ChildLine intern blog

• 1 March 2012- Working at the ChildLine office

  Hi :)

  I'm here at the ChildLine office today; I come here every week on a Thursday afternoon. I think that recently more people are interested in the interns and this is great. I always have different things to do every week which I really enjoy; it's always good to mix things up! I do lots of different things including:

  - Rewording documents with more child-friendly language.
  - Making creative things like posters, leaflets or pictures.
  - Giving my opinions on people's work and ideas.
  - Research for new content.

  Anyway, I enjoy what I do - especially the creative tasks! The thing I really like is making things or adding colour and pictures. Anything you give me I will make it colourful! :) What I do every week doesn't feel like work to me because it is not about having a right or wrong answer; it is about what I think and being involved in something great.

  Interns are the best!
  

• 30th - 31st January 2012- NSPCC Leadership conference

  After two amazing days at the Leadership Conference, I didn’t think anything could come near to how inspired and encouraged I was feeling- but I was wrong!
  This morning I travelled to one of the NSPCC bases (eventually, after missing a train and getting lost in a taxi!).
  
  The building was incredible – really modern and brightly coloured. I was introduced to the Communications team and they explained to me their role in the NSPCC and what they do (media requests, press releases, interviews). I sat in on their team meeting, where I learned about the challenges they were facing, the events they had coming up and how much they all liked drinking tea. :D
  
  After lunch, I was given a tour of the Service centre downstairs and got to see the therapy rooms and had the amazing opportunity to speak to some of the practitioners. After this I spent about an hour writing an article for an eBulletin about the internship.
  The most exciting part was meeting two of the ChildLine online supervisors and seeing the room where the counsellors do the online 1-2-1 sessions and the emails.
  It was really great to see behind-the-scenes of ChildLine and the NSPCC, and to see how all the different departments interlink to provide the greatest possible outcome!
  
  Rosey

• January 2012 - What’s it like being an intern?

  So I’ve been an intern since October last year.

  That seems ages ago, although it feels like I’m still new to being an intern. October was like years 7-10 where you think: why do all these old people keep telling me to enjoy my school days? This school business seems like it’s never gonna end! Everything was really exciting and I was just beginning to meet all these people who actually worked behind the scenes for ChildLine. Since then it’s been like year 11 where you hardly have time to take anything in before GCSEs come around and school life is actually ending. What you see is that the life of anyone who works for the NSPCC is amazingly hectic! -in a good way :D

  So what’s it like being an intern? Well, right now I’m sat typing this in the actual building in my area where they take the calls and chats that come through to ChildLine. It’s a building which is a few stories high and there’s a great atmosphere – everyone’s super friendly and you feel so welcome! They really value your opinion too, and you never feel stupid saying what you think. :-)

  You also get to do very glamorous things being an intern :-). I think the biggest thing I’ve taken part in is going to the cyber conference in London. It was a massive conference in a really posh building with lots of important looking people in suits. It was a bit intimidating at first, but by the end of the two days in the youth forum we were spicing up the debate with some MPs about internet safety, and I think we almost stumped them a few times with some unexpected questions!

  Next month I’m going to a ChildLine ball at the Hilton. It’s one of those, ‘wow!’ buildings that are mega-tall and made of glass. I think I’m going to get to help set up the room for it, and then I’ll actually be going the next day. That’s another something the internship offers, you get to feel important for a night :-)

  Alice

• 25 November 2011 - ChildLine Conference

  On Tuesday I went down to Liverpool with another intern and a few members of the participation team. We stayed at a very lovely hotel and in the evening we had dinner there. After dinner all the delegates (180 of them!) were in the main hall and we did a quiz together… obviously our team won! We got a big box of chocolates! We then did some planning of what we were going to do the next day and which workshops we would be going to. Then we had the rest of the evening for having fun!

  In the morning we got up very early for breakfast and then wrote some notes of plans for later on. After that we got to meet Esther Rantzen! She was very friendly and talked to us about what we had been doing in the intern programme. She then made a speech in the main hall which was very interesting to listen to as she was the person who founded ChildLine.

  Next we went into the main hall and the participation team showed everyone what participation is all about! We played ‘family fortunes’ which was great. People had to guess which words young people had said about ChildLine and there were some quite funny answers including ‘wicked’ and ‘mint’. After the game, the other intern got up and talked about what she, I and the others have been doing as part of the intern programme. It was a really good speech and lots of people were very interested to hear about the involvement of young people.

  Finally there were lots of workshops to get involved in. We went to one called ‘Developing our online services’ which was really good. We had discussions about where the ChildLine website might be in three years and about developing a mobile friendly ChildLine. It was really interesting seeing everyone’s different ideas and when we put it all together we came up with some really great stuff!

  I think my favourite parts of the whole event were the workshops and also when we went into the main hall and showed everyone about the participation team. We had a lot of fun and got involved with a lot of different things as you can see!

  Jen

• 15 November 2011 - Journey of an intern

  My journey began when I sent off my application to become a ChildLine intern, this role appealed to me because of the excellent work ChildLine does and I was eager to be a part of such a wonderful cause, as well as the exciting opportunities the organisation have to offer.

  One of the most exciting activities I have been a part of so far was when I travelled down to London with other interns to meet JLS and be part of the 25th anniversary dinner. We were all so nervous about meeting such big stars as JLS but they were the friendliest bunch of people I have ever met, we spent about an hour with them talking about everything from where we were from to why ChildLine was their chosen charity.

  We spent the evening at the famous Berkeley hotel meeting and greeting guests to the anniversary dinner, it was amazing being able to meet so many important people and everyone was so welcoming. We also we lucky enough to be present throughout the dinner, which meant tasting gorgeous food, especially the desert, as well as being able to meet the founder of Childline Esther Rantzen!

  Sophie

• 9 November 2011 - London Cyber Conference

  Hello Everyone,

  My name is Ruth and I am one of the ChildLine Interns.

  The reason I first applied was because ChildLine means a lot to me and it does amazing work, saving children’s lives everyday and not only saving but also supporting children and young people through any problem they have. And to known that I could help influence ChildLine in any way is an amazing feeling.

  When I first applied for this internship I honestly did not think I would stand a chance against everyone as there was a lot of applicants but amazingly I did and normally I am one of those people that always says 'nothing ever happens to me’ as normally nothing did but this just goes to shows how amazing things can and really do happen to you if you really want them too.

  It has only been a few months since I have started but I have already done so much, Recently I attended a big conference bringing people and minsters from all over the world and my part was to talk and debate about the safety of children on the internet, protecting people from the dangers on the internet as well as cyber bullying, about how we can help and what we should we do to help protect children and young people. I learnt a lot during this conference but one thing that really stands out to me is that during this conference I managed to stand up in front of around 100+ people and give a speech about my views on Child Safety. To tell you the truth, I was very scared, I am not good at public speaking and even before I did the speech I was shaking, so nervous, but in the end I did it and I was, and still am, very proud of myself.

  I am looking forward to the next year of being an intern, I have already learnt so much about myself and every day I am gaining that little bit more confidence and slowly starting to truly believe in myself.