:I know it's difficult, but it is a difficult one, I suppose, because with addiction there is denial. You go into defensive straight away. There might be the telltale signs, like different and again it depends on the drug. Like the different drugs have very real telltale signs or if it's cannabis, you'll smell it and the eyes are bloodshot. Do you know what I mean? Cocaine is very hard to hide but they'd be hyperactive and gambling is very secretive. So, especially with all the apps.
Speaker 3:But like people's behaviors would be chaotic, do not like with heroin, let's say their. Their drug use increases but like heroin takes apart the body bit by bit. So it's very after a period of time it's very noticeable. You know, um, and people's like borrowing money, or if you gave them 20 last week, it could be 30 this week. Where's their money going? Um, alcohol smelling on their breath, um, drinking in first thing in the morning might be a telltale sign. Again, it really depends on the substance, um, and the individual and how they're managing themselves within chaos. But as someone that's looking to support someone, they plant a seed with the individual first.
Speaker 3:Look, there might be an issue here. I know that you're using on the weekends and it could get worse. If you ever need help. My phone is on or my door is always open because ultimately it's down to the individual that is either using the substance, that wants to come and get the help. That's the thing. Loads of times people are forced into recovery, dragged to a treatment center and it doesn't work because they haven't hit rock bottom yet. And that's the thing. People say rock bottom. Rock bottom can be various levels. You could hit rock bottom and think you're there and next thing, bang.
Speaker 1:You're on another, different stage, a different level of it, again, you know. Do you mind me asking where did you go to?
Speaker 3:get help. My last treatment centre was in Fellowship House, tabor Lodge. It's a 12 week residential treatment centre for men and women. It's in Spurhill and Talker so that was the last. I've done three or four different treatment centers so that was the last one and for me when I done that many eleven years ago now it provided me with the structure and routine.
Speaker 3:I still get up in the morning, make my bed, have a shower and have my breakfast and get on with me day. Such small things for people that aren't using substances are big things for people that are in recovery, like they get nothing to make in the bed. There's a principle behind that. You know what I mean Clean bed, clean head. You know there's all these logos and phrases that are thrown out there while in residential treatment that I still stand by today. I've been in homeless services. I've been in homeless services. I've been in multiple treatment centers like criminality was a part of my story. So it's like the. The pathway is there, it's. It's hard, don't get me wrong, but it gets easier over a period of time you know.
Speaker 1:Would you mind sharing with the listeners, you know, your transition from Tabor Lodge to now supporting and working with Recovery Academy and working with people on the journey that you've been through. Do you want to maybe talk us through that?
Speaker 3:yeah, it's mad. I suppose the reason I kind of got into this line of work was there was one or two people in my life from the ages of 11 and 12 when I started using substances that were extremely beneficial to me and they went above and beyond. No, it didn't transition that I came into this line of work when I left fellowship house. That wasn't the case due to personal circumstances, children and stuff like that. So it was a case of the, the treatment centre, providing me with the structure and the routine and a place to live afterwards for seven months After that. Then I linked in with another organisation that supported me to go and get educated, because I wouldn't have been great in school and education was the furthest thing from my mind and it just so happened the person that was supporting me done the programme previously as well. Person that was supporting me done the program previously as well. So they supported me through with my, my literacy issues and my reading and writing and um and study sessions and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:So it was the halfway through the diploma degree I can't remember which one I kind of decided after placement, when I was on placement, that this is where I want to be Like this is the work that I want to do and I kind of bring that passion and that sense of like right. I'm going to go and give this individual that's sitting across from me the best possible outcome for them. Like to go and give that extra mile per person. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:extra mile per person. Do you know what I mean? And the Recovery Ireland you were describing earlier about the numbers of, you know it seems to be very successful in terms of engaging with the user and very successful outcomes. Like you must be very proud of that, oh yeah, but do you know what?
Speaker 3:there is lots of success stories but not everybody gets it. You see, that's the thing like and that's where it can be a bit disheartening and it's kind of it's the sad reality of it. You know what I mean, obviously, let's say you start with 20 and you finish with 12. Where's them? Other 8 gone? You know, like I can account for where they're gone, but they could be back out using back in home services. Some people get jobs and stuff like that, but it's the when they go up then and click their sorts or they complete any sort of program that they're involved with that you might have referred them on to. That's great, like you know, it's a great success. And it's not because of me. I haven't done anything, I've just guided them on to the path for themselves to complete it.
Speaker 3:Because what people don't realize is that people coming from addiction to recovery are very, very capable human beings. Like the stuff that people have had to do in addiction to survive, however period of time, whether it's six months or sixty years, like they're warriors, like to know, like they'll go out and they'll smash whatever they need to without substances in their body. It's just their internal dialogue that people tell themselves imposter syndrome, you're not good enough without substances in their body. It's just their internal dialogue that people tell themselves imposter syndrome, you're not good enough, you're not gonna be able to do it. Now that probably happens to, let's say I don't even know how to classify it but normal people that don't use substances. But that's multiplied when someone puts down substances, because everyone's used substances for a reason. It was said today that the substances are the solution. It's life is the problem. So people are coming from complex trauma, childhood trauma, all the aces that were spoken about today at the conference and when they found substances, this is what they wanted to do. This is gold dust. It's a comfort blanket for people. That's what keeps them going, because they don't want to deal with all of the stuff that happened in their childhood.
