typical day in the life of our Police Liaison and Project Worker, Jess, who works on safeguarding as well as engagement with the LGBTQ+ community.
Another morning in this surreal time. I switch on my laptop and work phone and get some breakfast whilst they load up. I have a desk now, so no more working from my dining room table. Yay!
Today is a busy day; I’ve got the monthly PSN, then contactless outreach drop-offs in the afternoon. The PSN is a multi-agency meeting to ensure street-working clients are being safeguarded and have access to support.
I get together all the last minute notes sent through in preparation for the meeting and make a cup of tea – Yorkshire biscuit brew, if you haven’t tried it, you need to.
It’s 10 o’clock, time for the meeting. I dial through to the phone line, I’m not sure I’ll ever adjust to having meetings via telephone conference, I miss faces. The meeting is productive and runs slightly over schedule.
12:30, and there’s just enough time to grab some lunch and get out of my dressing gown before being picked up at 1:00. I smother myself in SPF 50, it’s a hot day today, not a cloud in sight and 23 degrees. My personal phone rings, it’s my dad, he is notorious for bad timing and seems to only call during working hours since lockdown. (I’ll call him back later)
We have a busy day of drops today; food parcels to be delivered along with condoms and a needle exchange service. We have a couple of people to do self-taken STI kits today which is amazing – as much as I hate lockdown, it has revolusionised the way we work. New drops pop up when we’re out and about, clients are signposted from our colleagues working from home and welfare checks are added to the list.
The STI kits are returned to The Health Shop at the end of the day to be sent off. I’m dropped back home for about 4:30. Just enough time to complete the monitoring from the day.
I receive a last minute email from the police about a client who needs support – this will be picked up first things tomorrow.
I send my check-out email to management and sign off for the day. Until tomorrow…
