Thrown in at the Deep End

The thought of starting work placement was something that made me anxious already. The thought of being around individuals who are established, successful, and older was something that definitely scared me and made me intimated to say the least. However, my time at Alliance for Choice has been a pleasure so far and very beneficial for me in learning and gaining experience for my future. I worked with Alliance For Choice last year on a project, in which I had to interview them for a journalist story I was doing about the cases of Abortion in Northern Ireland and hearing them speak so passionately about where Northern Ireland stands on the issue of de-criminalising abortion and helping women carry out safe, legal abortions made me want to get involved immediately. Alliance For Choice campaigns for abortion rights in Northern Ireland without stigma.  

Again, going into this line of work you have to know a lot about the situation and political stance of Northern Ireland which I was also intimated by having not done this type of work before, I was apprehensive and didn’t have much confidence in myself when I first started out. The first couple of weeks, I was training on the job and learning where Alliance For Choice can help people and what they campaign for and working alongside the co. Convenor Naomi Connor. Needless to say I was definitely thrown in at the deep end but loved every second of it because that’s where I am learning the most. In reflecting on my time so far at Alliance For Choice, I want to use Gibb’s reflective cycle, that was designed ‘as a continuous cycle of improvement for a repeated experience but can also be used to reflect on a standalone experience’ (). 

Description 

So far working with Alliance For Choice I was shadowing people to see what type of work each individual does on the team, so I never actually carried out certain tasks on my own, I was always used to being helped by someone or carrying out tasks with someone else. It was a Friday that I attended a meeting in The Mac Belfast with the two co convenors, Naomi Connor and Emma Campbell. The meeting consisted of just catching up about the week and talking through what we were doing and what was upcoming. These meetings always made me nervous because there is always so much going on at one time, sometimes it’s hard to keep up. As the meeting came to an end, Naomi asked me if I could create a video to help Alliance For choice get funding from a grant-making charity that funds frontline women’s organisations called ROSA. My panic set in when Naomi told me it was due the following Wednesday, so I only had 5 days to do this. 

Feelings 

At the time I remember just feeling sheer panic as usually this type of video would take over 2 weeks to create as I had to carry out interviews and have a number of characters in the video. As well as feeling panic, I felt fear that the video wouldn’t be good enough as they had already got this funding the previous year so they had already done videos like this before. I wasn’t feeling confident, but this was normal as, ‘feelings may play multiple roles in judgment and decision processes including providing information, enabling rapid information processing, directing attention to relevant aspects of the problem’ (L. Finucane 2) . 

Evaluation 

Leaving the meeting, I knew the only way I could grow confidence in the situation was if I started the video immediately and started planning what was going into the video. However, as time went on, I started to get writers block because I was panicking too much whether it was going to be good enough, so I sat unproductively and overthought, and got myself into feeling worse than I already did to begin with. I had so many questions regarding the video and didn’t know where to start or who to ask. I had just hit a brick wall and it looked like there was no getting past it.  

Analysis 

The situation was made worse with my own actions of overthinking and not speaking up at the meeting and asking the things that needed asking. When I got home, I also made things worse and unproductive which helped nobody and certainly didn’t get the video done. On the Saturday, I got up early and got in contact and managed to secure 2 interviewees that would feature in the video and got together a storyboard for the video. The interviews however were carried out quite late on the Tuesday before the video was due but again that was nobody’s fault but my own, I should’ve arranged them after the meeting. Daynes and Farris (2003) say that, by not dealing with situations immediately and personally, and instead taking it to an authority figure, the situation can be made worse. Naomi and Emma had no idea that I was feeling under pressure at the meeting because I didn’t speak up, so I should’ve spoken up and asked the questions that I needed answered. Nevertheless, I got the video done but was tight on time as I was still editing it 2 hours before it was due which could’ve been avoided.  

Conclusion 

In conclusion, I am happy with the video I created and made and so is Alliance For Choice, they loved it. In retrospect, I should’ve spoke up at the meeting and asked if I was unsure about something or voiced my concerns in getting the video in on time and maybe I could’ve got more help. The last 2 days before the video was due, I got Naomi to look over it and tweak it. 

Action Plan

In the future, I will ensure that I build on my confidence so that I can speak up and have more confidence in myself when it comes to doing projects like this. I have talked to Naomi and Emma and reassured them that I will speak up and they reassured me that they are there to help with anything like this if I am feeling pressured. Moving forward this has taught me to have more confidence in myself because I can do it and I can do it well ! 

References

“Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle – University of Cumbria.” Gibb’s Reflective Cycle , https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveCycleGibbs.pdf.

Finucane, M.L. (2013). The Role of Feelings in Perceived Risk. In: Roeser, S., Hillerbrand, R., Sandin, P., Peterson, M. (eds) Essentials of Risk Theory. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht.