Home » Blog » A Day In The Life Of Imaras Director 2

A Day in the Life of IMARA's Director #2

Another busy and full day, with lots of interest and variety, which is one of the reasons working for a small charity is so fun and so challenging.

I arrived into work a bit early as one of our new Trauma Therapists, Rachael, was arriving for her first day with us. Rachael is a dance and movement therapist and has already had a chance to meet the team as she joined us for two days training with NSPCC, to get the team ready to deliver Letting the Future In. This is an evidence-based model for working with children who have experienced child sexual abuse. Rachael is obviously happy to be flexible, as she was asked at interview if she might be able to attend some training the following week and said yes!

As I had arranged to meet with Dr Maria De Avillez Lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Nottingham Business School at 9.00, Rachael joined me for an insight into how Imara developed and grew over the past 8-9 years. It has been a productive partnership with Nottingham Business School. I have been able to speak with students about becoming a social enterprise and they have challenged us to think about our model of delivery with some searching questions. We hope to benefit from student consultancy in the near future too. We had an interesting conversation and could have gone on for longer.

I handed Rachael over to April, our finance manager, for the start of her induction into the mysteries of CharityLog, and BreatheHR etc.

I then went to meet a young person, who has recently been referred to the new CHISVA service that Imara is delivering, and who wanted to find out a bit more about therapy before deciding that she would like to work with an Art Therapist. We are fortunate to have a variety of creative arts therapies on hand at Imara.

I had a planned call with Helen Benson at NottsSVSS, one of our partner organisations, to help us make sure that the pathway runs smoothly for young people from Nottingham City who attend the East Midlands Children and Young People’s Sexual Assault Service, with referrals being made in an efficient and joined-up way to make the experience as easy and stress free for the young people as possible. It has been great to get to know staff from all over the County as we mobilise the CHISVA service, including those at EMCYPSAS and NottsSVSS.

Then a quick turn-around to get ready for a second interview with one of the applicants for the third CHISVA role at IMARA! Our specialist volunteer, Hope Coates joined us on the interview panel and we ran some creative exercises and a case study exercise. We are delighted to say that the interviewee, Kyle Colton, will be joining the team. This will be a significant step towards increasing the diversity of the team as he is the first male practitioner that we have appointed. The Police and Crime Commissioner’s office had asked that children and young people have a choice of gender for their CHISVA, so we are particularly pleased that Kyle saw the advert from the far reaches of Inner Mongolia where he was working!

A bit of a chance to catch up with paperwork and seeing Rachael to complete some of her induction before the end of the day. Then thanks to the England team having made it through to the World Cup semi-final, no Board meeting with our trustees to prepare for that evening!