06 7 / 2012
July 4th, 2012: Project Management
By accident I slept in this morning until 9:20 right through my alarm. If you can believe it, I have actually never done this before. Luckily my supervisor is a saint and completely understands. She called me at 9:30 worried about me and assured me it was okay and to take my time getting there.
To start off I should note that my supervisor and I have a unique relationship that most interns do not get with their supervisor. As a social work student I have the room and opportunity to reflect on my practice and skills, and share that with my supervisor to receive her feedback. Not to mention, she goes above and beyond her role as a supervisor. When I was leaving work, she said to me “Maybe sleeping in was a good thing for you, maybe it is a sign of losing control”.
So not only can she be extremely understanding in my mistake but also very wise in her advice. We both know, that I like to have control.. I am very organized with my schedule, even what I wear and what I eat, sometimes even having control over my thoughts or emotions. So maybe losing control is a good thing for me. There is peace is submission. It is interesting for me to see where this is coming from because I always knew that maybe I was hanging onto taking control too much, and even trying to control my effort to lose control through activites such as yoga and other meditative practice, which makes me sound a little crazy. But now I have come to a situation that I absolutely cannot control. I keep trying to understand or analyze it. I keep trying to take action. It is painful. It is fearful. The ending is unknown. But at the same time it is exciting. It brings me joy. It brings me hope. It brings me love and it brings me confirmation. And maybe that is what I needed above all…
Integration
“No matter how good the research process, it counts for nothing unless your results are communicated to others” - Stephen Morse
With 5 days left and in the midst of applying for jobs, I am almost shocked at how much I have accomplished here at International Social Services General Secretariat.
· Assisted in the development of a project proposal and executed leadership skills to enhance the proposal with an addition of a logic model and performance measurement framework.
· Developed the projects communications, built effective working relationships, networks and partnerships, to promote the development of the project.
· Researched and gained knowledge around current literature on international family mediation (IFM) practices and limitations in order to provide relevant information to the project.
· Created of an evaluation summary, analyzed trends, interpreted statistics and developed findings and recommendations on an IFM questionnaire survey, to advance ISS-RC knowledge on countries use of IFM and adapt these countries feedback and needs into the project.
· Produced these documents effectively which resulted in presenting a workshop on how to write a research report on an evaluation survey to other interns on request of my supervisor.
For the past few weeks we have been wrapping up our project on International Family Mediation. And attempting to tie a nice little bow around it. Next week I will try to pass down my knowledge learnt from my MSW courses to the other interns on how to write a research report from the request of my supervisor. So far I have complied an outline on my advice of how to write a research report, as well as some literature for example, by Stephen Morse.
With my placement clearly being focused in everything to do with project management, as well as research skills, many class discussions have returned to my thoughts around projects.
For instance, the process of putting a project on hold because of lack of funding. We have received a few offers for some of the activities in the IFM project but each with benefits and limitations. It is interesting to see firsthand the financial investment, time, effort, and collaboration that goes into these the planning, and implementing stages of projects.
Not to mention the benefits of starting a project proposal after viewing the funding criteria from an organization. When I was in class, I was sceptical of the process of funding before planning the project. I always thought that in this process, it would take away from the participatory action and maybe impose a project on a community that is not needed. However, I can now see when creating a project after receiving funds or realizing funds are available and may actually benefit the community.
