How my placement experience paved my career pathway // Jessica La

How my placement experience paved my career pathway

Jessica La

While I was studying my Master’s degree in health information management, I was very excited and thrilled by the diversity of potential career pathways. For me, this was a perfect university degree to broaden my horizons and discover my passion, based on my strengths and weaknesses. At the time, I was still unsure of what direction I wanted to head in (or even the different kinds of roles Health Information Managers [HIMs] could be in!). Luckily, in my final year, I had the pleasure of completing a full block placement (11 weeks) at Family Safety Victoria, with a highly experienced HIM who helped pave the way for my future career.

When I first read about this placement, I was very excited as I had recently discovered an interest for criminal justice and community services work. While working part time at an adult mental health service, dedicated to assisting those involved in the criminal justice system, I heard about Family Safety Victoria’s recent inauguration in response to the 2015 Royal Commission into Family Violence. I was interested in the findings and recommendations, and being selected to complete my placement at Family Safety Victoria felt like the perfect opportunity to understand these better. This placement was initially based within their information management space. I was provided with various opportunities, which allowed me to develop my skills within their systems, data management, governance and much more.

When I started my placement, I identified my main challenge to be the lack of confidence in both myself and the knowledge I had gained from the last year and a half of studying. I was unsure of how to apply my university experience to a real-life work setting. I made sure this was communicated to my supervisor, as I believe in transparency and ensuring they are aware of my personal concerns. This also provided an opportunity to work with my supervisor to identify strategies to overcome this challenge. I am very glad to say that I was able to overcome this challenge by the conclusion of my placement.

My main project was to reverse engineer the current data architecture of the organisation. This was a highly important task as Family Safety Victoria’s systems and processes were implemented prior to the identification of foundational data and information management requirements, such as a data dictionary, service models and process flow diagrams. Ultimately, this led to an organisation-wide misalignment of understanding the data’s purpose, how it flows throughout the organisation and who reports and requires such information.

It was my responsibility to commence the development of a Family Safety Victoria data dictionary, a common service model and assist in the evaluation of the organisation’s current information management maturity status. I also learnt about international and national standards for representing metadata that I did not know existed. I had previously heard of some of these terms during university classes but being able to do hands-on work really introduced new meanings and allowed me to understand the complications that can arise if good practice is not consistent, or non-existent, within an organisation.

This task was already quite complex, but I was faced with another challenge of working independently as my supervisor was unfortunately away from work for my last few weeks. This was difficult, but it was the most enjoyable and rewarding time of my placement. This was when I learnt about approaching the right people who were experts in their field and overcoming the barrier of being ‘just a student’ who is there for a

few weeks. This challenge taught me the importance of building rapport with others and how useful it can be to use other people’s knowledge to enrich your work. I also learnt that information management is a tricky space. However, good information management maturity does not just arise from one person, it requires the whole organisation to be on board and willing to learn and grow together.

At the end of my placement, news was released about a whole organisational restructure. This was an interesting learning experience as I was able to observe both the management strategies by senior leaders and the responses by staff. This gave me a new perspective on change management and allowed me to observe how to manage staff resistance to change. It also demonstrated how important it is, as a manager, to look after your staff and to ensure they do not feel alone in times of change. As a manager, you must be there to support your staff to keep them motivated, and encourage them to try their best every day.

My placement at Family Safety Victoria has made a huge impact on my life. I made many personal developments I do not think I could have achieved elsewhere. I learnt a lot in various aspects of working life; I have been shown how to build rapport with other staff and how to handle myself in an organisation which is ever-changing and constantly presenting new challenges. I was constantly surprised with the number of opportunities I had to put theory into practice. While the classroom learning environment was enjoyable, it does not compare to the learning experiences made when you are out there contributing to an organisation.

“While the classroom learning environment was enjoyable, it does not compare to the learning experiences made when you are out there contributing to an organisation. ”

Finally, this placement experience allowed me to discover my interest to work as a HIM in the community services sector and coordinate ways to respond to vulnerable Australians who are experiencing difficult circumstances. The skills and experience I gained from this placement have been so valuable; I have been able to transfer these skills to my newly appointed role as a Project Officer at Berry Street, an organisation dedicated to supporting children, women and their families within Victoria.

I am very thankful for this placement experience and look forward to seeing what the future holds for me as an upcoming HIM.

Jessica La MHIM Project Officer, Client Information Systems, Berry Street 1 Salisbury Street Richmond VIC 3121 Tel: +61 3 9429 9266 Email: jla@berrystreet.org.au