On the 12th March, myself along with Kate, who I have been working closely with at the charity organising the Seedlings programme, arranged a meeting with one of her family cases she oversees at the charity. They had been working with Kate and receiving support from this charity since last October when the abuser in this particular situation had been removed. Kate wanted to introduce me to this family as she was really interested in me possibly carrying on any extra support the family might needs as they come to the end of their time with the charity. This would involve me just having check-in’s with the mother whenever she needed either via text/e-mails or just meeting up for a chat over a coffee. Kate also asked me if I would like to go and visit the children in their schools for check-ins which I am really excited about as I wanted to gain more experience with working with children in a school setting. These check-in’s are a tool the charity uses to make sure the family knows they still have support from them even when the have finished all of the various programmes and course the charity has to offer. The main focus of the charity is to make sure the family feels safe and supported and they know who they can talk to if they need to. The family came into the SAFE charities main office where they also have various counselling and meeting rooms. We met in the children’s counselling room so the children had lots of toys to play with while they were there. The purpose of this meeting was to allow me to get to know the family a bit before I potentially take over their case from Kate. Kate is one of the main children’s team practitioners at the charity and has a very heavy case load so she is excited for me to be able to continue any extra support for families that have been working with her for a while now. I am really excited about this opportunity as I think it will give me greater confidence in my communication and listening skills and feel like it is a great opportunity to see what it is like to actually be a practitioner at this charity.
Later in the week, Sasha, the volunteers organiser at the SAFE charity gave me a call and asked if I would like to come in on the 29th March for a meeting with her and Emma, a counsellor at the charity, to discuss possibly working as a young persons counsellor with the charity. I am so excited to go to this meeting and discuss what the have in mind as this is an area that I have always wanted to consider career-wise. This would give me the opportunity to work and gain knowledge about working with slightly older children/adolescents which is what I was really hoping for from this placement.
HOURS COMPLETED: 2
TOTAL HOURS: 6