MSc. Clinical Psychology Student
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I am a BSc.
Psychology graduate looking to pursue a career in psychology. I am currently attending Swansea University for a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology and Mental Health. The area is highly interesting as it combines information on medicine and theory, alongside having a high care of the individuals.
I volunteer at Samaritans, work as a Healthcare worker in a Low-secure Mental Health Unit, and have a role as an Honorary Assistant Psychology at the Morriston Hospital’s Burns Unit during my Master’s degree.
I am volunteering at the Morriston Hospital on the Burns unit as an honorary assistant psychologist on placement with Swansea University. My role consists of creating awareness leaflets and posters surrounding trauma for healthcare workers and patients who experience burn injuries; while also conducting research alongside the Psychology team. Currently, we are exploring the effects of Trauma Risk Management (TRiM) for trained healthcare professionals.
My role is to interview participants, transcribe the data, and use thematic analysis to produce a qualitative piece of research.
Volunteering at Samaritans has allowed development of quick-thinking skills. During the phone calls, it is important to continuously look for any signs of distress or harmful behaviour. This has allowed me to develop skills of recognising when an individual may be declining in mood which can result to serious action being taken.
Furthermore, I have managed phone calls where callers are misusing the service, including but not limited to, abusive calls and chatty calls. Managing an abusive call has helped develop skills including defusion, redirection, and appropriately terminating a line of conversation.
Support Worker Roles - Assisted Living & Low-Secure Facility:
Working at an assisted living facility consisted of helping residents with variating mental health conditions ranging from psychotic episodes, anxiety, and depressive symptoms to name a few. Additionally, many individuals at the residence had learning disabilities such as ASD and emotional regulation impairments which caused aggressive behaviours. Specifically, the job role consisted of assisting in personal care, medication administration, engaging in outdoor activities, and cooking/cleaning roles.
A great importance of my role was to encourage independence for our clients to develop skills the client could use once the client is discharged from our care. Within this job, I was a key worker for one of our service users which included having discussions with the managers about further care for the client; and what improvements on quality of life, independence, and autonomy the individual should have access to. This was very useful from a therapeutic standpoint as I would be able to work alongside the client to first-hand recognise what changes were necessary to improve their quality of life, whereas the managers did not work as closely to the clients as healthcare workers.
I have worked as a healthcare worker within an inpatient mental health hospital containing several different wards. I have worked with different individuals ranging from a forensic setting to personality-related mental health conditions and elements of learning difficulties. My role surrounds assisting and encouraging our clients to become independent in daily living tasks.
This can consist of, but is not limited to, personal care, time management, health-related concerns, and daily routines. Within this role, I carry out between one-to-one to three-to-one observations while completing legal documents in relation to the client. During the shifts, staff emotionally support clients which can include one-to-one conversations, sitting with the client to provide a sense of security from any self-injurious urges, and one-to-one sessions with the Psychology team.
Teaching Assistant in Special Need Schools:
Working as a teaching assistant in various primary schools that was specific for students on the autism spectrum disorder. The work consisted of helping children from years one to sixth form engage in lesson activities and encouraging time for visual and touch sensory specific for individuals with autism. This consisted of light sensory rooms and building blocks to allow the student to engage in team building.
During my duration as a teaching assistant at the special schools, I was instructed to engage in Operant Conditioning derived from Applied Behavioural Analysis with a child where the child would have cards of certain foods placed in front of her and I would be holding a packet of cookies from her lunchbox. The child was instructed to ask for a cookie through selecting the card and I would then reward the child through providing a cookie. This was to practise asking for certain necessities through communication skills rather than aggressive or aversive means, such as kicking or biting.
Bachelor of Science degree in Clinical Psychology with an Upper-Second Class Honours. 2017 – 2021.
Short Information of Undergraduate Degree:
I completed a 10,000-word dissertation on psychological appraisals in relation to fear appeals in academia derived from previous work of David Putwain and Wendy Symes. During this project, I recruited participants via online questionnaires and used PROCESS and SPSS to analyse my data. I researched the statistical methodologies by purchasing statistical books and using journal articles to ensure that my chosen analysis would provide the most accurate outcome.
I explored the different possibilities for the outcome of the results within the discussion. This ranged from methodological implications and statistical limitations to extraneous variables of literature and potential influence of the prevalent COVID-19 pandemic. From conducting my own research for my dissertation, I believe I have developed many desirable skills in statistics and literature searching for relevant and accurate information.
Ongoing Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and Mental Health. 2021 – 2023. Currently, as of finalising my first year, I am averaging a distinction.