Speaker 3:I use the gym. I use the gym. I use mindfulness, meditation, acupuncture. I have supervision at work. I use my friends that I'm still friends with in treatment. There's a group of us together. I said there was 12, 12 to 15 of us in treatment. I hang around with three or four of them now you know, um, and I'll sit down. It's like a counseling session, man, peer support. Don't underestimate the power of that. I'll have a chat with my buddy if my head is wrecked. And my head will be okay after that, I'll go in and I'll do another session in the gym. I feel way better. It calms my head down and my colleagues at Wokstick acupuncture in my ears that's great.
Speaker 3:So I'm all about many pathways to recovery. Obviously, I've done fellowship meetings. I've done six meetings a week for three years and then when people access the service, I tell them go to meetings. There's your recovery community. There's people that understand what's going on for you. Not everybody likes meetings, that's completely understandable. So how about come on here and try a bit of fitness or some mindfulness or a checking group, whatever works. I know all about many pathways to recovery yeah, and some nice nuggets there.
Speaker 1:People listening maybe that might need to. You know the self-care. You know it sounds like you know what's working for you. So, um, I won't patronize you, mark, by saying well done on that. But um, you know, it's nice to hear you say it but you know what it's.
Speaker 3:It's. My recovery is separate to somebody else's recovery. What works for me might work for somebody else. If you go to 12 meetings a week, that's okay. If that keeps you away from the drug or the behavior of your choice and you get a bit of peace between your ears from that belt away with that. Just I'm giving other people different avenues to explore that might benefit, because they benefit me or I know somebody else that stands on their head in the corner. People like nature, people love hill walking. It seems to give them a sense of relief and freedom, has been said to me Go and try that. You know, whatever works for you, mark.
Speaker 1:if you were walking out of campus in the next half an hour and a student stopped you and said like, look, I need help, where would you tell them to go?
Speaker 3:I'd tell them come to the support group on a Thursday morning that I have up in Knocknagheny at the moment it's a checking group, acupuncture workshops, toss a sandwich, cup of tea and a few games of pool and then, once they're in there, we'll have a chat about follow-on supports for them.
Speaker 1:Okay, and that's all the Recovery. Ireland Recovery.
Speaker 3:Academy Ireland.
Speaker 1:Recovery Academy Ireland and the Boxing Clever classes. Do you want to just maybe kind of talk us through what you do there in those classes?
Speaker 3:Box classes. Do you want to just maybe kind of talk us through what you do there in those classes? Boxing Clever is one of the most beneficial programs that I've ever been involved with. That's just my opinion, I'm biased. I implemented it within the Cork region and it originated in Ballymun and it's been rolled out nationally in different areas.
Speaker 3:So the one that's in Cork at the moment is it's a reduced use recovery program. It's 30 weeks accredited but it's really nine months long. They do two days boxing and two days QQA. So with the Cork Educational Training Board delivered the QQAs, so it's a QQA 4 in health-related fitness and a QQA 4 in IT skills and a QQA 5 in community addiction studies and a QQA 4 in IT skills and a QQA 5 in community addiction studies and a QQA 2 in mindfulness and meditation. So they'll get a four day structure. There's about 12 hours in total a week.
Speaker 3:People come on to the program if they're looking to reduce their use while actively using and, as people can come on to the program if they're what people will class as drug and alcohol free or substance free or whatever, it doesn't have to be a substance, so they will come onto the program. They have the capacity of 20, two days boxing, two days educational. It's a 30 week program, but the reason that it's actually nine months is that when the academic calendar like midterm breaks, easter, christmas breaks there are long periods of time to provide with someone, structure and routine for three months and then take two to three weeks off. I fill them weeks whether the boxing still goes ahead. But it could be yoga class, it could be a check-in group. We get guest lectures from different organizations and colleges coming out to give us a presentation on the service that they run or different stuff like that. So it's a really, really beneficial programme. It's one of them ones where you're looking at people coming in head on the floor, not knowing anyone in the group, to three months in head up delivering the warm-up class. They all get tracksuits as well to make them feel part of the community and it's all about social inclusion, you know, making people that are coming from an isolated place feel a part of something you know like the community. And some people go out working in their community after it or come back in and volunteer and you know, don't underestimate the power of that as well. Like I would say that it's been rolling.
Speaker 3:Now this is the third implementation. It's finished 24th of May and I will start advertising in June and start conducting interviews in July slash August and then there'll be 20 players is allocated again for the September program. We take into consideration that people have families at home, so the times are about 11 o'clock to give people enough time to get kids to school. If people are on methadone, they can collect their methadone and travel around the city whatever bus. We've taken into consideration that cost of buses is expensive so you can get a leap card stuff like that because you like you can. If you're on a social welfare payment, you'll keep your social welfare payment, but we don't pay you to come on to the program. Yeah, I've seen people leave their jobs to come on to the program and I've gone on to college since that, like you know, and now I'm working in the area now giving back in the way that they wanted to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a lot of success stories and I love your passion, the way you talk about it. Even listening to you earlier, I suppose you've had the lived experience and there's a real investment. You sound like you just really care about these people and I suppose in any walk of life that's the best approach to have, or that's the best way to engage with people from a place of care and concern, and you know you obviously want to do their best. Mark, is there anything else like that you'd want to share? This audience here would be staff and students and MTU, you know. Is there anything else you'd like to just maybe share with them?
Speaker 3:just to finish, yeah, I suppose like just to highlight the fact that there is massive, huge stigma within the addiction community. I suppose, and I suppose if you're walking down the road and you see someone using or tapping or something, just try to. I know it's not going to happen automatically, but try to understand that that person is someone's son, daughter they could have kids niece, all that sort of stuff, and I suppose people don't go out and choose to be drug addicts that's the other side of it or alcoholics or stuff like that. It's a way of coping with whatever life is after thrown at them from a very young age. And behind every one of them people that are using there's a story.
Speaker 3:They mightn't have got the right supports from a young age, they mightn't have been guided in the right way, but just have got the right supports from a young age. They might not have been going in the right way, but just to be conscious of that, that they are people at the end of the day and I'm pretty sure they don't want to be out in the middle of the road trying to get to the money from drugs off. You like to know. So just be mindful of our people as well, you know, and the help is there. Just reach out for us. There's no such thing as a helpless case.
Speaker 1:I haven't found one yet in there right, it's a great way to finish, thanks for Next, I caught up with Dr Sharon Lambert. Sharon is interested in trauma at an individual and systemic level. She regularly provides guidance to national and international organisations on designing and delivering trauma-aware services, policies and practice. I was interested in hearing what Sharon had to say about students supporting those going through trauma and recovery and how they can manage their own health and well-being, so I started off discussing this with her. I also asked her opinion on what MTU can do to support and create a more trauma-sensitive university. Sharon, if you could maybe just tell us you know we've got students here in MTU working with service users that have experienced trauma. Maybe it might be important for them to know how they could look after themselves. So would you have anything there to say to those students?
Speaker 4:So a number of years ago we completed a study and we looked at the level of trauma in a whole range of different occupations and what we found were that there were specific occupations that had higher levels of trauma. So, you know, some people have heard of the term the wounded helper. So that idea that sometimes some people go into a job because they once experienced adversity and then they want to go and they want to help others, and it's actually really important that we have those people working in services, because lived experience is extremely important in terms of the level of expertise that that brings to a service. There's also a cost to it, and I would say that that cost should be managed by the university or the employer and not actually by the student or the worker. And that means that they should have access to really, really good quality counselling. And when we talk sometimes about adversity and about mental health in universities or in workplaces, we very often put the responsibility on on the worker or on the student rather than putting it on on the on the employer of the university.
Speaker 4:What can be very difficult for students is they're very frequently in positions where there's a power imbalance, you know. So if they're on placement, for example. They might be worried that if they don't do something a particular way, that there would be a consequence for them and all of those things are true. So for the student, the most important thing is practicing radical self-compassion, because you might not get access to the services that you need or you might be stuck in that awful power dynamic. So what I mean by radical self-compassion is by you know, really set. You have to sit down and you have to make a list and you have to say these are the things that I am able to do and these are the things that I'm not.
Speaker 4:And sometimes students can be high achievers and they can say I'm going to push, push myself to get various different things done. They feel like that they're failing if they don't. And so if you do radical compassion, what you do is you accept. You accept that perhaps you're feeling a bit burnt out and you decide to be calm to yourself and kind and you say, instead of pushing, pushing, pushing, I'm going to go and I'm going to get a doctor's note and I will be submitting that work late, because that is the right thing to do for me. And sometimes some people will view that as as being a failure, but I don't. I view that as radical self-compassion and just do it. Look after yourself and you have to get through the other side and what other?
Speaker 1:is there any other practical strategies that could do, like in relation to self-compassion? You get the example there where a student might need a medical note and they go get that and they use that and that's the right thing to do. Is there any other practical examples that you give to students listening?
Speaker 4:yeah, so there's. There's loads of different types of therapies out there, but one of the ones that is quite nice and gentle is is one called act exceptions in compassion therapy. Um, and there are lots of waiting lists and and sometimes people go to the therapist and they don't get the right therapist for them, so, so there are, for example, with with exceptions in compassion therapy, there are online free workbooks, you know. So downloading the workbook and absolutely for people who are burnt out and who are tired to get rid of social media and I just looked at it there myself at the weekend and you know you have the live streaming of the genocide and I'm not going to look away from that. But if I was really really burnt out, I might need to.
Speaker 4:But what you also have on social media, which is very interesting, is a lot of trauma dumping. So I just had a quick look because somebody sent me a tiktok thing the other day. So I don't I don't really have a tiktok account and I just quickly scrolled and within minutes I was getting videos about kidnappings, murders, child abductions and you know people who were in very scary health situations, financial situations, etc. And I just got sucked in quite quickly and I was scrolling and then I put it down and I was like, wow, I've just been exposed to the trauma stories of about 50 individuals who I don't know, I've never met and I have no over. I have no way of helping any of these people.
Speaker 4:That information has no benefit, nor is it useful in a way that I can do something that will make me feel empowered. So getting rid of social media is the second thing, plus acceptance and compassion therapy is the second thing, plus acceptance and compassion therapy. And the third thing is, if you are somebody who has experienced adversity or you're from a group who are frequently excluded, so because of your, you might be a person with a disability, culturally or ethnically diverse, a member of the LGBTQ community from a working class background. Sometimes, when you come into universities, you feel like you're not good enough and that you don't belong here, and it's really important that you stay and that you get out the other end, because you are paving the way for all of the others who are going to come behind you.
