FrAnCh in Southampton

Last impressions

posted by christina @ 11:20 pm 0 comments

Last day in Southampton

After a long night working on our project waking up today was quite hard. We had lessons in the morning with Carolyn and did some telephone call excercises and letter writings. Between 10.30 and 1.30 we had time for self-directed work. We read through our presentation again and had luch at the Halls. In the afternoon we were divided into 3 groups to hold our presentations. Our group presented to Kevin and we also got recorded. At 4.30 we finished classes and gave Carolyn a little present because of her efforts throughout our stay in Southampton. Afterwards Kevin and Carolyn invited all of us to Hythe. We got there by Ferry and spent the evening in a pub.
Tomorrow all of us will leave to different cities but in one week we will meet again in Innsbruck at the MCI.
Thank you Carolyn, thank you Kevin, we had a great time in Southampton!

posted by christina @ 11:07 pm 0 comments

The visit of Sue James and classes

Yesterday morning Sue James, a social worker of the Southampton City Council, came to the Language centre to speak with our group and the group who works on the project "elderly care". Sue answered all our questions and told us a lot about the social care system. She also gave us lots of information folders, which were auxiliary for our project.
Afterwards we had classes with Carolyn. The subject of the lesson was "Boardroom culture" and we did a role play. It was quite interesting.
In the afternoon Colin spoke with us about young people, who are going abroad and if they are the new colonialists. We read reports of people who went abroad and had a discussion.
In the evening our project group met and we worked on our presentation.

posted by Franziska D. @ 11:39 am 0 comments

Workshadowing @ RRT and a Socialworker

When we arrived at the Southampton City Council the nurses started to prepare their handover. Sara, a nurse, told the participants about the patients and their illnesses. After they finished the handover they sapareted us and Christina and Anna went with two nurses, while I was waiting for Dave the social worker of the RRT. The day before we had prepared some new questions we forgot to ask the people of the Contact Centre, so I had the chance to ask them.

On Tuesday, Beth, a social worker and Care Manager explained us a case of a man who has a rat-problem and asked us if one of us wanted to come with her the next day to visit that man, but we didn't know if that was possible. When I met her again the next day she wanted to know who is coming with her and than she spoke to Kate from the RRT if I could go with her at 10 o'clock so they just had to sort that out with Dave. In the meantime I asked Kate some questions about the RRT.
Dave arrived at 09:40. Beth spoke to him and he said that it was ok for him if I would go with her. Beth and I left a bit earlier to the man.
We went to the house and the man is a nice old man. He felt so embarresed for the situation and was so happy for the help Beth offered him. All over the floor there were newspapers and plastic bags because he had rat poison on the floor. Beth told me that she wants to get the man out of the house for a few days to clean it and to get the rats out of it. Then he would be able to come back, but at the moment the situation he is living is live threatening for him. After he had showed us around Beth promised to organise everything for him and we left to go back to the office.
This visit was very interessting but also very sad for me.

posted by Franziska D. @ 8:20 am 0 comments

Work Shadowing @RRT - Anna/ Visit at the Children's Service and Learning Center

Workshadowing

When we were visiting the Rapid Response Team in the morning, Harvinder, a male nurse took me with him after the meeting to see two patients. We drove there with his private car and he explained me that he would get the expenses for the fuel back, of course.
Like Christina, I was also worried if the patients would mind me coming with the nurse, but Harvinder explained me that they're used to it (actually the patients didn't mind, and both of them thought that I was a nursing student..)
The first patient was an old man suffering from arthritis who has to bear lots of pain. This visit showed me that the reality for an old person often looks very depressing, containing lots of diseases and loneliness.
But I also have to say that the second visit really brightened me up. It was at a very very old and nice lady who manages her life almost independently - even at her high age, and she seems to be very happy with that. It gives me hope again that age doesn't necessarily mean illness and a loss of dignity.
At noon Harvinder drove me back to the City Council again. After this morning I have to say that I really admire him for his patiency and his tender care with the patients.

