Category: Vanessa Place

Week four/five: the end

It’s hard to believe that my time at St. Anne’s is over – four weeks has flown by! Over the past week (alongside my usual screening programme) I’ve been involved in several events with St. Anne’s, such as helping to run their service user drop-in session yesterday. It was a chance for people to make suggestions or raise concerns about the services on offer at St. Anne’s, as well as to sample the Krispy Kreme doughnuts on offer! I really enjoyed getting involved with the service users and hearing their opinions on the services they use everyday, and it really highlighted to me how important St.

The end of week three at St. Anne’s

Week three is just about over and it’s probably been my favourite (and the most interesting) week so far. I’ve spent a lot of time designing a leaflet about ARBD for staff I discussed in my last blog post, and a large part of that has been to do my own research on the condition. This involved literature searches and lots of journal articles! The whole point of my project with St. Anne’s was to help raise awareness of the severity and prevalence of ARBD in vulnerable groups, and the lack of resources on this subject really highlighted the need for greater awareness of the condition.

Week two draws to a close…

My second week at St. Anne’s is nearly over, and I feel like I’ve settled in nicely. As I’ve carried out more and more screening I’ve become much more confident with the process, and when explaining the results to service users. The staff have been working really hard to raise awareness of my screening amongst service users and as a result I’ve been pretty busy!

Throughout my time at St. Anne’s, my perception of the homeless and people with alcohol/substance abuse problems has changed dramatically. It’s often difficult to admit that we have prejudices towards these groups, but I’ll put my hands up and say that before I began my project I had always been a bit frightened or suspicious of them.

Week one draws to a close

My first week at St. Anne’s is (prematurely, for this week anyway!) over, and already I feel like I’ve learnt a huge amount.

Arriving at the breakfast club on Tuesday morning, in all honesty I was terrified. I was convinced no one would want to be screened for cognitive impairment while they were having their breakfast! But as soon as I arrived the staff made me feel very welcome, and went out of their way to make sure I felt comfortable. It was important to ensure that the service users felt at ease with me, so for a while I just helped out serving tea and toast, chatting to the people who came in.

Day one at St. Anne’s Community Services

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.