I’d never had contact with Hull and East Yorkshire Mind in my life until early 2023, when I was referred to counselling through CAMHS. My counsellor Beatrix was brilliant and helped me get past and recover from my mental health difficulties, and in June of 2023, asked me if I wanted to join a course for young people that Hull and East Yorkshire Mind had called ‘Level Up’ – a programme offering a 12-week work placement to help me get ready for the world of work.
Joining the course is easily one of the best decisions I have made in my life, working at Hull and East Yorkshire Mind and the opportunities I’ve been given have been fantastic and I am very grateful to Hull and East Yorkshire Mind for this.
I had my first interview in mid-July. The person conducting the interview, Kayley, was incredibly kind and welcoming which allowed me to easily settle into this new environment relatively quickly and helped calmed my nerves, which were very beneficial for me when starting out.
I’d been asked questions about what areas I wished to work in at Hull and East Yorkshire Mind and what interests I had, to see if there were any groups or departments that would reflect this interest. This was somewhat of a challenge as my interests are in politics which is often difficult to find areas that are related to it in most organisations, but I was recommended to work with the training team.
My second interview went through some of my personal life and any issues I had, which might sound quite daunting but personally I saw it as quite a good way to allow Hull and East Yorkshire Mind to help accommodate me and it made things overall more comfortable as it assured me, I had someone to talk to about any issues I had. It was also during this second interview that I met Yvonne and Lisa, Hull and East Yorkshire Mind’s mental health trainers.
In the 12 weeks I’ve worked at Hull and East Yorkshire Mind, every one of them were brilliant. Every day, I look forward to coming in to work and there’s always been something interesting for me to be a part of. Training sessions were always interesting to attend as it gave me an insight into the inner workings of the organisation as well as other businesses, such as the IT communications sessions or safeguarding sessions. Training sessions became particularly interesting towards the end of my time here as I was given the opportunity to help present some of them, and the experience gained from that was brilliant.
I also had the opportunity to attend external training sessions one being at KCOM, where I got to see how Hull and East Yorkshire Mind works with other organisations and businesses to help with mental health support and awareness amongst workers. I think the most interesting session I attended was an external session for the ARC trauma project, where I got to meet many new people who worked in mental health support and listen to their experiences.
Working in the office was also brilliant, there were all sorts of tasks I had the opportunity to do such as helping to update presentations or researching statistics for the training team to use, and whilst these may not sound particularly interesting to some people the idea that I personally had created things or provided data that will be used by the training team and Hull and East Yorkshire Mind as whole for quite possibly a long time after I’ve left is very satisfying in its own way.
All the members of staff I’ve worked with were amazing, Yvonne, Lisa and Helen in the training team have been great people to work with, all of them were kind and helpful, making the experience in the training team as a whole brilliant. But it wasn’t just the training team I’ve worked with or met, there have been a multitude of staff members in different departments who have all been great, and the overall workplace culture and environment at Hull and East Yorkshire Mind is brilliant, they’re honestly one of the best group of people I’ve ever met.
Having meetings with Michelle and Kayley were also very useful as having extra support throughout the course has made it a lot easier and a lot more comfortable to settle into. Whilst there was a lot of spontaneity within the course, with things sometimes not occurring as scheduled, I never saw that as an issue and it was quite useful in itself as it meant I was able to adapt to different kinds of work easily as well as not allowing the work to become a boring routine as sometimes the changes would be unexpected, but welcome nonetheless.
Overall, working at Hull and East Yorkshire Mind has been fantastic, absolutely fantastic. It has given me very beneficial experience, great opportunities, I’ve met amazing people and I am so glad I went on this course and very grateful to Hull and East Yorkshire Mind for giving me this opportunity.
