Unit 6 Task 1
This piece of work will explain my responsibilities, goals, importance and benefits of my
work placement. Currently I am doing my work placement at Café CHAOS in Truro. During
my placement I have been working as part of the team of volunteers working in the café,
preparing drinks, food, teas and coffees and ensuring the café is clean and customers are
happy. Whilst on placement I have learned a variety of new skills that will not only prepare
me for adult and independent living, but also essential skills needed to be able to work in a
health and social care setting; which is what I aspire to do.
I have a number of responsibilities at my work placement. These include supporting other
volunteers, maintaining a clean and presentable work environment, following policies and
procedures, wearing the correct uniform and being punctual, reliable and presentable.
I try to do these things every week at my placement in order to ensure I am performing to
high standards as well as working with a professional attitude and showing commitment and
dedication to working effectively and compassionately. By
supporting other volunteers in the café I am ensuring they are empowered because by
doing this I am letting them know that they have the power and ability to do certain tasks
and if they require help then they know I am there to help guide them through their tasks.
This helps them feel valued, important and able to be independent.
I also have other responsibilities at my placement such as communicating effectively,
treating everyone equally and appropriately, and ensuring I am aware of safeguarding
policies in case of a situation where I am concerned about the welfare of an individual.
This is especially important because I work with a number of vulnerable individuals who
have specific needs which means they are more susceptible to being abused or mistreated.
At my work placement there are also skills that I need to use in order to work effectively and
communicate with customers and other volunteers clearly and effectively. Some of these
are communication skills. This is paramount because it means there is a smooth process in
the café, and everybody understands what they are doing. I also need
to be understanding and cooperative because this will ensure I give customers an enjoyable
experience as well as volunteers who I work with as this will make them feel welcome and
part of a team as well as improve my self-esteem and confidence when working with them
on group tasks. Additionally, I use skills such
as using my initiative and being practical and resourceful when working. This means that If I
finish a task and the café is quiet, instead of doing nothing I ask if there is anything I can do
around the café or if anybody needs any help to ensure we all work together as a team and
so the café runs smoothly and properly. This benefits both me and the other volunteers and
the café itself.
Furthermore, at my placement there are expectation of my attitudes and behaviours when
working. This includes being professional but also being a friendly welcoming face in the
café and doing my best to behave correctly and calmly in the environment. This includes
behaviours such as being respectful, polite and friendly towards customers, staff and
volunteers. In terms of attitudes it includes the essential basics of being friendly, supportive,
calm and in general just being positive. This ensures a happy and calm environment for me
, and other volunteers and customers as it puts everyone else in a happy mood as well which
benefits their wellbeing and mood and mine.
Before I started my placement, I had to prepare myself for the expectations and
responsibilities involved in working at café CHAOS. Therefore, in order to prepare for
placement, I created a plan of things to do that would help me when I stated my placement.
This was done in my ppd lesson at college in which we did our SWOT analysis sheet. This
was so helpful for me because I wrote down what I felt I needed to improve on in order to
perform at my best when on placement. These things included internal and external factors
that I felt would influence me when on placement. These were strengths as well as
weaknesses and positives and negatives.
Above I wrote that positive internal factors and strengths were patience, being calm, kind,
honest, compassionate, communication skills, caring, supportive, teamworking, respectful,
empathetic, interpersonal, reliable, organised and having integrity.
The negatives were lack of confidence, being reliable, being mentally strong minded,
organised, emotional resilience and competence. These were all things that I needed to
work on to help me on placement.
Even now as I am working on my placement and developing new skills, I am still
continuously working on the things in the picture above as although they have improved
drastically, there is always improvement to be made and this is what I am continuously
doing both on placement and off at college and in my free time as well.
Despite being on placement there are still areas that I want to develop to help me whilst at
placement and into the future at university and work as well as skills that will help me live
independently. I evaluated this by using the self-assessment too/test in my ppd lesson at
college.
Some of the areas I want to improve and develop whilst on placement are my
communication skills. Including both verbal and non-verbal communication skills.
This is because I want to be able to have flowing and effective communication and
conversation with the other volunteers and staff. As I think this will help us all feel relaxed
and confident while working as well as have a positive impact on the customers in the café
as they will feel welcomed and cared for.
In addition to this I want to improve on motivating myself to complete tasks to the best of
my ability. Meaning that if I am preparing an order for lunch, I want to really concentrate on
