#secret tips

https://beaytyservice.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-to-get-glowing-face.html?m=1

I am not going to put down where and what the agency is that I did my placement at this year out of privacy. However, the agency I did my placement at was an agency for domestic violence victims (more so women, but men as well). They provided one-on-one sessions, drop-ins, they help other organizations with things (ex. The Good Food Box), but mainly, they did workshops. My placement agency mainly focused on the various amounts of different workshops that they do. 

At this specific placement, I ended up doing a lot of paper-work and research, but I was also allowed to attend all the workshops that were being put on everyday for a duration of weeks. I was also allowed to attend different outings/meetings/workshops that the workers themselves went out of the agency to attend. Because of this, I only got real client interaction the last 4 out of 12 weeks attending my placement. I really didn’t like this, I am not someone who is made to work an all-day office job everyday, I like interacting with clients and more hands-on stuff, so getting through this was a challenge for me. 

For anyone in the future that will be attending the same agency I did my placement at this year, (although you won’t know because I didn’t give a name of the agency out of privacy and confidentiality. But still, here are some tips for a placement that sounds similar to the one I attended), here are some tips to get you through it:

1. You usually will always be there before any workers, even if you get there just on time. The door to the building is locked because no one has gotten there to unlock it yet, so you have to go in through the back of the building, go up an old, rickety elevator and wait in the halls. This way you won’t have to stand out in the cold, snow or rain.

2. Until Workshops start, pretty much all you’re going to be doing is research and “paper-work”, (just work in general) that the workers themselves don’t want to do, so you will be sitting at a computer all day for most of your days. Bring headphones so you can listen to music when you research and do “paper-work”, and make sure to pack snacks. You’ll be looking at a computer screen pretty much all day, which will make you exhausted by the time you get home, so try and give yourself breaks so you don’t get a headache or get too exhausted to be able to do work in the first place, because you’ve been staring at a computer screen all day. 

3. The secretary is bossy, don’t take it personal, I think that’s just her personality. But being aware of it will help, so you know that you aren’t a bad worker, she just comes off as rude, sometimes even when she’s not trying to be.

4. You will be treated more like a client than a worker/placement student. We had to do screenings and assessments when we first started, as if we were clients ourselves. We are to sit in the workshops as if we are clients. Or, we are treated like assistance instead of workers, giving us all the small, easy but tedious work that they themselves don’t want to do.

5. In the workshops, very personal information is shared (that we placement students also had to share, which I found was wrong because this isn’t about us as workers, its about the clients. My personal life has nothing to do with the client and their problems. As a worker, I don’t want to share my deepest secrets with my clients, that’s not what I am there to do. I understand that it helps the clients relate more with us, however, I still felt off, uncomfortable and felt a little weird about it.), so look out for that! Because of this personal information being shared, there are a lot of tragic, heart breaking and traumatic stories that you are going to hear. Prepare yourself for them. It’s different to hear someone tell their most painful memories with you in person, then it is in theory.