From the frontline Michelle Hewett

From the frontline

Michelle Hewett

Program coordinator | iAP mallee 2021 Employee of the Year

how did you come to work at hhS?

I started in June 2011 on a student placement for three days a week. The aim was for me to work across all programs as there weren't as many programs back then.

I started in the Intake and Assessment Program (IAP) and I’m still here. I was employed full-time in 2012. I studied and worked at the same time. I will be celebrating my 10 year anniversary next month which feels surreal.

We cover a lot of areas and do all the assessment across the Mallee.

It's hard work. It's relentless work. Every day is something new but we can’t stop. We have to keep working for the outcomes for our clients. It's exhausting but you have to look after yourself, your team, and the people that come to us for help.

People ask me, ‘how can you do it for so long?’ but the job is completely different every day. You never know what will be on the next phone call. You never know what the next challenge will be.

It’s nice to reflect on my experiences to help mentor my team. I have learned and evolved every year and have learned from every situation. What has stayed with you this year?

For me, I look at the last 12 months, I just think the life of everyone changed in the blink of an eye. Our day and our life is unprecedented. Work has made us resilient and resourceful like we never knew before.

To continue to deliver our services online, and on the phone has amazed me. We haven’t had a complaint from our clients. And we have dealt with everything. We are chameleons, we have adapted to every challenge that has been thrown our way.

The 12th March 2020, I’ll never forget it. I remember having a meeting with my manager and he asked ‘we need to make sure everyone can work from home’ and I asked, ‘work from home, how do we do that. We can’t!’ And yet, here we are.

The generational stuff has stayed with me. I remember working with 10 year olds who are now 20 and I know their story. The strength in that history through the pandemic has helped. We know their background so we know the impact on their families. When they ask for support we know exactly what their situation is. I have a lot of admiration for technology that has kept us all safe. We never closed our doors in the pandemic. We still gave our clients a little bit of normality by connecting them with the services they needed every day. It's a credit to HHS.

Every day we reset and refresh. Don’t take anything for granted. We can be told we’re in lockdown at midnight and we can completely adapt to that.

On 17 July this year, we had a positive case in Mildura. We closed the office for three days for a deep clean. We all got tested. We all worked at home and we’re still delivering a service. It’s really rewarding to know that we can still help people even when the office is closed.

What does 'showing up’ mean for you?

We have a purpose on the frontline. It’s to make a difference everyday for people. We want to make an outcome every day. Not always positive but it’s definitely an outcome. The positive outcomes feel really good. Everyone deserves shelter.

In a small town, you know a lot of people. People don’t want people to know that they are struggling, but it's our job to reassure them to not be embarrassed and that we’re here for them.

We never know when we’re going to be on the other side of our own desk. The bottom line of everything we do is creating a difference to people every day.

how does hhS show up?

We stand by our purpose. We always come back to that. It’s what we do across so many different sites. Our staff are supported. Our clients are supported. We’re a strong team and we work well across different areas. We work closely with our local Indigenous agencies, we work for our LGBTQI+ community, our disabled community, our ageing community, for women.

We don’t say ‘you’re not in our LGA, we can’t help’ we always refer people onto another service, one that will answer their needs. We don’t turn people away.

We can make sure that we always get people some sort of outcome. We can always put a square peg in a round hole. I’m so grateful I can do that for people through HHS. I’m so grateful to still have my job despite living in a pandemic.