Visit at the Children's Service and Learning Center

Just as we had come back from the RRT we already had to leave to move to the bus who would bring us to the Children's Service and Learning Center.
As we arrived there, a bunch of papers containing information was already laying on our chairs. We looked at the agenda and thought that this would be a tough afternoon - and we should remain right. There were five presentations waiting to be held.
But first Deb Appelbee welcomed us all and introduced us the Children's Services and Learning Center. After that, Kim Willis told us something about the Children Assessment Team which is dealing wiht business, legislation and processes. Marilyn Laurie & Dep Appelbee presented us the Supporting Children Team, Di Hyam, Lesley Firth and Grant Williams the Family Resources.
What was going to happen then no one from us would have expected probably. Sheila McCarthy, Angela Martin, Angela McDale, Vanda Leigh and Dorenda Matthews from the Foster Care and Residential involved us into a role play where we re-enacted a case study. With a piece of wire we had to build connections between us (each of us played a role of the case) and talk about our feelings.
At the end of this afternoon John Pike and his collegue presented us the Pathways - when a child is leaving the care.
With a head filled - or almost crowded - with information we took the bus home.
We spent the evening by working for our project.

posted by Anna @ 11:57 pm 0 comments

Work Shadowing @RRT - Christina

This morning we had the possibility to take part of the nurse's meeting of the Rapid Response Team. They clearify who will see which patient this day and then the visits start. I went with Pat to see 3 patients. It was very interesting but a little depressing, too. Most of the patients have longer-term sicknesses like cancer or dementia. You can feel that some would like to have somebody spending time with them talking. But this is more the social worker's or carer's job. The nurses just give the medication and control the take.
First I thought it would be unpleasant for the patients if I came with Pat, but they often meet students who come with the nurses and some are very interested in what the students think.
It was great to see how Pat treats her patients - with lots of enthusiasm and joy - which is important in this job! It was a great experience - I'm glad we got this possibility! (although Pat was afraid this wouldn't help me because I'm no social worker).
When we came back to the RRT-office Pat had her lunch break and in the afternoon she had to learn because they have further educations.

posted by christina @ 10:11 pm 0 comments

Work shadowing @CC

Today we started with a presentation from Julia Barton, a nurse at the Hospital of Portsmouth. She informed us about the health care and the social care departments, the financial situation and how the government is involved. First they planned to take us to the hospital but at the moment they are reconstructing. Julia was also answering all our questions and gave additional infos for the different project groups who deal with NHS.
After lunch Carolyn accompanied the three of us to the CityCouncil's Contact Centre. Caroline welcomed us there and showed us the different work places. First we had the possibility to ask general questions we brought along and after that we sat near to the different work teams and they explained us their tasks. In the end we met Beth, she explained everything in detail so that it was easier for us to follow the complex cases. It was very interesting to see how they work and how many different services they provide.
Tomorrow morning we will see the Rapid Response Team, we are really looking forward to that!
We used the evening to work on our project, as we now have most of our needed infos...
Tomorrow we start at 8am, so - good night!

posted by christina @ 10:50 pm 0 comments

Trip to Salisbury

Today at 8:45 am the bus already waited for us to bring us to Salisbury, and there especially to a building of the National Trust. It was Kevin who joyned our trip today. After one and half an hour we arrived there and were completely sold by this building - from the outside as well as from the inside (also see the pictures). We got a tour through the house and got to know everything about it's history. Afterwards we listened to a presentation about the National Trust. At noon we drove to the center of Salisbury and got a little tour through it. Some others used the time to take the train to see Stonehenge. It's quite close to Salisbury.
At 5:30 pm we finally arrived in Southampton and are now very curious what is going to expect us tomorrow when we will visit the Southampton City Council Contact Centre.

posted by Anna @ 8:40 pm 1 comments

posted by christina @ 12:17 pm 1 comments

Weekend in Southampton

On Friday Trish gave us a list with beautiful places we could go to on the weekend. So some of us visited Lymington and Bournemouth on Saturday. We got there by train, it took us just 30 mins to get there. Lymington is a nice small town and every Saturday there's a market on the streets with a lot of different things you can buy - from fruits to sweets, bags and socks.
Bournemouth is a bigger city with a lot of nice parks. We wanted to see the beach and the sea first, so we directly went from the station to "Westcliff". We had an amazing view over the whole beach, the promenade and the sea. It was a little windy but we sat down in the sand to just enjoy it. Later we went into the city centre and did a little shopping. When we got back to the train station we all were very tired and nearly fell asleep during this half an hour back home. In the evening some of us wanted to go out but most of us stayed at the Halls to do something relaxing, like watching "Gilmore Girls" and going to bed early. It was a very nice day!
Sunday we will use to work on our projects.

posted by christina @ 12:04 pm 0 comments

Surestart and marketing-concept

Our marketing poster

posted by Franziska D. @ 9:10 pm 0 comments