Charity Insights 2014 – Page 7

Day one at St. Anne’s Community Services

21 July 2014

Week One

My project

Since it’s my first blog post I’ll just give a brief overview of my internship project. Over the next four-six weeks I’ll be working with St. Anne’s, a charity based in Leeds that provides a range of services to vulnerable groups in society, from the homeless to people with learning disabilities. My project involves working with St. Anne’s to screen groups of people for cognitive impairment, linked to ARBD – Alcohol Related Brain Damage.

ARBD is an umbrella term for various symptoms associated with physical damage to the brain, caused by both the toxic effects of alcohol and vitamin deficiencies that accompany its long-term use. At present, very little is known about the prevalence and severity of this condition in vulnerable groups, such as those with a history of alcohol and substance abuse. The aim of my project is to identify possible cases of cognitive impairment through screening volunteers at a homeless hostel for men, and a breakfast club for homeless men and women, and use this data to examine the incidence of ARBD among these groups. My project is a kind of pilot study, to see if there is a need for more widespread screening for ARBD, or a service in Leeds (and, potentially, around the UK) to help these people.

Day one!

My first day started with a meeting at Holdforth Court – a homeless hostel for men run by St. Anne’s – with some members of the St. Anne’s team. It’s hard for me to put myself in the shoes of some of the people I will be screening; most of them are homeless and many are alcohol-dependent, so it was important to discuss how I was going to approach the topic of screening with these people.

The screening tool I’ll be using (the Montreal Cognitive Assessment) consists of some questions to assess various cognitive domains (excuse the jargon!). Often, people with a history of long-term substance abuse do have impaired cognitive function and problems with their memory, so you can imagine that it’s a sensitive subject. Myself and the St. Anne’s team spent some time deciding how I’ll approach the subject with their service users (more jargon!), and we agreed that over the next week I’ll spend some time at Holdforth Court and a breakfast club run for homeless people just socializing with the service users. It’s important that they feel comfortable enough with me to allow me to perform the screen, so I’ll be spending some time just getting to know them.

At the moment I’m feeling pretty excited about the project, although I am nervous about doing something so different from usual life at Imperial! It’ll be nice to actually get out there and interact with the service users on a personal level, and to hopefully be able to help any that do show signs of cognitive impairment.

My internship took another surprising turn when we were trying to come up with ways to encourage people to attend the screening sessions, and it looks like I’m going to be putting my baking skills to the test! I’m going to (attempt) to whip up some cakes to entice people to be screened, although the staff at St. Anne’s of course have to sample them first! I never expected my internship to involved my culinary skills, but that’s what I think I’m going to enjoy so much about this project – it’s constantly adapting and presenting me with new challenges.

For the rest of the day I’ve been designing some posters to put up around Holdforth Court explaining what I’m doing and why, hopefully to encourage people to volunteer to be screened. I’ll keep you updated on how it all goes!

The first section of the MoCA, showing some of the questions asked.

Week 1 at the MS Trust

njb12

21 July 2014

Nicholas Burstow

The MS Trust is a wonderful charity whose principal aim is to improve the lives of people living with multiple sclerosis (MS). Not only do they provide information and support to those with MS, but they also aid health professionals working with People with MS (PwMS). They publish newsletters, participate and fund research, as well as educate health professionals. All in all the charity does a huge range of things, far more than I had anticipated when I first heard about them.

As part of this work with health professionals, the MS Trust is working alongside another organisation – ‘Therapists in MS’ (TiMS) – to produce a ‘toolkit’ to be used by allied health professionals involved in the care of people with MS. The purpose of the toolkit is to help health professionals identify and appreciate the wide range of implications MS can have on peoples’ lives, as well as provide information on the best way to manage these patients. This is where I come in.

My role this summer is to help the MS Trust and TiMS produce this toolkit. I have joined the information team, and am responsible for carrying out data collection and literary review. In other words I spend a lot of time on PubMed. I then choose the most relevant studies and pass them on to my supervisor, who is in charge of bringing everything together.