Speaker 1:Thanks, sharon. That's a powerful message. Sharon, you've kind of given us a few tips there for students and practical tips, and I think you've finished there with a very powerful message for our students. That's maybe from an individual perspective, and you do a lot of work, maybe on systemic levels and looking at how we can improve the systems. What would a trauma-sensitive university look like from your perspective?
Speaker 4:A trauma-sensitive university. The first thing I would see when I would come to a trauma-sensitive university is I would see diversity, because if you don't have diversity in your staff then it is very difficult to be trauma-sensitive. If you take you know, some people say oh, charlotte, she's an expert on trauma-informed care. I'm not, because I learn every single day, because the experts in any particular topic are the ones who have walked the walk. And if you live or work in environments that are primarily occupied by white middle-class people, it is extremely difficult to understand what it's like to walk in the footsteps of other people. And people can tell us about their experiences. And I'll give you an example. I remember years ago, being involved in an ethnographic project where I presented as homeless to a homeless service, and if I hadn't done that, if I hadn't filled out the paperwork myself, I would never have understood how difficult it was just to present as homeless. And I think if I'd been asking people experiencing homelessness about their experience of it, there might be bits that they might not have remembered because they have, you know, 10 different problems. The paperwork might not be one of them, but actually that would drastically improve their experiences of an assessment. So if I was coming to a trauma-sensitive University, I would see diversity in the staff.
Speaker 4:You can't do trauma sensitive or trauma where, if you don't have really awkward, uncomfortable conversations and that's often a barrier is that you say something, somebody will plow ahead and design or deliver something without thinking about all the stakeholders. And then a stakeholder pops up and says, excuse me, that doesn't work for us. And then people can get very defensive and say, well, we spent a lot of time working on this, we're doing it anyway, and you frequently hear that where people say, oh, we'll do better next time, no, you get it right the first time. So if that means that you have to go back and start again, and so trauma sensitive ones are ones with diversity, that really understand stakeholder input and that they work for for all people, um, who've experienced trauma, but not just trauma social exclusion as well. So those groups have said earlier and you're not a trauma sensitive institution, for example, if if somebody the wheelchair can't access most of your buildings, or if you have staff members who who say things that are transphobic or homophobic, and if you have policies that you know don't acknowledge how racism plays out across institutions and we know that human beings, for example.
Speaker 4:You know, one of the things you could do is that you have you remove people's names when they apply you as a student and our as a staff member and it's anonymous. The name is gone. You don't know whether it's male or female or what nationality they are. That makes a huge difference to increasing diversity, because human beings seem to automatically want to filter out groups who are not the same as them. So there's small little things and it's not a destination either. You don't arrive to a place and you say I'm trauma sensitive. It's an all-day, every-day piece of work that I would say falls in under health and safety.
Speaker 3:So, like.
Speaker 4:If you think about health and safety in universities. That's something I have to do all the time. I get you know it's always on the agenda. Health and safety is on the agenda at every meeting I go to and then we're sent you know links saying you must do this refresher, that refresher, this refresher, because health and safety is important. And being trauma sensitive and making sure that people can be happy and healthy here is a health and safety issue. So it would fall under that and would be ongoing all of the time, not some token thing where you raise a flag once a year.
Speaker 1:It's the doing of it, the living of it, all day, every day and if staff were listening to this podcast, sharon, where would they go for more information? Maybe how, how they could support students, maybe as well as themselves?
Speaker 4:So usually people who work in the access offices in universities are the ones who already know, because they often meet the students before they come here. So they might have a relationship with them since they were in secondary school, for example. So when students come in, when there are barriers or blocks, often the people in the access office know the student might say look, I don't want you to tell that particular lecturer because of this. You know power dynamic that exists. But they probably have a fairly good idea of what the problems are in an institution. If we just ask them in a way that they're that allows them to tell us where we, we can park egos at the door and say we want this to be a place for everybody.
Speaker 1:Okay, sharon. Is there anything else you want to do? Maybe last question is there anything else that if to staff? You know, if you wanted to give a message to staff and students in a university about trauma sensitive trauma, where would you like to give a message to staff and students in a university about trauma-sensitive trauma? Would you like to leave the podcast with anything? Any golden nugget?
Speaker 4:It's just about being curious and about knowing that you don't know. So for me, I don't know everything there is to know about trauma. So every day I have to be open to learning, and sometimes in that learning I have made mistakes and somebody will come to me and say they're disappointed or they're annoyed with language, that I might have used a particular terminology that's no longer appropriate, for example, or I might have failed to understand the way somebody was trying to communicate something with me, and and I have to be able to be okay with being wrong, and I have to be okay with being open to learning, otherwise you will never, ever be trauma sensitive.
Speaker 1:The last speaker I caught up with was Dr Jane Mulcahy, who recently joined the Irish Probation Service as a civil servant working on research policy and strategy development. Jane has worked as a researcher in the area of criminal justice, penal policy and social justice since 2005. She hosts a number of podcasts. Her most recent one is called Relationship Matters, so after this episode, maybe download and have a listen to that. Jane talked a little bit about how trauma looks like from a student's perspective, and we also got her insight about what a university can do to support students.
