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Friday Jul 31, 2009

My time at TheSite

Jade has been our wonderful work experience intern for the past two weeks working on the editorial team. Here's all her gossip on what she's been up to:

Today is the last day of my two week placement as a student journalist on Thesite and I cannot believe how quickly the time has gone. It might be a cliché, and a terrible one at that, but time really does fly when you're having fun- I haven't even clock watched!

Unlike other placements where I've spent hours gazing at the computer screen with nothing to do, Thesite is busy, busy, busy and very hands on. I've had a number of responsibilities including press watch and the daily poll, covering topics from nudist beaches to fake tan to the law. I often found myself voting on my own polls (sad, I know).

I had a great day with Chris, the editorial assistant, filming for his video on how to make money. Although initially recruited as his extra I did get to try my hand at filming, thankfully I didn't drop the camera and it was great to see the final result-even if my nose did look HUGE in all the close up shots (thanks chris!)

I also had a go at writing a rant. Picking a subject was difficult, nothing really rattles my cage and I'm generally quite a happy person! I soon got into the swing of things moaning about my spongy housemates. It felt great getting it off my chest and onto paper, I just hope none of them read it or I'll be looking for a new house next year!

I've established a very close relationship with Muhammad, the systems administrator, over the fortnight I've managed to break, freeze and generally destroy most of the office computers. Me and technology have never been the best of friends and when I first used Polopoly (the websites management system)  it scared the life out of me.  I've just about got the hang of it and I think at last we are healing our differences but all the same I think Muhammad will be glad to see the back of me!

Sitting in on the editorial meeting was a great look at what goes on behind it all, I even brought some ideas to the table, you never know some of them might be up on website soon.

All in all it's been a fab two weeks here, not to mention an invaluable journalistic experience. Everyone has been so friendly, (despite my lack of making cups of tea) and has really helped me out. Hopefully I'll be back soon!

Posted by Chris Denholm ( 3:49 PM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[0]

Friday Jul 03, 2009

Filming in A&E

Back in January we launched a new part of TheSite.org, a dedicated section on self-harm. It was the culmination of a long partnership we have built with two other charities, 42^nd Street and DePaul UK. And although there was a significant amount of content on the site when we went live, we didn't want to stop there.

Working with an advisory group of young people, as well taking feedback from other young people and professionals, we looked at what else needed to be added to the section. One request that we got from several people was a video to explain what happens when you go into A&E as a result of self-harm.

There is lots of animosity from those who self-harm about the treatment that they receive in A&E; and it's something that many in the health service acknowledge. Complaints include being badly treated, being criticised for "wasting our time", not being given access to appropriate support and psychiatric services where desired, and in the case of repeat visitors to A&E no way of storing preferred treatment methods.

The National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) Guidelines on treatment of self-harm goes a long way to try and change that; but changing procedures is only half the battle, and there is still a lot of work to change attitudes of individual clinical staff. That every clinician I spoke to was forthcoming with admitting this problem is both an indication of how widespread the issue is but also a demonstration that many people want it to be different.

We already had an article on what happens in A&E (co-written by an A&E doctor who I knew from student radio days), but it's difficult to explain procedures and what the experience through words alone. A video was the obvious solution.

Filming in A&E is no mean feat. Yes, there are the fly-on-the-wall documentaries that usually following ambulance and air-ambulance teams and include an element of A&E in them; but they've gone through months of preparation and agreements at the highest level. And often the hospital will be financially rewarded for allowing cameras in. We didn't have the time, resource or financial clout of the broadcasters, and given the sensitivities about attitudes towards self-harm it was particularly tricky, but our proposition was that we wanted to provide information for people who needed it.

I started by trying the usual suspects; the big teaching hospitals that had well-versed media departments. I also tried hospitals that, via the internet, I'd discovered had allowed cameras into their wards before. I got several initial warm responses, but after press officers discussed it with clinicians the answer was always "no, sorry".  Admittedly, I had put the calls in over February and March when A&E departments are at their busiest; but for the right department we were prepared to wait. In my desperation I even tried the set of Casualty, but apparently it's used all year round so they don't allow any other filming to take place.

Starting to feel like we were getting nowhere, we got a tip-off from a senior manager at NHS Direct, who we'd been chatting to about our self-harm work. She had been to a conference where there had been a presentation on Bradford Primary Care Trust's work with young people who self-harm, and particularly around the regular sessions that they held with the local A&E.

A few emails and calls later, and we'd got a very promising opportunity. I went up to Bradford for a meeting with the matron and consultant of the department and was expecting to have to go through some quite detailed negotiation. Instead their opening question was pretty much "OK, so what do we need to do to make it happen?"

Bradford Royal Infirmary (BRI) has a particular place in my heart, literally. As a student of the university in the city, the BRI is the only A&E department I've ever been in as a patient (a result of my heart going the wrong side of 200 bpm). So it was a bit strange returning to see the place for the first time not from a trolley-eye view.

Last week my colleague Chris and I were back in the city to do the actual filming. We agreed to film over two mornings – partly because the morning is generally quieter and partly so that if we couldn't do something on the first day we had a second opportunity.

As it was, the two days worked out perfectly. Spending any amount of time in an A&E department you realise it's not the manic heart-stopping drama of TV programmes like Casualty and ER. BRI is one of the busiest A&E departments in the country, yet there is an air of calm about the place (admittedly, I'm not quite sure it's the same on a Saturday night). It was also fascinating to see tours of school children brought in to the department to get an understanding of the place – I never got an opportunity like that as a child and the first time I ever went to A&E was in the back of an ambulance.

We filmed interviews with key staff and sequences using young actors from a local drama group and from our partners 42^nd Street. They, in particular, were really impressed with the attitude and work being done by the A&E staff to support people who self-harm when they come into the department. As a result of regular meetings between the staff and a local self-harm project, they had agreed to rebuild the triage area to make it less open and have space where initial assessments could be undertaken in private. They had management plans in place so that people who regularly presented in A&E as a result of self-harm had agreed ways of being treated. And there was a lot of training around changing attitudes and understanding that self-harm is a coping strategy, not a cry for help. And that people who self-harm have just as much right to treatment as anyone else.

The video now needs to be edited together (in fact, it'll probably end up being two videos). My colleague Chris has this task, and hopefully it'll be live in the next few weeks.  This part of the self-harm project has come to a close and whilst we'll continue to maintain and add case studies to the section, it feels like a big chapter has been finished. We're really proud of what we've achieved.

It's a nice time to end my role as editorial manager; it was only covering maternity leave and I'm glad to report that Hannah is now back in charge. But I'll be sticking around at YouthNet, working on developing do-it.org.uk, which should be full of some exciting new challenges.

Olly

Posted by Olly ( 10:47 AM ) Link to this post  |  Comments[1]