My first couple of days were spent reading up on all aspects of MS, from its pathophysiology to living with and treating the condition. This was made easier by the large number of publications that the MS Trust produce for patients and professionals alike, which all helped to give me a solid understanding of the condition.

I spent the rest of the week carrying out the research tasks – looking into a whole host of different areas. From vocational rehabilitation, linking MS with depression and changes to employment, it has already become clear to me that MS can have such an impact on peoples’ lives. I also spent a lot of time trawling government statistics websites to determine the cost of UTIs and pressure sores to the NHS. Whilst these things may seem unrelated to MS, they are both very important issues, and ones which I’m sure will be included in the toolkit once it has been completed.

For a couple of days next week I will spend time at a local MS physiotherapy centre, where I hope to get a real first-hand insight into the therapies that I have been researching and writing about. So far I am enjoying office life, and look forward to next week.

Wild Heath Festival PREPARING WEEK

kx213

21 July 2014

Wild Heath Festival

14/07/2014 – 18/04/2014 Preparation for the Festival!!!!

14^TH July 2014 – Monday

Email and phone correspondence with potential volunteers
Volunteer Wildlife Interpreter Interview s.
sign spraying
Response to specific volunteer role applications sent via websites and email.
Researching events happening this week in different communities like Hackney – to try to attend or post adverts in about the festival.
Starting to draw up a project plan looking at all the roles in the project – the sustainability of each role for the future of the project with volunteers only as the workforce.
Drawing up a plan to follow for future coordinators to use and share about what their jobs/tasks would involve – i.e. For the recruitment – target audience and ways of reaching them, weekly, monthly tasks to do and attend etc.
Creating new ideas about where to advertise the festival – researching popular sites – newspapers and events etc. Looking at the target audience etc.
Contacting organisations to post our event about the festival.

15^th July 2014 – Tuesday

Email and phone correspondence with potential volunteers.
Processing of new volunteer application form sent to put on database.
festival art
Advertising on websites for the Heath festival with the festival poster and other details.
A drawing of a preparation plan summary for the volunteer fair tomorrow in Camden.
Making a summary plan of the activities needed to be completed in the creative session in the evening.
Creative session with other volunteers to help produce activities that were drawn up as well brainstorming of new ideas on top.
Arts and crafts part – so making, drawing, painting, sticking, spraying and getting ‘arty’ so beginning all the physical decorations and activities for the festival – i.e. making a massive beehive, bees etc.

16^th July 2014 – Wednesday

Preparation for Camden Volunteer fair – printing leaflets, flyers, posters and arranging things to take to put on our stall.
setting up for volunteer fair
Volunteer fair in Camden – representing Wild about Hampstead Heath on stall by myself!!! Other organisations present also. Interacting with other different volunteer organisation – networking and also speaking and interacting with public who were walking around who may want to volunteer. Got many emails and had many interesting conversations!!! Really great and beneficial experience!!!

17^th July 2014 – Thursday

Responding and contacting all potential interested volunteers from the fair yesterday who provided contact details.
Correspondence with other interested volunteers – to arrange interview times and dates.
Statistical analysis on the feedback survey designed for inactive volunteers.
Preparation for the festival – more arts and craft!! – Continued from Tuesday.

Kubota ride to pick up equipment & activities

18^th July 2014 – Friday

Responding and contacting all potential interested volunteers from the fair yesterday who provided contact details.
Correspondence with other interested volunteers – to arrange interview times and dates.
Preparation for the festival – more arts and craft!! And putting all the activities together that have been completed.
Kubota ride around to collect equipment and activities in north of Heath.

20^th July 2014 – Sunday

WILD HEATH FESTIVAL!!!!!!

First week with CWT

tgw110

21 July 2014

Thomas Windle

My internship working with Cornwall Wildlife Trust got off to a great start. Whilst here I will be investigating the feasibility of renewable energy installations at their head offices. The Trust does great things to protect Cornwall’s wild things and wild places, and with the engineering and economic aspects of my project, I was excited about both where I was going to be working and what I was going to be working towards.