Speaker 5:So hi, I'm Jane Mulcahy. I'm currently working with the probation service in a new unit called the Social Inclusion and Reintegration Unit, but before that I've worked mainly in criminal justice research for over 20 years now. I started looking at the origins of the modern prison when I was very young in my master's. When I was very young in my master's and I've kind of been in that space ever since, you know, looking at the impact of poverty and addiction and unemployment and mental health issues. But during my PhD I got very interested in trauma and its impacts as well, how it literally changes our neurophysiology, so the state of our nervous system, and how we view ourselves and how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about other people and how our body feels safe or not safe in the world. So I think that has much wider application than just in the criminal justice system, I suppose, and for students listening, what does that look like?
Speaker 1:You know a student that has maybe you know adverse childhood experiences and trauma? What, how you know that? Safe space versus not a safe space For maybe someone that is maybe in not a safe space, what might that look like in terms of how they present in a university setting?
Speaker 5:Well, it could be that they're kind of on edge, that they're maybe a little bit shifty in their body or just a bit tense in their body, or they could be quite disengaged, kind of dreamy, zoned out. That's called dissociation, where the brain and body disconnect. Often, though, people in a dissociative state don't come to negative attention in the way that more angry, aggressive physiology gets attention. So if you're thinking about a classroom in school, boys will often present more with externalizing behaviors. So maybe kind of tense body, their veins pop in, fists, clench, that type of threatening energy. But people can also be quite locked into themselves, quite shut down, quite flat, expressionless faces, now some sometimes that can also be indicators maybe of neurodivergence. You know autistic people can have a more flattened affect facially. But also neurodivergence has an impact on the nervous system itself and whether the body feels safe in the presence of other people.
Speaker 5:So we're a social species. That means that we kind of can't survive on our own and we need other people in order not only just to survive but to thrive. But for some of us it's more challenging than others, and for people who have a lot of stress, even just stress. Now we all have stress, but too much stress isn't good for us. If it's traumatic stress, if we've been abused in childhood, if we're experiencing a lot of racism, for example, or if we're lesbian or gay and transgender and we don't feel safe in the presence of other people because they're maybe going to make nasty comments about us, our bodies are going to feel that, you know, and and it's going to be hard to relax, it's going to be hard to concentrate on the information that our lecturers are giving to us, it's going to be hard to make friends because we might have been hurt before and so we're waiting to be hurt again, if you get me.
Speaker 5:So there's so many ways that relational disconnection can show up. In a place like a university. It can make it hard to trust lecturers if we've been harmed by our parents or other adults in our lives, by teachers, because we'll come into the classroom or the lecture theatre in the expectation that they're just going to be like everyone who's come before you know, and so sometimes people can get pulled into relational dynamics then, where I mean the staff where they might end up rejecting a young person or kind of not helping them in the way that the young person needs, because they don't understand where they're coming from in terms of their request, or they might ask for help in a dislikable or unloving way, and then our tendency is our ego gets threatened and we push them away, and so the cycle kind of continues. If you get me, and what?
Speaker 1:what advice would you give to those lecturers you you know that are working with students to create maybe a supportive environment, or a more supportive or maybe more trauma-sensitive environment.
Speaker 5:Well, I suppose curiosity for me is one of the most important things. Now Almost presume trauma and stress, you know, because it's all over the place. Trauma and stress, you know because it's all over the place. And if you come from that kind of standpoint that this person might be behaving in a challenging way because of something they've experienced in the past, sorry that this person has experienced maybe something harmful in the past or is it going through something overwhelming in the present? If you just bear that in mind, you don't even have to ask or to pry. But keep that in mind, then you might be less susceptible to being pulled into these harmful dynamics. You might just go oh, I don't know what Jane is going through, but she could be going through something terrible and unspeakable right now. And can I just be a little bit more patient? Can I be a little bit more giving of myself? Is there some support that I can offer? Can I even just say if you are going through something and you'd like to share it with me, I will keep it safe. You know I will do what I can to support you.
Speaker 5:But the world we're living in is quite chaotic right now. It's quite scary and frightening, aside from what might be happening in people's individual lives. So I think a lot of young people are suffering from mental health challenges. They're anxious, for a good reason. You know, the global political situation is quite sad and depressing. The climate crisis is challenging, but relationally, we spend too much time online in the virtual world and not enough in the real world. So I think in real life, positive connections are vitally important to all of us. So, yeah, we can't. We're not all meant to be therapists. We're not therapists. But I do believe everyone can be a little bit therapeutic, and that starts with being aware that trauma is everywhere and that it impairs people's ability to relate. It can make it harder to learn, it can be harder to remember information, people become more defensive, and those are normal, predictable responses to trauma and an excessive stress burden.
Speaker 1:Maybe from a systems point of view here, if you were advising MTU to maybe create a more trauma sensitive university, is there any bit of advice that you'd give to an organisation like university that has the opportunity of impact with a lot of students that come through, that has the opportunity of impact with a lot of students that come through it's doors at a very formative time in their lives? You know, and we can have a big impact on these people as they come through. So we have a real opportunity to support that and create that safe, positive environment that you described. So what advice would you give to the university to do as best they can to create that safe environment?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a great question. I think we can't make people feel safe if they don't feel safe, for one thing, you know. So I used to say we need to. People need to be safe. It's a neurophysiological thing whether they do or they don't, but what we can do is try and create conditions where more people feel safer.
Speaker 5:So some of that is, let's say, for young people of African origin or other ethnicities, that we are very aware of the impact of white supremacy and racism, how that is a particular type of embodied trauma that really makes people sick, makes it hard again to be in the world and feel good about yourself when people are saying awful things. You know the right-wing extremism that is growing in many countries is affecting people. So that's one way and the the other thing, I suppose, is that basic level of training should be provided to all staff, including people you know who are cleaners, cafeteria workers. Everyone should know a little bit about trauma and adversity, because they might be affected themselves. You know they are. They were babies once. They were young children who were reared by parents who were doing their best but maybe didn't have uh, you know the tools, the awareness that is available today, and even with the knowledge and awareness I am not always any kind of saint, you know, so it's it's awareness comes first, then tuning into your own body. How am I responding to this person in the light of of the energy they're bringing to me? What can I do to try and prevent the situation from escalating? If I think they're danger, let's say of self-harming, or they're suicidal, can I have an uncomfortable conversation with them? Can I ask them are you okay? Are you thinking about doing something to yourself?
Speaker 5:We have to, I think, sometimes be willing to go into uncomfortable places with people where we may feel we don't have the training or the tools. But if we're serious about trying to interrupt you know serious mental health crises or, god forbid, people dying by suicide we we need to trust our guts sometimes and kind of go oh, I sense that John or Mary isn't well. Now I'm going to ask a question. But for people to feel comfortable, or as comfortable as they can, doing that, they do need a little bit of training. And the worst thing is to have regrets for not having had a conversation, and people can also get things wrong. We also have to have a tolerance to some degree for people doing their best with imperfect information. Sometimes people don't know, they don't understand that stress and trauma change people's neurophysiology and their behaviour and their ability to relate.
Speaker 5:But I would say making some kind of trauma training available to as many staff as possible is the best first step. Some of that is available online, you know. But making it mandatory, even as a pilot, for a group of staff who perhaps don't have this information already. Social care you probably already have a lot of this information. Other departments like engineering or things like that might have none of it. Information other departments like engineering or things like that might have none of it.
Speaker 5:So it's, it's bringing it to people who maybe are totally disengaged from this type of information and believe that addiction and drug use are bad personal choices rather than normal, predictable responses to a nervous system in a chronic state of defense and looking for some kind of relief or mental health challenges as chemical imbalances in the brain rather than, oh, this young person has grown up with domestic violence and mental health challenges in the home and coercive control in a community that's under strain, and maybe there might be a racial dimension to it too.
Speaker 5:Who wouldn't be a little bit fragile and vulnerable under those circumstances? So it's kind of restorying symptoms as normal, predictable outcomes and then seeing that we all can potentially have a role in buffering one another, like we all benefit, I think, if we're more caring to one another and kinder to one another and more patient, especially when it's hard. You know, it's easy to be patient if someone doesn't need you to be patient. It's easy to be kind if someone is nice. It's much harder to be kind and nice and patient when someone is pressing your buttons and and not responding as we might like. That's exactly when we have to try and be more lovable actually to that person.
Speaker 1:Um, but it's, it's challenge and without this kind of awareness it sounds maybe very dippy, hippie, uh, to be saying we should be more lovable to other people's children and and to our colleagues, but I actually think that's what we need to be yeah, no, it's a lovely message, jane, and and as well as I'm going to flag here, in terms of the mtu, there's a lot of good work going on and intoU around supporting and identifying students in distress, and there is currently training on offer for staff if they want it there, and obviously I think they're trying to look at where they can do more to inform staff and train staff and support staff as well. Jane, you're here as part of an event organised by the Department of Applied Social Studies and you're talking to students in the social care and counselling psychotherapy perspective. What would you say to them in terms of looking after their own kind of health and their own trauma while they're dealing and supporting those people? Have you any kind of advice, maybe, for those students?
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a great question because, kind of like parenting, you need to mind yourself first before you can really do the job. And and Dr Sharon Lambert was talking about burnout in the professions of addiction services you know this is a real risk. People who go into the helping professions often have trauma and adversity of their own. I mean, again, it's it's commonplace, but people can be motivated to want to help others because maybe they've experienced things or seen other people that they love suffer in various ways. So when you're going into a profession motivated to be helping and kind and and to to, I suppose, really nurture someone in difficult circumstances, you also have to nurture yourself and and boundaries are important, but sometimes boundaries in the professions can be overblown, because sometimes what we need is to connect with a person at a heart level rather than saying you know, oh well, I clock off at at five and I won't be available again until our next appointment.
