Nicole, AKA, the 'bunk bed queen'!
I’m halfway into my placement year at Operation Orphan and one of the highlights of my experience is being able to join the Forget-Me-Notts team on referrals.
Hi everyone! I’m Nicole and I’m a university student at Nottingham Trent University studying Psychology on a Mental Health pathway. I am working at Operation Orphan as an intern for my placement year and have been working with the team for half a year now. As I am slowly nearing the end of my placement (sad face), I thought it would be a nice idea to give you all a small update on my experience whilst being out on referrals.
For those of you who do not know much about Forget-Me-Notts, FMN is Operation Orphan’s UK project designed to meet the specific needs of vulnerable children across the East Midlands. FMN can be explained through 2 core elements: 1 of them being the Easter and Christmas appeals (which every intern project co-ordinates during their placement). The 2nd element consists of social workers getting in touch to request for certain household essentials for vulnerable families. Our team installs these items into family homes. In other words, FMN also operates through a referral process delivering practical help to ‘at risk’ children; in many cases, we help to prevent children from being taken into care.
If you would like to read more about Forget-Me-Notts, please click onto the following link:
During my placement, I have been given the opportunity to join the team on referrals. My experience has given me insight to how damaging family turmoil and bed poverty can be to children’s mental health - despite learning similar subjects in lectures, it is a completely different experience witnessing it first-hand. I never fully grasped how significant bed poverty is in the UK, and how damaging it can be on a person’s mental health, until witnessing some of the family situations I encountered during referrals.
One of the referrals I supported requested for 2 bunk beds for a family of 7 - a mother and her 6 children. Her 2 older children had their own bedroom, however, the younger 4 shared a room together. Unfortunately, their old beds were infested with bed bugs and the family did not have enough money to buy new beds, thus the children had been sleeping on the floor since last summer. My first ever referral was a bunk bed - ever since then, I’ve been dubbed as the ‘bunk bed queen’ as a lot of the referrals I’ve supported have included the request of a bunk bed.
Here’s some photos of Matt and Aaron, our Installation and Logistics Team, installing the bunk beds with ease. I’ve always enjoyed helping them with their referrals - they’re always so supportive and helpful!
Here’s some photos of me helping the team by drilling a few screws, gathering all of the rubbish from the flat packs, and taking lots of photos!
Finally, here’s some photos of the finished product! I personally enjoy sorting out the bedding most, especially when you get to ask the children which bedding they’d like on their beds, letting them choose their cuddly toys, and of course, gifting them some of our infamous knitted/crocheted blankets.
Once we showed the beds to the mum, she was extremely thankful and thrilled to know that her children had a bed to sleep on. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to see the children’s reactions as they were at school, however, we did receive a thank you from the social worker the following day who showed lots of gratitude and expressed how much the children loved their beds.
I really do value the experiences I’ve been exposed to during my time at Operation Orphan and although I am slowly nearing the end of my placement, I am thankful for everything I have learnt so far and excited to see what’s next. My experience has been a great influence and encouragement towards my future career plans of pursuing clinical psychology - I feel a deeper motivation to help others and I’m glad I got to share my passion to help others with the Operation Orphan team.