A week in the life of…Rachel

Hi, I am Rachel, one of the Recovery College Coordinators at the College.

I started working at the College in December 2022 and I don’t think there has ever been a week that I have managed to stick to plan, conquer my to do list or that has gone by without something new to look at, and I love that about this job, because in reality, whose weekly life plan really ever goes by without something cropping up, derailing the plan and having to adjust? And wouldn’t it be a bit boring if it did!!

So as a bit of an overview of my working week… I work part-time at the College, usually Monday to Wednesday and at the start of every day, we meet as a team to catch up about life, what’s happening that day for everyone, what courses we have going on that day and any other bits and bats we might need to sort out as a team to keep things going. It’s also a great time for anybody in the team to shout out about anything that they might need some support with, as we can talk it through as a team to work it out and come up with a plan, and then we head off and get started on our own to do lists.

I work closely with Emily, which will now be Doz, to manage the co-ordinating of the College courses. Between us, we manage about 90 courses, so keeping track of all that’s needed to get that course from an idea to a co-produced and co-facilitated session on offer and delivered at the College, can be fun and games, especially when you don’t have a great memory, but thankfully spreadsheets and to do lists are my best friends. As co-ordinators, we meet weekly to look at what’s happening with our courses, planning, new opportunities, service documents, staff changes etc.. and Lindsey joins us on a fortnightly basis, when we generally work through a big list of things to discuss. This works really well for keeping us connected and staying on top of all of the things we need to look at to keep the College ticking over.

My working week can also include meeting new tutors, potential partners or attending networking events to get to know other organisations and their teams, we are always on the lookout for new developments at the College, so introductory meetings are a great way of doing this and its really exciting when you meet with a new partner or tutor, who has a bit of an idea and by talking this through with them, we can turn that into a course at the College, that students can attend to support their health and wellbeing.

As a team we all take responsibility to reach out to new places to promote the College and strengthen the networks we already have in place to keep them up to date with the courses we have scheduled and any new developments. I try to dedicate some time to this project on a weekly basis, as the more people that know about us and can benefit from the College and the courses that we offer, the better it is.

Part of my co-ordinator role is to take a lead on the inductions, training opportunities, huddles and the general support of our wonderful team of about 25 volunteers and Friends of. Steph works closely with me to make sure all of the admin is covered and the whole team also get involved and support a number of the volunteers on their volunteering journey with us. We try to arrange a monthly huddle for the volunteers, which is a great opportunity for us all to have the time to get to know each other better, for the volunteers to connect and keep up to date and to have their say in what we have got going on and any new developments at the College. It’s also a good way for our volunteers to attend group training, peer support and share their volunteering knowledge with the other volunteers.

Every volunteer that joins the team has the same induction as any member of the team, so these can take about 3 hours to complete, but it does give us a good chance to get to know each other and I love finding out more about why people want to get involved in the College and what they would like to achieve whilst they are with us. Sometimes we can have a few volunteers ready for induction at the same time, so I will try and organise a group induction for this. This gives the volunteers a chance to meet other new volunteers, and it also saves me having to repeat myself with the mandatory induction paperwork that we work through. I will then meet with those volunteers separately on an individual basis to go through their individual placement plan, as this is individual and personal to them.

To make sure I can support myself, the team, students and volunteers the best way I can, I also like to keep some time aside to attend training. I really enjoy learning, especially learning from others with lived experience, so whether it’s attending a session on how to manage my workload better or learning more about a health condition or local community knowledge, I feel it’s time well spent. I really enjoy attending the sessions that we run at the College to not only learn more, but as an opportunity to meet some of our students and spend time learning with them. You can read all about the sessions I attended at WYAS on my other blog that I recently wrote.

So, as you can see, my diary varies from week to week, but I hope you have enjoyed reading this and finding out about what I do 😊