Fact file:
Name: Paula Whiting
Position: Social worker in schools, Strengthening Families facilitator
Where: Tu Tama Wahine o Taranaki
WITT qualification: Bachelor of Applied Science (Social Work)
Gaining a social work degree through WITT has changed Paula Whiting’s life.
When she began her tertiary study, Paula was a single mother with three children, aged 13, 12 and 3.
“Getting back into study and just juggling everything was huge,” she says.
But with support from her family, fellow classmates, tutors and service centre staff at WITT, Paula gained a Bachelor of Applied Science (Social Work).
She finished her degree at the end of 2008, graduated in 2009 and then started work with Barnados New Zealand, which gave her a great grounding in working with families.
But Paula always dreamed of working in Australia, so landed a job in child protection at Bairnsdale, three hours away from Melbourne.
The job involved taking children out of families. “It was challenging work. I lasted a year and realised it wasn’t the type of social work I wanted to do. I like the early preventative stuff – the top of the cliff rather than the bottom of the cliff.”
She came home to New Plymouth and, in August last year, started a job with Tu Tama Wahine o Taranaki as a social worker in schools. She is based at Bell Block and Puketapu schools.
“I love it, because it’s a positive role and it’s working alongside families,” Paula says.
“I can work with children at the school and I can work with the family as well.”
By acting as the connection between schools, the children and their families, there are many positive outcomes for the students’ education, especially in regards to truancy.
“It’s not usually about the truancy, but there are other things going on in the family.”
By working with the children and their whanau, these issues can be solved and the kids go back to school.
Paula also has other roles in the schools. She takes friendship groups for children who find it difficult to make friends and also runs social skills groups, which are more in depth.
“Some groups we have to start with the basics like how you join in a game and how you have conversations, and teaching children that everyone is different,” she says of the latter.
Another role she has at Tu Tama Wahine is as a facilitator for Strengthening Families.
“It’s when the family has lots of agencies working for it and sometimes they don’t know what each other is doing.”
Her role is to facilitate a meeting attended by all the agencies and the family. “It’s about getting an action plan for the family, so everyone is on the same page.”
Paula enjoys all her roles and loves working at Tu Tama Wahine.
“I’ve always been interested in working with people,” she says.
She was a qualified enrolled nurse when she was younger and, when she started studying, had thought about doing psychology.
But a year-long taster course at WITT showed her that social work fitted with everything she wanted to do.
“Before I started my study, I didn’t even have a driver’s licence,” she says.
“The biggest thing is showing my kids you can do it. That wasn’t my goal, but that’s what happened.”
Now her son Max (21) is at Victoria University doing a Masters in marine biology and daughter Steph (20) has just about completed her second year of the social work degree at WITT.
Paula is also considering doing more study, possibly a psychology paper.
Her final message is to encourage other single women with kids to think about doing tertiary studying. “There are ways you can do it.”