The morning of the first day entailed general housekeeping, introductions and a site tour. There were a lot of people to meet and names to (try and) remember, but all were very welcoming and created a good working environment. I settled in quickly and hit the ground running in the afternoon; beginning the research for my project. My aim

for the first week was to conduct as much research around the subject of renewable energy installations as possible: identifying all aspects that would require consideration; collecting data sources & reliable points of reference; investigating possible sources of funding and generally preparing myself to complete the project effectively.

I continued my research on Tuesday and investigated the existing water/space heating systems at the offices, to determine what a new biomass installation would likely be like. This led me to looking at UK planning permission regulations and then to companies that specialise in renewable energy installations. I selected three companies, based in the South West, and made enquiries to arrange consultations in the coming days.

My third day with the Trust fell on the annual staff day out. This presented a great opportunity for me to get to know the people I would be working with and also to get out of the office and see the Trust’s newest nature reserve. We took a guided walk around the reserve and also saw a demonstration of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), being trialled by a university team, to photograph and map sites such as the one we were on.

Photo from the Trust's staff day out — Photo from the Trust’s staff day out

Back in the office on Thursday and I decided to investigate possible sources of funding for renewable energy installations. I found a number of possible schemes but after reviewing the criteria and application processes only a few remained that this project will be eligible to apply for. I identified three grant schemes that I will be completing applications for towards the end of my four weeks, when the project is better defined. I then investigated the UK energy market and gathered data on recent statistics as well as predictions for future trends, to allow me to assess how much benefit any renewable installation is likely to bring.

Friday, and the final day of my first week — one that has flown by. I had the first biomass installation consultation arranged for the afternoon and so spent the morning comparing various biomass central heating systems. I reviewed the work that I believed would be necessary, compared various potential fuel options and generally prepared myself to discuss the options at the consultation.

In Summary, the first week went great. I settled into the office, made good progress with my research, got a taste of the hands on work the Trust performs and formed a better understanding of how to progress with the project and successfully achieve my objectives.

Week 3 – Promotion of the TF Willetts Social Media Campaign

cah12

19 July 2014

Clara Hurst

So week three is at an end and we’ve finally finished editing the video which starts the campaign, to check it out go to:

http://youtu.be/TsyC3swvDZY

The Facebook and Twitter pages are also now active with content we’ve scheduled to go up and hopefully we’ve started drawing attention to the charity – our whole aim!

This week’s tasks, alongside the social media content and video launch, were to film a second video and organise proceedings for two further events later in the year. This second video focused on an Italian guitarist who specialises in gypsy guitar, Giulio Romano, and is someone whose events the charity supports. The aim of this video is to showcase his work and receive Giulio’s personal feedback on what he thinks of the charity. To get this filming we went to one of his gigs Wednesday night after working in the office and got to experience his music for ourselves, not only did we hear Giulio and his friend perform gypsy folk songs on guitars but we also had a live painting being created of them as they played. All of which we have included in the video which is currently in the process of editing before we can publish.

In addition to this, there has been a large number of liaison emails and research to help get together the ‘interview series’ with celebrities for September and a choral flash mob in December at Paddington station as well as pulling a list of choir contacts together for the ‘choir of light’ project later in the year.

The plan for my final week is to set up a sustainable schedule for content to keep the pages active even after my internship is over and to gather as much information to provide TF Willetts with the basis on which to build their future projects.

