88 VOLUME 32 • NUMBER 3 • 2020 AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND SOCIAL WORK VIEWPOINT The most important things I have learnt in practice, advice for social work students CORRESPONDENCE TO: Kerri Cleaver Kerri.cleaver@tiakitaoka.nz AOTEAROA NEW ZEALAND SOCIAL WORK 32(3), 88–90. I accidentally came across social work. I’d been living up North doing craft design and then got pregnant with my oldest daughter, so we moved down to Dunedin. I was waiting for the weaving course to start at the University of Otago, however it took a few years to get under way. Eventually I was pregnant again and the course still hadn’t started, so I thought I would try some social work papers. I was hapu for the first couple of weeks and then carrying the baby for the next year to all my classes and everyone was so supportive. Even though I didn’t end up doing the weaving course, art has been a part of my social work. One of the things to be careful of, is that I started to lose it in the years of working in white agencies. There is value in what you take with you and art for me has always been part of that, as has doing weaving with whānau, but it has really been for my own self-care. It’s good not always being in a place where we’re dominated by our thinking and our working, but having something for yourself as well. For me, being connected to those things that strengthen my being Māori are an important part of my self-care. When I took a break from front-line social work in 2016, it was because I was burnt out. I’d done just over 10 years—and probably did about four months too much. I had planned my exit and didn’t do my best practice over those last four months, so I think one of the things I’ve learnt is that you should recognise when you need to take a break. I didn’t completely take a break; I did lots of things in the community, but it is different than working in a full-time job and looking after other peoples’ needs. That wasn’t the part of the job that I found really hard, the part I found really hard was institutional constraint, whether in the institution itself or the agencies I worked with. That dynamic was what really, in the end, made me need a break. Reflecting on my journey as a social worker, I would not say when I started working that I was a Māori social worker. I would say that I was a social worker who was Māori. I think I found it complicated by the “Are you Māori enough?” question, but for me, some of the things I did in practice were not based solely in tikanga and kawa, so I didn’t want to own that space of being a “Māori social worker.” However, I was a social worker who was Māori and brought special skills into that role. But, through my journey, I now know that I am a Māori social worker and I think I probably always was. It just took me a while to grow into knowing that. I think I might have always been a social worker too, as being a social worker isn’t something that only applies during work hours, it’s just something in my life. Until 2020 I had only worked in Pākehā organisations. I worked at Oranga Tamariki and then as a social worker in schools for the Anglican Family Care, followed by some contracting work for ACC through Delta Psychology—so all of those roles were really in Pākehā organisations. I think it takes its toll on you as a Māori social worker. When I went for a job at Child Youth and Family, Oranga Tamariki, I rang up this colleague, a Māori person and said “Can we have a chat?” I asked “Is this going to be safe? Is it going to be safe to work here?” and she was like “Yes, absolutely— it’s totally going to be safe to work here.” Kerri Cleaver (Ka ¯ i Tahu, Ka ¯ ti Ma ¯ moe, Waitaha), University of Otago, Aotearoa New Zealand