EHO Knows: Dunn Thinking w/ Louise Dunn

[00:00:00] Shane: Welcome to EHO Knows. Now, part of the reason for the podcast is to actually just demonstrate what EHOs know, and to share that knowledge amongst the community, have a couple ripping yarns. Now, uh, today’s episode and the next episode’s not gonna be a ripping yarn episode. Instead, what we’re doing is we’re talking to someone who, who actually made a thesis to EHOs, getting their stories, and then going, “Hey, this is what EHOs know.” And so, um, so she’s come up with a framework which helps explain the, the depth and the, um, the, the power, the magic of being an EHO. so, uh, today, uh, thank you, Dr. Louise Dunn, for coming to EHO Knows. Welcome

[00:00:49] Louise: Thank you very much, and I did love your introduction there. Um, I like the magic of what an EHO does because I do think that they do so much for the community. But, um, yes, thank you. I’m currently, uh… I suppose I said to you before, I’m a- a retired, uh, at this stage of my career. I’ve had, have an adjunct research, uh, role with Swinburne.

[00:01:09] But my current status is I’m working, uh, in a voluntary capacity. Uh, since finishing up at my last job at Swinburne, I’ve decided to just, you know, retire and continue on with sort of supporting the profession in this sort of voluntary role

[00:01:25] Shane: So, uh, the second episode, we’re gonna actually dive [00:01:30] into, uh, the details of your paper. Uh, you’ve actually got a framework. You’re trying to promote that framework, so we’ll talk about that, uh, in the next episode. But today, I really just wanna look at, uh, partially your story, what got you to wanting to do this, what was the stories. Um, and I’m gonna be asking the magical, uh, the questions. What happens if people just ignore you? Uh, what happens if people actually take on the framework? And so we wanna be looking at what are the problems, and then, uh, the solutions. And this is piggybacking on previous episodes where we’ve said, “Hey, here’s the challenge with the industry.” You know, people don’t know what you do, uh, how do you explain it, whatever. So, so we’re really just building upon all of that. so yeah, before doing your, your thesis, what were you doing?

[00:02:21] Louise: Okay. Lots of things. Um, I suppose my prime role was I was the course director for Swinburne University’s Environmental Health program, and I had been doing that for many years. Um, that’s a professionally accredited program for environmental health, um, practitioners, as you’re p- everyone’s probably aware, uh, in Victoria, and it’s a long-standing program.

[00:02:40] So that was my job, sort of when I sort of decided to embark on my thesis, I was working in that particular role. But previous to that, I had worked… Um, I qualified as environmental health practitioner myself back in the, the ’80s, which seems a, a long time ago now. But, um, I did my [00:03:00] industry-based learning year, which I studied through Swinburne at the Environment Protection Authority.

[00:03:04] So I worked with state government, uh, for a while for that one year. Then on to the City of Melbourne, where I was there for nearly nine years, uh, doing environmental health work and then going on to doing, um, sort of their health education work, which they had a, a new sort of, uh, area in there that they were working on, uh, at the time.

[00:03:20] And then went on to do, um, health promotion. I was the, the first health promotion officer at the, uh, appointed within local government, and I worked with the environment health team doing health promotion. Uh, then had my first child, and then ended up in, in academia, um, first of all doing some sessional lecturing.

[00:03:37] And I think Swinburne has always been, uh, very keen on making that industry connection, uh, in their practice. So I think having that practitioner background was one of the, the reasons I started teaching. And then, you know, wind the clock back to the now, what are we? 2020s. Um, you know, I ended up being, um, you know, teaching, researching, and coordinating the program at Swinburne, including the, the industry-based learning placements

[00:04:02] Shane: Today’s episode is proudly brought to you by Swinburne University. Um,

[00:04:07] Louise: Well, too

[00:04:08] Shane: uh,

[00:04:08] Louise: many to do that.