3rd blog

jc311

18 July 2014

Jun Cao

3^rd blog

The working environment in Oxford is quite different from London where you can feel people always in a rush and make the big city very busy. I like London, because the busy city lights my thoughts, passion and dreams, and stretches me to develop myself quickly. Nevertheless, I also appreciate the beautiful, peaceful, and elegant culture of Oxford, which enables people focus on thinking deeply. This week, my work in George Institute is on data extraction form large number of papers, which requires me to go through papers quickly, and spot useful information precisely and efficiently. At first, I feel very struggling, for everyday, tens of paper to read, and more than ten categories of information need to be extracted, and I have to be very careful, because some definition of information is ambiguous. As having read a lot of papers, I developed to be more skilled about systemic literature review and data extraction, and have accomplished much work in different studies. Even more rewarding, the works contributed by me will go into some papers for publication, which makes me feel very exciting. At the same time, another big challenge for me is to learn statistic skills, particular is R language. I have no programming experience before, so I have to learn from scratch. Now, as a beginner, I have to say it is very painful to learn the programming language for me, but I feel very excited about it, for I clearly know this skill is extremely powerful for very broad fields, and I already enjoy the learning, the logic flows. The colleagues in George are very helpful, and they gave me links to listen R classes, and taught me about meta-analysis research, which broadens my horizon of my major. Also, this is really a good opportunity for me to experience another working ambiance, and culture. It is very quiet in the office in George; researchers are very devoted into their work, very independent, and very focus. I am now already settled in, and trying my best to make the most of the time to learn skills and knowledge. I think it is important and rewarding to experience different working atmosphere, and learn about real world of working.

project and work progress

jc311

18 July 2014

Jun Cao

2^nd blog

Two weeks of work has passed, it is time to write them down.

What is my project about?

Blood pressure is associated with many problems as blood clots, stroke, heart attack, diabetes, etc, but it is unclear about the efficacy of blood pressure drugs on those diseases. Specifically, the project is focused on the effect of blood pressure lowering drugs on the prevention of atrial fibrillation. One of the questions below this topic is what kind of populations can benefit from blood pressure lowering drugs in preventing atrial fibrillation. Another question is whether there is a specific blood pressure lowering drug can make an effect on atrial fibrillation by a particular mechanism or all the drugs helping to obtain a lower blood pressure can be used to treat atrial fibrillation. The general project is to find the link between blood pressure lowering drugs and atrial fibrillation prevention on a meta-analysis scope. And my job is to support researchers in George Institute for Global Health to complete this meta-analysis by conducting a systematic review, extracting information from clinical trials and maybe also using STATA to conduct a meta-analysis at a later stage.

What have I learnt from the first two weeks?

The first task coming from George Institute for Global Health was delivered by skype, and the task was to sort data. It was the first time I had an online meeting, and given the task by skype. It was not that easy for me, since English is my second language, I was not fluent enough to communicate online at the beginning. Then I just told myself that I should be confident and believe in myself, because I had overcome all the difficulties before, and although in a lot of cases I performed not perfectly at the early days, I always put things on the right track afterwards, and achieved what I wanted eventually. I tried my best to focus on the requirement of the task, and took notes, and asked questions to get clear about how I should do to achieve it. After the skype meeting, I got on the work very quickly. To confirm I was on the right track, I sent the begin part of the work I had done to them for checking. Then I continued finishing the rest of the work. What I have learnt so far is to be confident, always ask questions to get clear enough about what the task is and how you could approach it. To make sure on the right track, split the big task into a small part and the rest, and send the small part of finished work to employer which can help you better understand the work and be confident about what you are doing and can also prevent futile work conducted under wrong approaches. However, it may also depend on the nature of the work and working atmosphere as well.

some tips for future applicants

jc311

18 July 2014

Jun Cao

Just had a look at some blogs posted by previous charity insight participants, they are so amazing! Informative, interesting and full of fantastic photos! However, few of the posts have mentioned about the application process of the charity insight programme, which is useful information, and will be the starting point of my blog.

Why did I desperately want to participate the charity insight programme?

I have never had a proper job before, so I am always hoping to gain some working experience to get to know the outside world, and contribute what I have learned in the university to the real community. Also, as a PhD student, I have been always focusing on the specific and deep research field, and I realized that I need a way out for fresh air, and for fun.