Speaker 5:But minding one's own energy, knowing when I need a break, taking the break, doing things that are replenishing energetically so I do a lot of yoga these days Keeps me sane. I do a lot of breath work Aoife as well, aoife Stack, who invited me along. She and I did a holotropic breath work session together a couple of years ago, which was was fantastic. Singing is really good, if you like singing, especially in a group. It stimulates the vagus nerve and there's something very joyful about singing in a group. Dancing for people who like dancing generally, movement, patterned, rhythmic, repetitive movements are really good for the nervous system. So running, you know, if people like running, fishing, being mindful in nature, is really good for people. I certainly know I'm loving trees at the moment, seeing them going from bare branches to the little buds and shoots, just tuning into the present moment, more getting out of our head, being a little bit more present and practicing gratitude more. It can be hard to be grateful, you know, when things are overwhelming, but if you can find small things to go oh, that cup of coffee was so delicious or that conversation with that person just really uplifted me. And healthy connections to other people, you know, if you can only connect online, that's better than nothing and my son's autistic. For him, online gaming and gaming with his friends is really good, but he needs to be more present in the real world too. So it's that kind of knowing what we're capable of and then also stretching ourselves a little bit, but you need to know your limits and honor those limits, and I think people in frontline caring professionals can sometimes overextend themselves and then they do maybe experience compassion, fatigue or burnout or like they just need to leave the job, you know.
Speaker 5:So some of the the care for their own well-being has to come from them themselves. But our systems also need to care for people, and Sharon mentioned clinical supervision. That's very important that that's provided for people so that they can talk through how they're feeling in the job and about certain cases with a neutral third party who's qualified in therapeutic modalities or whatever, or as a supervisor, not just looking at case management and going did you engage properly with this person and fill in the form correctly? That's not enough when you're being asked to extend yourself in a heart-centred, relational way to someone who could be very vulnerable and you might be the only person they have at that moment to sustain them. So that's a lot, that's a lot of pressure and people need to be able to as well park some of that, you know, not take it all on themselves.
Speaker 5:But that's challenging when they've come to care for someone and that's important that they do come to care for someone because that person mightn't have anyone else at that moment, they might have burned certain bridges, you know so. Networks of support might at times be concentrated in professionals, and that puts a lot, of, I think, energetic pressure on them to be everything to that person. You know so those are just a few ideas, but finding something that gives you joy and pursuing it as often as you can. Say no to people, at times including your own family. Saying the ability to say no is really important and people pleasing and saying yes to everything as a trauma response. So if if you're that type of person, then saying no is more important. Learning to say no and being okay with disappointing people from time to time, even if it's your family or your boss or whatever.
Speaker 1:Jane, some great advice there for, you know, students that are working in, maybe, social care setting, but also just our students listening in general and staff listening. So thanks for joining me today on the mt human well-being podcast. Finally, I caught up with dr mary galvin, head of department of applied social studies. We discuss why the events like these and components of practice are important for our students and also what her key takeaways were from the day. Mary, how are you?
Speaker 6:I'm good, I'm good.
Speaker 1:Thanks for chatting to me. I just want to maybe ask you, mary you know we're just coming from the Communities of Practice event why is an event like that important for your students?
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, I think for me it's. I suppose our students see so much of us and they see so much of the walls of our classrooms and they do have their placement in second year and third year, which is really, really important. But even for our first years, to see why they're doing this programme, what their careers could be after they leave this degree, after they leave M2, and to see just, I suppose, the whole purpose of why they've enrolled in this program, and almost I remember as a student myself being asked so many times with my family yeah, but what will you be? And for me these events are the answer to this is what I'm going to be. So I think that's really important, but also is out for them to kind of to start asking questions.
Speaker 6:You know, I think, like we teach social care work, we're teaching community development, we're teaching in areas that quite tricky at the moment. Society is a hard place to live in right now. There's lots of things happening, um, and we really need the next generation to be going out asking critical questions and being ready to be allies and ready to advocate for the right causes. And I see events like this to get the juices flowing, get the brains ticking over and be thinking oh yeah, I was told this or I studied this, but maybe there's a different way to approach it, maybe there's someone else with a completely different perspective that I haven't encountered before, and that's important too. So it's just to give them a space, I suppose, to think and reflect and also to see. This is why I'm doing it. This is where I'm going to come out at the, at the other end, after I graduate.
Speaker 1:This is where I'm going to be and I can see from the students the engagement was great. They're really interested in the speakers and some good questions at the end. What were your key takeaways, mary, from the?
Speaker 6:from the day oh, my god, so many. It was hard to be honest with you. It was hard not to be emotional at the end of the day because I think, obviously, the topics that we're talking about addiction and recovery are really, really evocative. But for me, seeing so many students so engaged and feeling that atmosphere in the room, it was really, really powerful. And I think, walking away away, that's what I felt I felt like there's a generation in that room who are going to go out and do good things and because already they're 18, 19, maybe in year one, and they're hearing such experts in this area talking about what recovery should be, they're already asking the right questions. So it gave me hope, really.
Speaker 6:And when I was leaving and I think I suppose the takeaways as well is how kind and willing our speakers were. You know, sometimes we think you know as all as academics oh god, you're very busy and would you have time to to fit in a quick, you know, meeting with us or do a talk and it really struck me just the kindness of the speakers to say, yeah, we absolutely will. We believe in this cause, um, and we want to speak to as many people as we can, particularly students, um, so that really struck a chord with me as well. Um, and then, of course, my team. You know it was the team who I was one of these people who turn up and do a few words at start.
Speaker 6:I did very, very little for this. I just, my team, ran with it and to see that I just felt like you know, recovery will never work if it's just in silos, and I think the other day was a representation of that. When you work together from all stakeholders are in the room, you have a proper chance of making a bit of change. Then, um, so I think that was, yeah, it was very. It took away a lot from it. I still thinking about it, to be honest you mentioned stakeholders there, mary.
