7 minute read
Connection Support
deciding what to write about for my upcoming dissertation and has provided me with plenty of
inspiration that I could potentially include.
Lasting Impressions
Overall, this internship has truly been
indispensable, and has really opened my eyes to
plenty of other career opportunities that I didn't
even realise existed. Previous to the internship I
had only considered doing a Master's in Art
History, but now I am contemplating doing other
various Masters in Curation or Museum management. The experience was thoroughly
enjoyable as everyone was incredibly kind and welcoming, and the tasks I was set with
completing were interesting and thought-provoking.
Daniel Russel, Harris Manchester College, BA Philosophy, Politics and Economics,
Work Projects
Connection Support is a regional charity based in Oxford dealing with many different aspects of
homelessness. My primary task has been to conduct a review of how client feedback is
currently collected, processed and used across the 40 projects run by the organisation. I
conducted focus groups and meetings with over 30 employees ranging from senior
management through to team managers and frontline workers.
I came to understand the priorities and challenges of the various projects when it comes to
collecting feedback, and initiated and cultivated discussion within project teams about how
feedback could be collected and used in future. There has been no uniform method or
guidelines for collecting or using feedback within the organisation, while its activities of have
ballooned, in just a few years, from roughly 7 to 40 projects.
The internship will conclude with a report and presentation to senior management where I will
set out my findings and recommendations on how feedback can be gathered across the
organisation in future. My work feeds into the development of a Client Involvement and
Volunteering Strategy which is currently under development and will inform the future
direction of client involvement within the organisation, as part of their strategic business plan.
Daily Life
I have worked a mixture of remote and in-person days
during the internship. The in-person time has been
particularly useful for the opportunity to take advantage of
ad hoc meetings with staff to get a sense for the
organisation, how it works and how it is structured. This is,
after all, a significant part of my remit. The downside of in-
person working has been that there was no private space in
which to conduct the many online focus groups and
meetings that I needed to collect systematic data. Remote
working allowed me to conduct these meetings from a more
suitable venue but was also less stimulating. My supervisor ensured we had regular meetings to
keep each other in the loop, which helped with the feeling of remoteness. People were friendly,
helpful and welcoming, but there is only so much you can do when many of the full-time staff
don’t know each other due to years of remote working, with consequent impacts on work environment.
Lasting Impressions
I pursued this internship largely because it built and expanded on previous work, I have done in
a way that might allow me to leverage these experiences in other sectors. I think I
learned/developed quite a bit during the internship: I got measurably better at managing focus
groups in a way that both extracted useful systematic information and also started creative
conversations among participants, hopefully to their own benefit. I have had to design and
execute my own program of work in order to achieve goals set by the employer. I will see in my
final week what I have learned in terms of presentation and report writing skills.
Practical Advice
Be aware that managers may have drafted the job spec in part as a list of aspirations or taken
elements of it from internal strategy documents that may or may not reflect their personal
priorities. Ask questions of and listen to your interviewer about what the real priorities of the
internship will be this can be especially useful if you are being interviewed by the person who
would be your line manager. Once on the job, check in regularly with your manager to make
sure what you are doing aligns with their goals; be prepared to be flexible.
Cara Addleman, Wadham College, BA Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Second
Work Projects
My internship was with Oxford-based charity
Connection Support, researching best practice
for nurturing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) among their volunteers. My main task was
to produce a written report, and give an accompanying presentation, with recommendations
on how Connection could improve EDI among volunteers through recruitment and retention.
My research for this report took place through conversations with a wide range of employees at
Connection Support, as well as with volunteers, employees of different charities, diversity
consultants, and HR professionals, to seek their advice on recruiting and supporting a diverse
workforce. I also attended some events, such as Volunteer Meet-Ups and LEAF (Lived
Experience Advisory Forum) coffee mornings.
I was supervised and directed in my work by the Client Involvement and Volunteering Manager;
since she used to work for the Uni of Oxford’s Careers Service, in her words, ‘I should be able to run a good internship!’ (she could). I found both my supervisor, and everyone else – primarily
the volunteering team – who I worked alongside at Connection Support to be friendly,
supportive and keen to help, so whilst a lot of my work was self-directed and independent, I felt
I could ask questions whenever I needed to. After completing my internship, I was offered a
part-time position as Volunteer Coordinator for the rest of the Summer; I have also been asked
to participate in an organisation-wide presentation about EDI work taking place at Connection
Support later this month. Connection has been really flexible in allowing me to perform this
role remotely, since I no longer had accommodation in Oxford, and has continued to be a
supportive and friendly workplace.
Daily Life
My internship was based in Cowley, Oxford, so I
lived in Oxford for a month from July to August.
I lived for two weeks at a friend’s house, and then for two weeks in college accommodation,
and cycled to and from work. On a couple of
occasions where I had to travel for work to
Volunteer Meet Ups, I took public transport and Connection Support reimbursed this cost. My
working day would generally consist of some meetings, many of which were organised for me
to ask questions relating to my research project, independent research, and occasional travel to
in-person events.
Everyone was very friendly at Connection Support, and so I came to know a circle of other
employees who were regularly working from the office, who I would chat to whilst at work. However, because much of Connection’s work (e.g. meetings) is still taking place virtually, and the volunteer team is spread across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, and Milton Keynes, those I
worked alongside mostly did not align with those I got to know in-person from being in the
office together. Therefore, most of the socialising I did outside of work hours was with friends
who came to visit me, rather than colleagues; most weekends I spent with people coming to
visit.
Lasting Impressions
My lasting impressions from my internship with Connection
Support are really positive. I enjoyed the project I worked on,
and feel I learned a huge amount about the charity sector, EDI, and HR/ recruitment more generally. For example, I knew very
little about charities that are funded by local authority tenders
(I was more familiar with big-name charities that are primarily
funded by donations), and so it was really interesting working
with such a charity and learning about how being funded in
this way shapes their work. Connection Support is also a really
interesting organisation to work for because its services span
such a large breadth of support, including housing and
homelessness, mental health, ex-offenders, and refugee services. Working for four weeks on a
research project was also a really valuable experience, since my degree is structured such that I
write two essays a week, so have never spent more than 3-4 days on a piece of work; it was
rewarding to be able to produce something longer that was the culmination of a greater
amount of time and thought.
Additionally, the internship gave me opportunity to develop my presentation skills, which is
also something I don’t do in my degree. I think my time at Connection Support did confirm that I would be interested in working in the charity sector, although I remain unsure about what
more specific work I would like to seek; since my internship centred on a specific project, it
couldn’t really be extrapolated into a full-time job, and is very different from the work I am
doing now as a Volunteer Coordinator, for example. Overall, I definitely feel I gained from this
experience, and would highly recommend the internship programme.