For time constraints, it is much difficult for PhD students to gain an internship opportunity. Not like undergraduates, PhD students only have 4-week annual leaving holidays each year, while companies/organisations usually offer internships lasting at least three months for students, rather than short-time such as one month duration, for it takes their costs to train apprentice. Thus there are more barriers to get an official internship opportunity from companies/organisations as a PhD student.

The charity insight programme launched by career center in Imperial College makes it easier to find a host for short-time internship by providing a bursary to students, which reduces the costs from the organisations, and provides a valuable chance to students (especially for PhD students).

How did I find a charity organisation?

Thanks to career center, Amy-a very helpful and considerate career consultant has helped me a lot in finding a charity organisation. She not only provided information about organisations that previous students had worked for, but also told me some valuable charity websites to hunt for charity organisations. Since my PhD is on vascular science, I am willing to work for a health care related organisation. From the blogs posted on the career center website, I learnt about a charity organisation-George Institute for Global Health which would enable me work on real trials. Even better, I found a very interesting project which was related to vascular science, but was very distinct from my current PhD study, so it would provide me a good chance to work on the same field but from a very different perspective.

How did I approach it?

Yasmina-another excellent career consultant spent much effort on my CV and cover letter correction. Then Amy gave me the contact details from previous programme participants who had ever worked for the George Institute, and she helped me polish my email approaching to the organisation. After several emails, I successfully got the internship opportunity.

How about visa issues related to international PhD students working?

As an international student, we have strict visa rule that we can only work within 20 hours per week during the study. On this condition, I contacted international office in Imperial College, and was informed that PhD students were allowed to use annual leaving entitlement to work full time with a permission letter from their supervisor, which was definitely great news for me. Thanks to my supervisor’s support, I got his permission and working allowance during my annual leaving holidays.

I really appreciate all the help from career center and also all the other people who have given me a hand during the application process, and I will definitely cherish this opportunity to gain a wonderful internship experience.

My survey’s going online!

ie411

18 July 2014

Isabelle Erbacher

This week has flown by. Wow. I also have to apologise for always writing and writing and writing (I lose myself in the process sometimes, which is why my posts end up as short stories). To make this week’s blog entry a little more endurable, I’m adding some colourful images!

So, what happened at Rethink this week? Again, I spent much of my time perfecting the primary care survey. I am quite amazed at how much time and thought goes into a piece of work that will only take 5 minutes to fill in. I have been rephrasing and slightly altering the order of questions so many times, because it has to be perfect – thousands of Rethink’s followers will (hopefully) see and respond to this survey, and the same applies to the other organisations we are collaborating with. So every question has to be perfectly clear and acceptable, especially considering the delicacy of the issues around mental illness.

The survey will be publicised through Rethink’s and the other organisation’s Facebook and Twitter pages, and (hopefully) circulate through the world of social media. This is exactly what we want, because it means that it will have a wide reach, but at the same time we have to be really careful about the statements we make, and how those could be interpreted. This is where you’ll be able to access my survey on Monday, where almost 90,000 people will see it:

What adds to the level of difficulty is that I personally have somehow managed to avoid Twitter all my life – until now. I am familiar with the Facebook, but generally not a master of social media and technology – which I am using as an excuse for the sobering, plain appearance of my blog. Twitter however eludes me. How am I supposed to explain an issue about which I could write an entire thesis / bestseller book / unusually wordy Charity Insights Blog in 140 characters?! This is madness!

But rest assured – I found the courage to face this new challenge, and although it broke my literature-loving heart to cut down on words here and use abbreviations there, I came up with my first Twitter post! So the survey, which I am starting to develop motherly feelings for after investing so much time in it, will finally enter the big wide world!

Okay, I’ll be serious now, I promise. I also went to another conference yesterday. It was hosted by South London and Maudsley (SLaM) NHS Foundation Trust’s Psychiatry Physical Healthcare Committee (PPHC) under the name Psychiatry Physical Health Conference. As you can tell from the name, unless you were as overwhelmed by it as I was, the conference was about the physical healthcare of people with mental illness.

