Self-care and a focus on our wellbeing makes us better colleagues: week three for our research volunteer

My third week at Children in Scotland started off a little differently to the others. I was unwell and had to take the day off sick.

I have to admit I felt a little guilty and also frustrated as I wanted to be at work, however I understood that it was unfair on others in the office and also to myself to be at work.

I realised that if that had been my friends or family, I would have advised them to stay at home, so why should my advice to myself be different?

It’s worryingly obvious that we are all happy to advocate self-care to our peers but then feel ashamed at doing so ourselves, and this is an unhealthy habit.

So, my 'work' for the day included doing a face-mask, sleeping and watching Netflix because sometimes that’s what we need.

The next day I felt refreshed and ready to go.

It was the Changing our World (Children in Scotland’s advisory group) meeting day and I was eager to present my research findings to them.

There was such a great group of children and young people at the event, who were active in discussing their opinions whilst also acknowledging others' opinions. My presentation was a success and I really felt that the group was taking into account my findings, which is a prime example of successful peer to peer youth engagement. The day went amazingly well and I’m really looking forward to seeing the progress of the group!

The day after that was the last meeting of the Young Media Voices group, which was a privilege to attend. The day started off with a tutorial on how to make zines, which was delivered by Brian and Cara from the Edinburgh Zine Library.