Working at ACSO, the one thing that never ceases to amaze me is the resilience that people show in the face of adversity.
I began working in residential services and jumped over to the COATS team after about six months. Since then, I have been working in the Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) field and have moved around a few different roles.
Most recently, I have been working as the Senior Forensic AOD Clinician based at the Thomas Embling Hospital, working with people to address their AOD needs. This is a Forensicare location and I love being able to walk in wearing my ACSO lanyard and impart ACSO’s values. My role consists of triaging referrals, completing assessments, providing psychosocial intervention, supporting and upskilling other staff, and writing comprehensive assessment and treatment reports.
The thing that keeps me in this role is my passion for people. It makes me so disappointed that some people can sit outside of someone’s storybook, not even flip the front cover or try to understand their story, but instead pass judgement and reinforce stigma. I never want to be that person.
Although there may be commonalities between two people’s stories, no two are the same. In a person’s story, they are the main character – an expert on their own history. So before we can begin to support the change, we need to listen to understand someone’s lived experience. Only then can we join their story, by collaborating with them and supporting them while they write their next chapter.
Sharing this passion and belief in humanity with colleagues is magic – it makes me so hopeful for the future and how we can evolve to best support the people we work with.
