An insight into the Social Action for Health youth work experience placement

We asked some of the young people on our work experience placement to reflect on their time with us. Here, Lilly Connolly takes us through each week of the placement and how she found the experience.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and a challenging environment for the health and wellbeing of the community in Tower Hamlets, Social Action for Health embarked on two projects with a group of young people (including myself) as part of a work experience placement: the first, an exploration of the nature of trust, and how this shaped COVID-19 health outcomes, including vaccination uptake and hesitancy, and the second, an investigation of the health priorities of young people connected to the borough.

Week 1

I was delighted to meet such a diverse team of talented people – artists and designers, academics, experienced professionals, and other knowledgeable and enthusiastic young people. We got to know each other with a discussion about the multiple definitions and values associated with ‘trust’. Later in the week, we tested out three creative ideas for exploring trust’ with community groups.

Week 2

Following an informative presentation on Social Action for Health’s research on COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and trust, we thought about how we could build on the recommendations to go back to the community and develop solutions, considering how to adapt our creative work toward participatory forms of engagement with people in Tower Hamlets. This involved detailed decision-making and preparation ahead of meeting the community groups to find out from them what attributes made certain sources of information and advice more or less trustworthy.

Week 3

We split into smaller teams, meeting with different community groups over three days. I worked with five team members, including help from a Bengali interpreter, to do a workshop with a group of Bangladeshi women, while my other teammates met with a Bangladeshi men’s group and a group of Somali women.

After introductions, the group brainstormed characteristics associated with trust and who we each thought of as the most trustworthy person in our lives. We asked the women to share their stories and experiences and think of characters that were trustworthy (whether fictional or real) and their responses were used to construct role-models with images and the stories behind them. Maternal figures and female role-models were mentioned the most.

When it came to public figures with trustworthy attributes, one that really stood out to me was a lady’s unusual choice of the notoriously rough-spoken chef Gordon Ramsay! But the lady who mentioned him explained that she valued his cultural sensitivity – the respect and willingness to learn from others that he demonstrated when exploring the recipes and cuisine of other cultures - and his professionality – firm, but only because he expected everyone to hold themselves to the highest standards. What a perceptive comment on essential ingredients for trustworthiness!

It was wonderful to see that several ladies from the local community had turned up. The ladies who participated told us they had wished more opportunities like this had been available for them to communicate their concerns and thoughts about building trust in the community and benefit from hearing them addressed by specialists. We were left feeling their sense of relief that they had been listened to and taken seriously and found the workshop to have been an invaluable experience.

After convening to reflect on the community groups’ comments, we grouped them together into ways of representing trust. A tree was chosen to signify how trust can grow, and the concept of deeper and higher levels of trust; a dinner plate, to convey the idea of different types of trust existing; and a genie’s lamp, to represent trust in knowledgeable figures and honest authorities.

Weeks 4 and 5

We were introduced to Photovoice methodology for use in our youth health priorities project – using pictures snapped around us to express our perspectives on health and social concerns.

Discussing together, we drew trees to think of the causes of health issues; the problems, and the consequences and how they were interlinked. We concluded that many of these issues could be categorised in more than one of these groups and were often self-reinforcing.

It was then up to each of us to identify subjects for photographing that conveyed health issues important to young people. Inspiration was found both within our homes and local areas, and in surprising places – on shelves and desks, in parks, fast-food establishments, and on daily journeys.

Upon returning to the group, time was spent sharing our photos together, asking questions about what they represented in terms of health, and what we could do about our observations. Topics highlighted ranged from personal mental health strategies, to the benefits of eating together, to the need for greater attention to the details in women’s healthcare, and how these were interrelated along with broader issues such as waste management and access to green spaces – an eye-opening discussion.

We then selected key themes, images, and thought-provoking commentary, organising these into areas for a presentation.

Week 6

Ahead of our final presentation to stakeholders, we worked as a team to a tight deadline and discussed the format.

On the hottest day ever recorded in the UK, there was always the potential for descent into pandemonium, but every one of us in the team had a good attitude, and, putting our minds together, we managed to overcome difficulties we encountered along the way.

Dan revealed the impressive work that he (along with other artists and designers) had done to bring the characters and conceptions of trust to life.

Final presentation

We introduced both projects with a slideshow, poster exhibition and an open room Q&A for the youth health priorities project. Our representations of trust were set out in the form of a ‘meal of trust’ with the courses and plates showcasing its many facets, while the characters were animated into walking figures that could be projected around the table.

It was exciting to witness the result of our hard work and distillation of the community’s thoughts in such a creative way. Overall, I hope our work helped to make a more tangible connection to the voices of local people and what they see as important. Social Action for Health provided an inclusive environment throughout the placement and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting people from such different walks of life. Thank-you to everyone at Social Action for Health!

By Lilly Connolly