My name is Hannah and I’m the Engagement and Development Coordinator for ARC. I work full-time (two days a week from home and three in the office). I split my time between providing helpline support and delivering training to students and healthcare professionals. This means that the training I give is fully informed by the perspectives I hear on the helpline.

At ARC, no two days are the same so there’s no ‘typical’ week, but I hope the following gives an idea of what I get up to!

Monday

I started the week in the office. The number of calls we get on the helpline varies – sometimes you spend a couple of hours on the phone to lots of different people, other days are quieter. Mondays tend to begin with replying to emails sent over the weekend, particularly requests for support or to join our private forum for parents. I then spent the rest of the time replying to requests from healthcare professionals for training and sorting through invoices.

Tuesday

I usually work from home on Tuesdays. All of the training team met online mid-morning, as we do once a month. In these meetings we go over what training we’ve all been delivering that month and what is coming up, along with alerting each other to changes and developments that might impact content or that we want to raise with health professionals. It’s really helpful for us all to come together regularly as three of us are based in the London office, one in Scotland, one in Wales and one in Northern Ireland.

In the afternoon, I delivered a short online training session for Year 3 student midwives at Bangor University. Since the pandemic restrictions lifted we had prioritised the return to in-person training as we feel that this is more suitable for the sensitive topics that we discuss, but sometimes online is a great option for shorter student sessions. At ARC, we’re really passionate about engaging students and making them aware of our work early. This group was brilliant and asked some fantastic questions at the end, which always makes my job more interesting!

Wednesday

I was working from home on Wednesday. I started the day meeting with the Head of pregnancy loss charity Time Norfolk. They are currently planning a study day for this summer, and have kindly invited ARC to deliver a talk. It was really useful to find out more about their vision for the day and what ARC can offer, in terms of both topics and perspective.

This was quickly followed by a virtual ARC team meeting. With several of us working remotely, it’s great to see everyone’s faces at these meetings and hear what everyone has been up to.

Later in the afternoon I had another online meeting with my colleague Suzie, based in Northern Ireland. Every three months we co-produce the ARC Health Professionals Newsletter, which includes sector updates and information on ARC news, events and training. We always divide the sections evenly between us before giving ourselves a week or so to write them. We’d love more professionals to join our network, so if you’re interested you can sign up to the newsletter here.

Thursday

I was back in the office on Thursday and answered a number of longer calls this day, ranging from support with decision-making to support following a termination. These kinds of days can be emotionally challenging, so I’m glad to have the support of the team around me. These days also make me proud to work for an organisation like ARC, where we can give people the opportunity and space to just talk and have someone truly listen to them.

In-between calls, I sorted out everything I would need for training the following day. We always make sure to bring lots of our materials and publications with us to training, which staff can then pass onto parents when needed.

Friday

Recently I have been delivering training to the Mid- and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust. On Friday I visited the second site in the trio, Southend Hospital, to deliver a day-long session on communication skills and delivering difficult news. I set off for Southend in very stormy weather and arrived to a near-gale! Luckily, I made it to the hospital, where I received a warm welcome from staff.

Hannah in action during an ARC training day

There was a great mix of roles attending, including fetal medicine midwives, screening midwives, gynae nurses, bereavement midwives and two consultants. It works well to have some variation as it makes for some interesting discussion and gives everyone the opportunity to learn from each other. This day was an amalgamation of our three training days, and covered topics such as optimal care through antenatal screening, delivering unexpected and difficult news, supporting decision-making and caring for parents. I want to say thank you to all the staff who attended for being such an engaged and attentive group!