[00:04:10] Shane: uh, it’s, it’s not, but we’re happy to do a little bit of product placement. Um, now you just need to put your Swinburne cap on. Okay. So, um, over the, the years, um, what’s changed? Like, when you started off as an EHO, to now, uh, what’s changed in terms of the [00:04:30] role

[00:04:30] Louise: That’s interesting question. I think there’s been, in some cases, there’s been, for some people, I don’t feel like they, they felt there’s been a lot of change, but for others, I think there’s been heaps of changes. So I remember when I started off i- in that role, it was very much … You know, we didn’t have what we would have these sort of performance targets all the time.

[00:04:49] You know, I, I sort of started practicing in an era, you’d go to work, and you’d have your sort of list of places that you’d go to, and at the end of the day, you’d have a bit of a chat about them. And I mean, you did your work. And if I’d say, um, I wouldn’t be a casual manager, but, um, a casual way, but it was just you had a sort of a, a list of areas that you would go to.

[00:05:07] And then as things started to evolve, we started to have a lot more performance indicators about, well, what’s the value of your work? How many, you know, places do you visit? And I think that sort of was really tied to that sort of whole era of, you know, performance management of all different sectors in the community, and environmental health came, um, you know, came up for one of those areas that need to have to demonstrate their value.

[00:05:29] So that was sort of like one of the things that I think started to change, is that real, real sort of focus on, well, what is the value of your work? And being preventative in nature, that’s always been a challenge for environmental health practices. How do we provide measurements apart from how many places we may visit, which then becomes a numbers game, as opposed to what is the impact that we have.

[00:05:50] So I think those sort of issues still hold in that area. But then I think on the other side, what’s really happened, too, is understanding the [00:06:00] complexity of the role. I think globalization, um, you know, have a, a big population base. We have a lot more diverse sort of cultures within our communities. We have, um, emerging infectious diseases.

[00:06:13] So there’s a whole lot of different things that really challenge the role and how we deal with that complexity. And then on the broader scale as that, is that we have a lot of other different people or professions that contribute to environmental health, public health, uh, you know, a lot of other experts also in the mix, which also means, uh, which is good for the practice area.

[00:06:34] But at the other time, it also challenges to find out, well, where do we fit amongst all these other professionals who are now working in that environmental health, public health space.

[00:06:43] Shane: On one of the early episodes, I asked someone, uh, what does an environmental health officer do? Um, and what was really interesting was, uh, was a list that went on for a minute. Um, as the interview progress– oh, you know, the, the– it progressed, it was, “Oh, I do this and I do this and I do this and I do this and I do this.”

[00:07:03] And so now if I was to ask you to come up with a list of all the things that an environmental health officer would be, uh, potentially doing, uh, that’s a long list. Uh, and so you then ask an environmental health officer, “So what do you do? Give it to me in 15 seconds. What’s your answer? What do you do? What does an environmental health officer do? Fifteen seconds.”

[00:07:27] Louise: For me, uh, well now with my [00:07:30] framework, I’d say they protect, they help, they collaborate, they lead and innovate. And that’s the difference between having a long list of things that they do to be able to describe what practitioners actually are trying to achieve. They’re trying to protect the community from harm.

[00:07:45] They’re trying to help communities, uh, sustain themselves. Um, they’re trying to collaborate with different partners across agencies to try to get, um, optimal health outcomes, and they’re also trying to lead and innovate in order to sort of sustain the … not only just sustain the pr- profession, but actually help, you know, sustain our communities as such, or what I would call in, in my work is, like, create a sort of, uh, a sustainable future for society.

[00:08:12] So that’s how I now describe practice rather than these long list of things that, that, that they do

[00:08:19] Shane: Yeah, there’s a sneak peek into, um, episode

[00:08:21] Louise: Yes.

[00:08:22] Shane: Um, okay. So, so why did you do your thesis? What, what you saw initially as to the problem? Why do you think this thesis needed to be written?

