Posted by NikkiT2 on September 29, 2005, at 14:17:10
Hello!!
OK, probably going to be quite rambly, but brain is tired!!
Been at the new job 2 weeks now.. I am enjoying it thoroughly, but just got over the honeymoon period, and feeling a bit lost and very unsure of myself right now.. I'm used to simply having work thrown at me, being checked regularly, and its actually really difficult not having this at the moment. All the jobs I have are huge great things, so its hard to know really where to start. So lost is the word I think..
The commute is also quite tough going.. 90 minutes of public transport every morning and every evening.. lots of reading time.. but I am NOT enjoying it what iota.
BUT.. more about the job.. In the UK, in the NHS, we have Mental Health Trusts.. This is normally one major hospital, plus then community clinics (CMHT's.. community mental health team). London has 11 seperate MH trusts (over view can be found here.. http://www.londondevelopmentcentre.org.uk/index.php?topic=53) and I work for one of those trusts. I work for their Personality Disorder Service, which has 3 seperate services (well, 2 but new one opens next month) - one for people with a PD (but not anti social PD) with substance abuse problems, one for anyone with a PD diagnoses and one that is based around the "mellow parenting" model, for teaching parenting skills for people with a PD who's children are at risk of being taken into care.. The first two use DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) as their main treatment method.
I'm partly PA to the head of service (A consultant clinical psychologist) and the team leader (a occupational therapist who is a fully trained therapist), and the rest project manager for the projects.. My main tasks at the moment are fixing our patient records database (which is also used for research statistics) and building a website for all 3 services.. You'll all get to see the website of course *grins* I will also line manage the admin team (currently 3 people), but I have asked if this could wait for a while.Its so fascinating learning about it all.. HUGE learning curve *lol* I'm really looking forward to learning more about the mellow parenting (which we still don't have a name for... I must ponder harder!) especially.
Oh, and one of the best bits? Next week one of my colleagues will be bringing her two dogs in every friday.. they're both qualified PAT dogs (http://www.petsastherapy.org/) and even have their own staff pass cards!! It will be so lovely to have dogs with us, and I am terribly excited!!
Its a really forward thinking place to work.. I am being told I *have* to go to the yoga group (connected to DBT mindfullness skills) when it starts as an example..
I know I will settle into it all in time.. but its just taking me a little while to get there. I need to really get my teeth into the website I think.. I know I will really enjoy that, but Im waiting for the software. the database won't be so much fun, but at the moment its just working out how it works, and commenting out some pointless security stuff that is causing problems.
Right.. I'm going to go get in the bath and relax!! This commuting malarky is also filthy!!
Promise to make an effort to post more and reply to emails on time etc ec etc!!
Nikki xxx
poster:NikkiT2
thread:561007
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/2000/20050828/msgs/561007.html