A bit about me

I am a student at the University of Bristol studying Politics and International Relations. I applied to do a summer work experience placement through Bristol Hub – a charity linked with the university focusing on networking and volunteering. I really wanted to do a placement at Self-Injury Support for a number of reasons. The work they do is amazing and incredibly valuable. I have my own experience of mental health struggles and I am really passionate about reducing the stigma around mental health issues – thus I felt a personal connection to Self-Injury Support. A key interested of mine is feminist discourse and exploring the gendered experiences that women face within society. The fact that Self-Injury Support looked at mental health issues from a gendered perspective really interested me.

Making the Library

I focused on the development of the SiS Library – a one-stop hub of reliable information from around the web. This was quite a big project and I was a little worried at first but as soon as I got into it, I was so glad I started and found it all so interesting. I had to read through a lot of information sheets, articles, booklets, leaflets on a wide range of different topic areas and I learnt so much about so many things. I had to email a lot of people and organisations to get permission to use their resources in our library – a bit of a daunting task for me but one which I soon became comfortable with. Compiling everything on the website was definitely the trickiest bit – I kept making a lot of mistakes and had to look at the Help section a lot! However, with a bit help from my manager Naomi, I managed to crack it and got the library up and running.

The end product

The day we launched it was really exciting. It was really great to see the end product and that the work I had been doing has led to a really incredible resource being created. I am really proud of the SiS Library – I sent round the link to all my family because I was so excited! I really believe that the Library is an amazing resource and hope that it will be valuable for many people. I really hope people feel like they can get involved and recommend resources and I am really excited to see it grow. I feel really happy that I have helped contribute to it - it is really rewarding. 

Working at Self-Injury Support

I have really enjoyed working at Self-Injury Support for the last 7 weeks. Everyone here is really lovely, friendly and I felt really welcomed straightaway and feel like I am a part of the team now! While doing my placement, personal issues have meant that I have been finding things quite difficult but coming to work here every week always made me feel so much better so I am really grateful to everyone here. I would love to do more work with them in the future - if they will have me!

Thank you to Self-Injury Support and I hope you find the SiS Library valuable – it has been so fun to create!