[00:08:32] Louise: Look, it, it’s really my motivation is so many different levels of motivation for doing this thesis. But I, I think fundamentally working in the area that I have for many years, and even I think when I started practicing many years ago, people would say, “Well, what do you do? What’s environmental health like?

[00:08:50] Who are these people? Aren’t you like health inspectors, health surveyors?” Um, very sort of like I say, a reductionist view of, of the role to begin with, but also [00:09:00] really not understanding, you know, w- what you do, and everyone having difficulty describing other than what you said before, this long list of, oh, we look at, you know, we inspect safe food premises, and we might look at skin penetration, and we look at housing.

[00:09:14] That’s all very well, but it doesn’t actually explain the complexity of the role and how practitioners help in all m- many different ways. So that was probably one of the first motivations, is that, you know, going to numerous different forums and saying, “Well, people don’t know what we do.” You know, how do we actually advance our practice area if people don’t understand what environmental health is?

[00:09:35] And then that leads…

[00:09:36] Shane: so,

[00:09:37] Louise: Yeah,

[00:09:37] Shane: the

[00:09:38] Louise: here you go.

[00:09:38] Shane: tough question, so what? So at the moment you’ve got a, a social problem in terms of you’re at a barbecue and you can’t explain to your neighbor what you do.

[00:09:46] Louise: Mm-hmm.

[00:09:47] Shane: So what? What, what’s the problem with not being able to explain what you actually do?

[00:09:52] Louise: Well, then people will start saying, “Well, why do we need you? Like, if we don’t understand what you do, why do you need your profession at all?” And that sort of … When people don’t understand what you do, that then leads off onto a whole range of things. Number one, which also I found particularly in my sort of role, was how do you attract people to profession?

[00:10:11] If you don’t have people working in the area, then you don’t have a profession, do you? If you can’t attract people to a role, you can’t retain them in the workforce, that becomes a problem. Then if you can’t, um … and retention in the workforce is probably also about understanding what opportunities there are in a role, and if people only understand [00:10:30] their role in sort of very limited ways, well, then that doesn’t help with w- workforce retention.

[00:10:34] And if people don’t understand what you do, then how do you get resources to do the important work that we are doing to, um, that that has implications there. So I think not being able to describe what we do has lots of implications, but the, the, the bottom most fundamental one is that, why do we need you?

[00:10:53] We don’t understand what you do, so let’s … it all seems too hard to me. We’ll just, we just won’t have the profession at all. And, and I think that’s really problematic ’cause I do think we do need the environmental health profession. We do need people that have the skill base that can look at the problems that we do, from that really coordinated, um, approach.

[00:11:12] So I, I think that’s really the bottom line. If we can’t explain ourselves, we really risk, um, you know, not being needed anymore

[00:11:21] Shane: probably a b- bad litmus test

[00:11:24] Louise: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:24] Shane: when something like a pandemic comes along, you the first that people turn to to saying, “Hey, we’ve got this major problem,” or were you the one who was, “Hey, you, you can be organizing something else”? And so COVID comes along individually, so to all the listeners, were you the first person they spoke to or were you one of the last?

[00:11:51] And that largely is a failure to understand what your role is, what your importance is, what your skills are, what [00:12:00] you’ve been equipped to do. Um, and probably a sore topic. It would be interesting to know, listeners, were you, during COVID, the first person or the last person that people talked to? Was it a problem?

[00:12:12] Was it a success? Anyway,

[00:12:13] Louise: Mm-hmm.

[00:12:14] Shane: so that was reason number one. Reason number two

[00:12:18] Louise: so not having good description of practice, as I said, leads to lots of different things. So the other motivation was to do something about it. Really sort of g- you get to a point where you think, “Well, what … how can we address this problem?” And I think my initial motivation for the research, I suppose, really stemmed from my experience in placing students in industry, and the whole argument in an academic sense about this theory practice divide.