Speaker 1:Maybe you just described for people listening. You know what are the other key stakeholders for. You know the interaction there between your, your students in the department and and community and the guest speakers that were there. What other key stakeholders are in play?
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah, completely. So I think, like what the community practice event is, it kind of just cuts across, I suppose, everything that we do in the degree. So with that comes, as you say, the student and the staff also. So our placement hosts. So our placements are all over the community, all over, all over Munster. So placement hosts for organizations that support addiction, that support homelessness, residential treatments, governmental agencies, maybe some private agencies in there as well.
Speaker 6:So you've all these people in the room that were also maybe placement supervisors or they walked in a key worker role or they're all practitioners themselves on the front line working with these individuals. And that's really, really important because I felt for me that they need to see MTU does more than just teach the program and we have to kind of close the loop. So so a lot of our placement supervisors right now who are working in organisations, they are previous graduates some of them, so they're coming back wearing their hat of I'm the employer now and I'm out on the front line and I'm looking to see can I take some of your students back on placement. But sorry, I'm going off on a tangent there, but the stakeholders in the room are the academics, but also the practitioners working in social care work, working in social work as well, working community development, but they all were in that room there, some policy makers, some very practice-based, giving frontline services a real kind of first word I'm looking for.
Speaker 6:Slice across the sector is represented, um, and I think for us as well, crew brought.
Speaker 6:Obviously, crew is the regulator and our program now is crew approved. But for outside the academic space there's lots of social care workers practicing in ireland that have been practicing for years and they're going through their own individual crew approval right now to get onto the register and a requirement for a crew is CPD. So you know you might be working for years in the sector, you know this, this is your bread and butter, you know it inside out. But how you show one evidence of your new learning, where you get in time to kind of maybe reflect on your learning or on your work, and that's what we're trying to do with these communities of practice. So we have students in the room, as in our undergrads, but we also want to give a space to the practitioners in the field who aren't students. They're absolutely qualified doing their own work but to bring them in, to give them an opportunity to get some new learnings. Reflect upon that and then submit it to their own, towards their own approval.
Speaker 1:Great and with this community practice event, obviously a new initiative within the department. I know that was the third community practice. What's the next step for that?
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, keep on growing. And I remember our first one and we just went let's give this a shot, let's just send out the emails, let's invite some people in. And we were down in the half the room in the Melbourne building, upstairs in the seminar room saying I hope people will come, um, and they did. And it was just for me because I was looking around my team and and the people there and I just went out the head. There's a little bit of magic here happening because everyone there, everyone there, wants the best for society. You know, given the nature of what they're studying and what they're doing, they want the best for people. So people care and if you give space for people who care to do stuff, they'll do stuff. And so that was maybe 20 people on our first one, like the other day we had 130 who registered for it and we keep on getting requests about when is the next one.
Speaker 6:So I think now it's it's going to get bigger and better, but it also brings out that kind of pressure of not pressure. It's a really good opportunity. Let's be strategic. So we need to go back out to the community again so say this one was recovery, um and innovation, recovery pathways. What do you want the next one to be? Who do you want to hear from? What do you think we should be discussing? So we're gonna have to do a bit of work to make sure that we keep the, the teams strategic and not just because everything is relevant to us, you know, in this area, but just making sure that it's we're giving back to the community well, mary's, as an outsider, I suppose someone coming in to the event, I'm not knowing what to expect.
Speaker 1:I think you know you and your team deserve so much credit for like the level of organization and detail. Students play music from the Cork School of Music, you know, so I'll organize, well, run, you know, nice cakes and sweets and coffee in the break and the recovery cafe. So I suppose there was a massive work that went into it and someone coming in that wasn't involved in it. That was very evident. So just as supposed to finish by congratulating you and your team, you know, wishing you all the best. I think getting, as someone that works here, you know, getting students, that experience is unbelievable. There's a real buzz about the place so hopefully they can take that, take the learnings, apply it when they go into the placement settings and maybe become disruptors of the system and see where they can, you know, improve it for everybody thank you because you know, when you're organizing events like this, you're kind of standing there going.
Speaker 6:I hope people turn up and I hope it looks okay. You're so in it that you can't really see it from the outside perspective. So we're so grateful to get that feedback and so grateful for you for coming along and engaging and even doing this today to giving us a platform and helping us on the day and just being so supportive to our speakers, because they all left with an impression of what mtu is, and that's thanks my team, and it's thanks to you as well, thomas, for coming on today and being so inclusive and accommodating when there were students asking the speakers to stay on.
Speaker 1:So thank you no problem, you're very welcome, mary. Good luck with the rest of it thanks a million.
Speaker 1:Take care, bye-bye thank you so that was the community practice event reimagine recovery innovative recovery pathways for social care professionals, organized by the department of Applied Social Studies. I'd like to thank all our guests on today's episode for taking the time out of their day to chat to me about this community of practice. I hope you gain something that supports you with trauma, supporting others through trauma, and also maybe something to think about for our university in relation to how we can create a more trauma-sensitive and trauma-informed space for all that pass through our doors. Thank you for listening and have a good day.