A massive, long overdue hello?! Almost 2 months later..
What a hectic 7 weeks. With bank holidays, annual leave, rolling off projects, onboarding new projects, I’d just completely forgotten about weeknotes. But hello, welcome, I’m back (hopefully consistently again now too!)
Given it’s been 7 weeks, I have plenty to update you all on, not sure where to begin though…
Promotion and progression
Suppose this feels like a good and nice place to start! Last week I was promoted at work, from an Associate Service Designer, to a Practitioner Service Designer — which is super exciting. The past year at dxw has been amazing and I’ve learnt so much, from being pushed out of my comfort zone to learn about entirely new processes, to developing the skills I already had and ultimately growing in confidence in my own abilities. I feel really proud of myself, and I’m super excited by whats coming up next!
On a fairly related note too, I’ve also been signed off to move from a “trainee” Samaritan, to a “probationer”. Day to day not much changes, but because I’ve now completed 100 hours of volunteering shifts and well exceeded my minimum number of trainee solo shifts, I’ve been moved up to probationer level.
New projects
At the start of June I started on a new project; a really exciting piece of work with DfE! I missed the first 2 weeks as I was on annual leave, so the last week or so has been lots of frantic catching up on missed work and getting up to speed. But I think I’m almost there now. It’s a project we’re picking up in a beta like stage, so it’s been lots of catching up on what was done before we picked up the work, but also what progress our dxw team made in those two weeks (which was a lot!)
I’m really excited for this piece of work though, it is a really valuable project that will have huge transformation change within DfE and schools across the country. It’s complex. It’s going to be very tricky at times I think too. But in all the best kind of ways. My role on the project will involve navigating and making sense of some of these super complex and tricky crunch points, which is kind of daunting, but also a great opportunity to push myself and learn.
Annual leave
I took two weeks off at the start of June, and it was so needed and blooming great! Not only did I just value having some much needed time off, time to recoup and relax, I also spent 6 days of that leave at Download Festival. And my goodness, is it good to be back to normal life post covid, at festivals, camping in fields, surrounded by thousands of people with a shared love for music. Ah it was amazing. A really needed bit of fun! (and plenty of sun! Which is very out of character for Download, which is notoriously nicknames Drownload)
Trauma Informed Design
Last week I joined Rachael Dietkus’ Trauma Informed Design Essentials course. I’d seen Rachaels talk at the Doing Design festival earlier this year and was really inspired and motivated by her words and was very excited when she shared that she’d be hosting a course on Trauma Informed Design.
Much like her talk at Doing Design Festival, I left feeling really energised and inspired. But also left with even more tool for my tool kit on how to be informed about and response to trauma, why that’s so important, and other practical tips on navigating this space. I’ve also left the session with a whole bunch of books for the reading list!
Presenting to dxw about active listening
At the end of May I presented at our dxw All Staff, which is an opportunity for anyone at dxw so share some work, something they’re thinking about, or well, anything! May was Mental Health Awareness month, so I decided to adapt my Ladies That UX presentation and present it to work. I talked about the importance of active listening, and how it can support in workshops. Why knowledge about mental health and wellbeing is so important in supporting others around you, being empathetic and treating design projects with sensitivity. And also why being in tune with you own mental health is so important.
I’ve attached a copy of that presentation below, for anyone interested!
What I’m watching/reading — Midnight Library, audiobook. I recently got a membership for Audible and I’m really enjoying it! I’ve just finished Midnight Library, and wow, what a book!
What I’m looking forward to — In the next coming weeks I have a camping trip and our dxw summer party!
How I’m looking after myself — Time outdoors, officially gardening season!
I’m going to call it here for today — there is lots more I could talk about, but this feels long enough!
Have a great weekend all, and hopefully see you in two weeks!