[00:12:44] Go to university, we learn nothing. We go out and start the job, we don’t know anything. We, we do some lab work, and we take all these samples in the lab. But wh- why are we doing that? It’s … It doesn’t seem useful because it’s … practice is so different when I actually get out into the field. Now, when placing students in a one-year sort of industry-based learning year, which is, which is what sort of we did, you know, that was great.

[00:13:10] Students would learn a lot about the job. But some students would still come back from industry and go, “I don’t even know if I like environmental health work. I don’t know what I … You know, I don’t know if I even really liked it. I don’t know if it’s, it’s for me.” And then I’d spend a lot of time just saying, “Well, okay, you know, you might have seen practice in one way, but [00:13:30] practice is not just about that.”

[00:13:31] They may have been in a role that they end up doing, like, just a lot of compliance work, and they’re not quite sure it was for them. And so I originally looked at doing my PhD around how to enhance or, you know, put that theory practice divide. How do we close that divide with education and, and training?

[00:13:48] Uh, and then that sort of morphed when I sort of met my, one of my supervisors. Um, he started to talk about, well, what is environmental practice anyway? Do you understand what environmental practice is? And that really challenged me because I was thinking, “Well, of course, I’m teaching in the area. I’ve worked as a practitioner, and, you know, I’m, I’m responsible to, for delivering this program.

[00:14:09] How could I know what… How could I not know what environmental practice is?” And then he started saying, “Well, now have a think about it. Do you think you understand practice differently from other people?” And I’m thinking, “Well, perhaps my experience is different.” So that really then led me down this whole path of thinking about, wow, we don’t actually have a good description of practice.

[00:14:28] Most descriptions are very reductionist. It’s about control of risks, and it’s about, um… And we have lots of different definitions. Often, um, I mean, there was a, an article that I read in the US that had 29 different, different definitions. And over the, um, course of my career, I’d also been in workshops where we’ll have, you know, maybe 20 or 30 practitioners in a room, and we discuss about what’s environmental health for you, and let’s come up with some sort of words to describe it, and we all walk away sort of really not getting particularly anywhere, anywhere else.

[00:14:58] So that [00:15:00] motivation, you know, to actually produce something that would help with education and training, end up coming much bigger than that. Because then I realized that perhaps having a good description of practice could also help us communicate more effectively with the broader, like your next-door neighbor at the barbecue, about what you do, give you some trigger points to talk about your role in a more sort of descriptive way, as well as look at ways we could prepare students for professional practice, which is more in touch with the reality of practice.

[00:15:30] And then thirdly, it was about then, well, how do then we professionally develop practitioners who may have not been exposed to lots of experiences in practice and, and try and, um, give people a, a pathway to see how they would professionally develop in the area. So that was the really another, another reason that I ended up really starting to get motivated to pursue this, the thesis.

[00:15:54] Shane: Jumping ahead, which we’re going to, uh, try and avoid. But,

[00:15:57] Louise: Yeah

[00:15:58] Shane: you’ve got four different things that, um, an EHO does, and so one of them is protect. And that’s pretty much if you asked any environmental health officer what do you do, uh, protect would… You know, if you say protect, yeah, that’s it. They’d use different words possibly, but protect. Um, you step into a food premises, you’re protecting the public. Um, whereas the fourth category is leading and innovating. Um, and so, in [00:16:30] one sense, most, or sorry, too many people would feel, uh, disempowered. They would see themselves as, “Yes, I’m the policeman,” but they wouldn’t see themselves as the leader. Um, as you went about, uh, you see that many EHOs had really just locked themselves into thinking of themselves as one thing and one thing only, and either weren’t aware or just didn’t believe that they could be doing other things as well? What was your experience there?

[00:17:05] Louise: Look, the actual, uh, interviews were about Asking practitioners what they thought environmental health practice was about. And some… And the idea of getting a really comprehensive description was to try and get practitioners with very varied experiences. And so basically, I looked at someone perhaps who’d graduated from university right through to someone who’s been in the field for a long time, some in middle management, some that have worked in emergency management.