As I mentioned in my last post, antipsychotic medication often causes severe weight gain, high cholesterol levels, and mental illness is associated with high smoking rates – all of these contribute to an enormous burden of diabetes and heart disease in people affected by mental health problems. This explains, at least partly, why this group of people dies on average up to 20 years earlier.

Everybody agrees that this is an unacceptable state – and yet it is widely accepted at the moment! Many of these patients don’t receive appropriate support to quit smoking, and their cardiovascular risk factor aren’t recognised and treated.

As I explained last week, the new CQUIN gives a financial incentive to do regular physical health checks on mental health patients, and then treat risk factors like high blood pressure (it’s not ideal, but at least effective). Issues like this were discussed at the conference yesterday, with my supervisor here at Rethink giving an introductory talk.

Now I am thrilled to see my survey going online soon, and really excited to get the first responses in! Yay!

Week 2 on the Beautifully Wild Heath

kx213

14 July 2014

2ND WEEK !!!! 7/07/14 – 11/07/14

The summary diary of the main activities day to day I was involved in the 2nd week.

7^th July 2014 – MONDAY

Finishing & editing volunteer flyer leaflet with photo edit.
Researching all the volunteer advertising websites WAHH project appears in, so looking at how the project is observed by potential volunteers.
Spreadsheet for the different advertising websites WAHH project appears in and also potential websites to advertise in that are used at present by other volunteers. So updating existing adverts and placing new ones. Using the information given by existing volunteers – and the pie chart from statistical analysis already completed to find out which advertising method/organisation to go through so to get more volunteers.
Writing a template advert for the volunteering roles which can be used to be reposted once advert expires in future.
Researching volunteering fairs and events in the month of July – e.g. Camden Volunteer fair and booking in for a slot.

8^th July 2014 – TUESDAY

Continue the research into volunteering advertising websites – update and create new ads on all the old and new websites for volunteering from the research carried out on the 7^th July.
Register with Volunteering fairs by email and phoned them to confirm attendance.
Wildlife camera
Finished a template for volunteering adverts to use in the future.
Started writing and editing the letter to send to the volunteers that have been inactive for a long time – with a feedback form so creating a template to use for the future.
Email correspondence with potential volunteers – arranging times and dates for interviews (7 in total)
Outdoor Snake survey with forms to fill in during it.
Collecting also the wildlife camera roll to observe and check it.

9^th July 2014 – WEDNESDAY

Email correspondence with potential volunteers – so responding back to sent applications via the volunteering websites and email correspondence with other volunteer enquires.
Phoning volunteers who have left voicemails.
Arranging interviews with volunteers.
Writing up a review template for volunteers who have been inactive for a long while – designing a quick and catchy review so they will fill in so we can get feedback from them and coming up with an incentive for them if they answer the questions.
Creating ideas for how we can keep our existing volunteers happy – so brainstorming ideas.
Writing up activity cards for the wildlife interpreters for the different activities to teach the public like the bird feeder activity and researching facts for them to use i.e. about birds in this case.

10^th July 2014 – THURSDAY

Quite a few Volunteer Interviews today & then emailing registration forms and all about you forms to them as well as any other extra info they wanted emailed over.
Email and phone correspondence with potential volunteer applications that have been sent.
Designing the quick review from yesterday on survey monkey and finishing the editing and sending it off to all the inactive volunteers on the database so we can get feedback from them.
Researching and making notes of events and activities happening in the following week to remind the volunteers about so to get them involved.
Snake surveying

11^th July 2014 – FRIDAY

Volunteer application responses via email.
Arranging interviews for volunteers next week.
Setting up bike activities for the weekend – so finishing up the group activity design, printing off posters and activity leaflets, arranging all the books, leaflets, CDs for the bike to go out.
Excel database update of information for new volunteers with their application form processing.
Researching volunteering events for this month to get involved in – applying as an organisation with different close by boroughs.