[00:17:36] So I talked to a lot of different people about how they understood their practice. So during the interviews, and this is why we have the four categories, that there were definitely some that really described their practice more in the protecting category. And it wasn’t matter what question I would ask them, they would really go back to describing what they would do.

[00:17:56] So I’d ac- ask practitioners to give me an [00:18:00] experience about your practice. Tell me, describe something that you do that’s… as a practitioner, and it can be anything. Because the idea here is it’s your practice, so it’s all valuable and valid. So if I said to you, “Describe me something about your practice,” and they describe an incident, then I would drill down and keep on asking them about that, about that particular scenario.

[00:18:21] “Well, tell me what you did. Why did you do it? Why was it important that you do it that way?” So there were definitely some that their interviews reflected a protecting role. Others I would interview, and I’d say the same scenario, same set of questions, and then I’d ask them to sort of describe or, or tell me, you know, what you did, and they would start talking about, um, you know, the, the, the, the experience, and maybe it might have been, um, sort of inspecting a food premises, dealing with a food complaint.

[00:18:51] And they would say, then they’d start to say, “Yeah, but look, I, I, I know I’m going in there to look for, you know, compliance. I know that’s part of my role, but my role is more like I’m really trying to educate. I’m really trying to tell, you know, a- give them some opportunities to, to tell me what’s particularly, you know, going on their food premises.

[00:19:07] And sometimes you might find that, uh, you know, we’re not… be in a rural environment, and they can’t afford a, a new wash hand basin tomorrow. So we’re looking at practical ways we can address that particular problem.” And, you know, I would ask them at the end of that interview, “What’s it about for you?” And they would say, “Well, it’s about helping to sustain a community because, you know, i- if I close down the local [00:19:30] shop in that municipality, well then, you know, there could be the next place that they’ve got to, um, particularly in a rural environment, the next place they get to be able to buy, say, food might be fifteen kilometers away.

[00:19:42] So that’s, that’s not great for the community, and it’s not good for the economic development.” So they would describe their practice. So as you can start to see, I could see that’s a different way to think about practice. Yes, they understand their protecting from harm role, but they’re really focusing when they’re operating in that way on that sort of sustainability of that business.

[00:20:01] But, you know, they’d als- also say, “Look, but if, you know, it was a really, a big hazard and I had to take, you know, compliance action, I need to do that. I have to work within the boundaries of my practice. But-” That sort of idea of, um, changing boundaries really sort of reflects that idea that I have to actually sometimes change my practice here because it’s not going to work, it’s not practical in this situation.

[00:20:22] Um, and then, you know, sort of the collaborating one, uh, you know, with the practitioners, you know, practitioners would talk very much of an experience, and again, it’s about the experience they pick to tell me. and even through interviews, I might say to someone, “Well, can you tell me about a different experience?”

[00:20:37] But they’d always sort of go back to more that collaborating one. Uh, and so they’d talk about, for example, uh, in, in an interview a-about a, uh, an incident that involved multiple players. So they would talk about it in terms of, “Well, you know, my role here was, um, really a, a practical one. You know, I work with a whole range of experts.

[00:20:59] [00:21:00] Um, I’m one of them, but this was a particular, uh, a waterborne outbreak, and this particular scenario, what happened here was, um, you know, it might have meant that it could affected a wide range of community catchment. I came in, you have the microbiologist having a particular opin-opinion about what needs to happen to, to prevent that risk.

[00:21:21] You have sort of engineers, you have water authorities. So my job really is to work with those range of different agencies to sort of come up with sort of practical solutions that…” Um, also, which I really loved about this particular sort of category was, um… And I know we’re probably diverging more into the categories but the descriptions about how they saw their practice was that it was more about coming up with what’s optimal health outcomes.

[00:21:46] Because as they kept on saying, there’s no such thing as zero risk here. But as an EHO, I can see what’s, what’s practical that we can help implement to perhaps deal with this water issue. Um, so, you know, some saw their practice that way. And then the leading and innovating, uh, again, that was people that had experiences around and saw their responsibilities as managers, uh, particularly, I suppose, in a management role if they were a manager, to actually lead the next generation of practitioners, for example.

[00:22:14] That was their role. And as their experience, they would talk a lot about how that was really important to their practice, that they looked at the future generation and building that capacity. So it was not so much s- I w- I could not say whether people didn’t see themselves [00:22:30] as, um,

[00:22:31] Shane: as

[00:22:32] Louise: but there were clearly some people within my interviews that did sort of work more, more within that protecting frame.

[00:22:37] And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just the way that they saw themself and their practice. But there are other people that did see their role much beyond just protecting right up to that sort of helping, collaborating, leading, and innovating.

[00:22:51] Shane: As you were running through the categories, I was, uh, here,

[00:22:55] Louise: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:55] Shane: product placement, EHO knows. And I’m going, um, you know, the very first episode was, um, about a restaurant that had, um, food poisoning outbreak. And so at that stage, very much step in with the protecting. You know, education long since gone.

[00:23:12] That horse had bolted. there was, at a shopping center and whatever. So, so definite protecting roles. Um, but then on the, um, the helping, uh, there’s been a couple podcasts on, um, yeah, questioning, you know, how much is the educational stepping in and, and helping rather than, uh, the policing aspect. Uh, collaborating, what happens when you’re suddenly in the middle of a flood and what are you doing there, working with other departments, stepping in. and then leading and innovating, uh, yeah, a couple episodes on just questioning, uh, where we’re heading, what’s hap- how do you change big sort of things. Um, the, uh, Dr. Greg Whiteley was a [00:24:00] really interesting one who actually set up his own company and started doing lots of stuff. So just in the podcasts that I’ve done, you can clearly see those various aspects.

[00:24:10] Louise: Mm-hmm.

[00:24:12] Shane: in one sense, an encouragement to saying anyone can step forwards, anyone can be doing this. And so part of your framework is to be suggesting anyone can be doing this and making it people aware, people are doing this, you can be doing this. Um, yeah.

[00:24:30] Louise: uh, w- this is the thing, it’s actually giving permission, I think, to say this is part of your practice. As a environmental health professional, you are a leader and innovator. People are doing this, and this is part of what you do as a professional. And you may, um, you know, you may start in that protecting, but the more experiences that you have, the more confidence that you, you build in your practice, and the more sort of encouragement and professional development that you, that you get, you can work in that hel- helping.

[00:24:59] And I think a lot of people are comfortable and do enjoy the helping aspect. I don’t think a lot of people really enjoy, um, having to take people to court or going down that, that sort of, um, part of practice. A lot of people, I think, get into environmental practice ’cause they wanna help the community, they wanna serve the community, they wanna make a difference.

[00:25:18] And I think a lot of people, um, you know, would like to be working more within that, that range and having the resources, particularly in, in organizations, to be able to do that. [00:25:30] And, uh, that’s really what the framework is about, is trying to sh- show that, yes, these are the types of way that you can, in a set as a professional development tool, this is your roadmap to your sort of professional develop- to becoming a leader and in- and innovator, uh, because that’s what I think any professional group needs, is to have that, um, reason to, to innovate.

[00:25:53] And I just wanna say that’s an important point too, because the other sort of… I suppose the other motivation around doing the thesis is that, you know, the professions collectively around the world are really under pressure from society because, you know, not only do we need environmental health professionals, but do we even need professionals at all?

[00:26:13] I mean, we have people that can go onto the internet now and diagnose their own problems. They look to professionals, they get confused with conflicting answers and advice. They, um, you know, they can go onto Twitter. There’s, there’s so many different ways to get expert advice, and one of the reasons that professions were set up is these body of expert knowledge and skills that have autonomy that are here to serve the community.

[00:26:37] But I think we’ve, even through COVID, saw how people really started to mistrust, you know, doctors, epidemiologists. Everyone was, like, under scrutiny. So I think it’s really important as a profession, you’re always showing leadership, you are innovating your practice, you are improving it, because at the end of the day, you’re here to serve society, and that’s why you’re here.

[00:26:57] And society needs to be able to see that [00:27:00] you are advancing your practice, that you are offering, offering something that they just can’t find themselves. And, and I do believe that we do need professions like this. Um, now the last thing I’d like to think is that our, you know, the way that we operate in society in the future is, is being debated over, um, some sort of social media, and I don’t think that’s what we want.

[00:27:20] I think we still want experts in these r- in these roles

[00:27:26] Shane: Yeah, the point made was, uh, if you’re perceived as just being a food inspector where you walk in with a checklist,

[00:27:33] Louise: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:33] Shane: then anyone can do that. so you’re purely just ticking boxes, uh, why pay a university graduate? You can just give that to anyone. Uh, and so the more you encompass everything, the more you are a professional rather than just a, uh, inspector.

[00:27:54] Louise: Oh.

[00:27:54] Shane: s- so how much of it is fundamentally an attitude problem with the person believing this is what the role is, this is what I do, and they, they need to actually just fundamentally change their attitude in the first place?

[00:28:11] Louise: I don’t know if it’s a- an attitude as opposed to being exposed to different experiences that help and encourage, a practitioner to develop in a way that’s, that’s positive. I think there’s, it’s a really, a way of thinking about, you know, at the fundamental level, you know, the team that you’re, [00:28:30] you are with, um, having the ability to articulate where your career could take you.

[00:28:37] Um, sure, there’s, there’s your own individual motivation about whether you want to engage with that or not. But I think having the opportunity to experience practice in different way may help see people that, with a penny drop. If every day that you go to work and you’re given the same list of sort of things to do, to check off, as you were saying, but you’re not given the opportunity to perhaps go and be part of an, an education program where you can see some positive change, well, then, I think it’s hard to sort of, um, motivate people to, to do things differently.

[00:29:11] So I think it’s about giving people opportunity and experiences, and that’s what I hope the framework does, is start to open up those discussions of those different ways you can experience practice and, and, and help people develop that. Um, have those conversations about, look, you know, you might be very direct in being able to communicate and instruct people what to do, but how, how can we improve your communication so you have a little bit more understanding and thinking, and you are able to listen to people and see what their issues are?

[00:29:44] Do you feel comfortable with that? Um, and these aren’t worse or better ways of operating. They’re just different ways of operating. And some people, you know, you may work with might not feel comfortable being in that helping category at all, and that’s something from, I think, a [00:30:00] managerial level, you start to think about your team and who’s best placed to do certain activities

[00:30:06] Shane: So now you’re talking about soft skills. Um, so you can send someone off to a course and learn how to do something, um, whereas soft skills like your ability to communicate, um, you know, are you a, um, a, a soft person? Are you a harsh person, to the point, uh, little bit verbose? how much effort or how much focus is there in the profession on developing soft skills?

[00:30:33] Louise: Well, you know, I think that’s something that w- people will say that they develop over time. But again, I suppose it’s who you work with and what sort of professional development programs you are, you know, put, you know, g- given or opportunities. Whether there’s much discussion around things like, you know, empathy about, I don’t know, about listening, about, um, what’s

[00:31:00] One of the practitioners, uh, in the interviews talked about the human side of practice. Uh, you know, I think they’re things that we probably should discuss more, and that’s what I’m hoping the framework will do, is talk about … And I’m actually developing some materials now about, you know, reflecting on, well, how do we help make you, or how do we engage you in practice that makes you more of a helping role?

[00:31:23] What things do you think would help you be able to, to talk to, um, you know, diverse groups or those types of things? [00:31:30] So I suppose in answer to your original question, yeah, maybe, maybe not enough. Maybe there needs to be more discussion around those soft skills and how we development, develop them and reflect on our own practice and how, you know, where we’re strong or not so strong in those areas.

[00:31:44]