An international placement during a global pandemic: lessons learned

By Kate Robb, 2nd year MDP student

 

One of the requirements to graduate from the MDP program is an international field placement. In March 2020, when we began to experience the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, I had no idea just how much my studies would be impacted. Fast forward to this year, it began to seem more and more unlikely that my colleagues and I would get to undertake our field placements in person, let alone internationally. While it was obviously a disappointment, I know it was the right decision to stick to remote/local placements this year. Especially as I wasn’t eligible for my first vaccine until a few weeks after my placement started, it would have been irresponsible to travel for something that could be completed from the safety of my own home. Luckily, thanks to the internet, I was still able to connect and work with an organization outside of Canada and fulfill the international placement requirement.

 

Now that I have finished my placement, I can reflect on the experience of working for an organization located over 4,000km away from me. Overall, the experience was more successful that I could have expected, and I learned some skills that I wouldn’t have had I done the placement in person.

 

My top three lessons learned from an international placement from home are:

 

1)      Time Management: I’ve always had pretty good time management skills, but working from home requires a whole new level of it. It’s so easy to lose track of time and get distracted by household tasks or other non-work-related things when you aren’t in a dedicated workspace. A year of zoom university definitely helped prepare me, but shifting to working a full-time job from home was an adjustment. I got used to it and figured out what works best for me, and now I can confidently say that I can work well and productively from pretty much anywhere.

 

2)      The Power of the Internet: Although we had a pretty good understanding of how useful the internet is before the pandemic, I don’t think we had any idea just how easy it is to work remotely before we had no choice but to do so. I didn’t really know what to expect when I signed up to work with people who are in Alaska while I am in Winnipeg, but thanks to the internet, I now truly believe I could work with people located anywhere in the world with little difficulty. The team I was working with made really effective use of online tools like Google Calendar to make sure everyone was on the same page and could work collaboratively despite the distance. This experience has shown me just how much of an inequity it is that so many people living in rural and remote areas don’t have access to reliable and high-speed internet.

 

3)      Communication is Key: Despite having access to the internet and all of its tools, strong communication skills are still required to be successful in working remotely. My team had multiple zoom meetings a week which helped us all to stay on track, help each other out, and build relationships despite being in different places. It is easy just to rely on email for everything, but often it can be easier and faster to solve a problem when communicating face-to-face. Not only that, but regular meetings can help make people feel like part of a team and reduce the isolation effects of working from home.

 

All in all, while I wish I could have travelled to Alaska this summer to work in person, I am grateful that my virtual placement was such a success. As we are likely to continue with some variation of work-from-home into the future, I will take the best practices I’ve learned this summer forward to any virtual workplaces I find myself in going forward.

 

 

Behind the Scenes

By Christy Bird, 1st year MDP student

Boozhoo! I completed my field placement and am thankful for the opportunities that I have had with the First Nation Health and Social Secretariat of Manitoba (FNHSSM). I cannot thank my supervisor enough for sharing their wealth of knowledge with me and allowing me to participate in the great work that they do.

Aside from academics, I have also been homeschooling my two young daughters since the beginning of the pandemic. This past year and a half have been both challenging and rewarding. While remote field placement has been difficult in terms of time management, it also allowed me to remain home with my daughters and ensure their safety and well-being. The one experience that I did not expect was a great deal of “Mom” guilt. Pre-pandemic, when I was working on a timeline of deliverables, I would call upon my family and friends to entertain my girls while I worked, much more challenging during a pandemic. This year I had to be creative with our time, balancing academics, both mine and theirs, entertainment, social outings, and all the others that fall under being a mom, trying not to forget my self-care. I am thankful for a supportive husband who still cannot find the laundry hamper but is always encouraging and helpful.

The knowledge that I adhered to during my field placement has enriched how I view research, especially when it comes to research with First Nation communities. My field placement has also reinforced that Indigenous ideologies and research are not second tier to western concepts requiring authoritative figures to approve. Again, I am thankful for FNHSSM allowing me the space to learn and grow as the experience and lessons I have learned will carry me forward to ensure I carry a strong voice in the work I take on in the future. Miigwech.

Working Collaboratively at a Physical Distance

By Ashley Saulog, 2nd year MDP student

As many of us MDP have said, my field placement plans this summer have changed. For me, mine adjusted from being 2,036 km away in Prince George, British Columbia to staying a safe two meters away from one another at the grocery store in Winnipeg or the twenty steps to my desk and computer.

Since September 2019, I’ve been planning and anticipating jet setting alone to BC to join the National Collaborating Centre for Indigenous Health (NCCIH) for the summer. When the news of the closures and lockdown happened, the MDP program and NCCIH were extremely quick to move the placement to a remote format.

The NCCIH is a national Indigenous organization hosted by the University of Northern British Columbia. The NCCIH's mandate is to support a holistic and inclusive public health system, and to foster a strengths-based approach to achieving optimal health and well-being of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples. NCCIH achieves this by utilizing reliable evidence that makes a meaningful impact on First Nation, Inuit, and Métis health, creating more collaborative opportunities for Indigenous communities in public health initiatives; and creating culturally relevant materials.

My co-worker Shiro

My placement topic is to explore knowledge gaps and needs about the health and well-being of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples in the justice system. During this project, I reviewed article upon article exploring what current health and social programs are available for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis women in correctional institutions.

When doing the literature review, my challenge was getting into a new routine for working at home. Working from home is a new concept for me. At first, I would wake up and not know what to do, almost like I forgot how my “normal” workday went. I very soon realized that I was struggling with being at home and doing remote learning. I started to resent the fact I wasn’t working at optimal productivity as I did pre-lockdown. I’m sure this feeling of disappointment and pressuring oneself to be productive at home is very familiar to people adapting to remote or at-home work.  I saw a post that said we are working from home, but that doesn’t mean business as usual.

As James Clear suggests in his book Atomic Habits, we need to make small 1% small improvements or atomic habits that compound into substantial changes. I took James Clear’s advice and applied it to my work-from-home schedule. I started with re-arranging my workspace. Space is hard to come by in my household. Especially now that I need to get accustomed to workmates being all my family members who I usually only see on the weekends. We decided to create a work space that was functional for three university students, a hair student, and a German Shepard. Once the new “office” was structured, it felt natural to design work hours and do my literature search.

Our office/salon

The truth is that I’m still working on getting used to all the changes. The unpredictable nature of this pandemic has seen significant impacts on people’s mental health. This is an aspect of the pandemic that shouldn’t be overlooked. I wish for everyone to be patient with themselves and others while adapting to this new normal. I much appreciate the team at NCCIH for their patience and support for me during this summer.

Take care and stay safe.

Working for PILC from Home

By Kate Robb, 1st year MDP student

My first field placement is with the Public Interest Law Centre (PILC), an independent office of Legal Aid Manitoba. PILC represents groups and individuals on a variety of issues affecting the environment, Indigenous peoples, human rights, and consumers. Although it was disappointing that I was unable to undertake my original field placement due to the pandemic, I was excited to have the opportunity to work with PILC this summer. I was already familiar with the work they do, as I took a course taught by two of the lawyers during my undergraduate degree, and assisted with an event they co-organized this past March.

The project I am working on for PILC is related to the Augmented Flow Program, which allows Manitoba Hydro to deviate from the operating conditions set out in the Interim License of the Churchill River Diversion. I have been reading a range of studies and reports and organizing and summarizing them in a way that will allow the PILC team to easily access the most relevant information when they need it. The impacts of the Augmented Flow program directly affect both the environment and First Nations communities in northern Manitoba, therefore I have been able to apply a lot of my learning from my undergraduate degree in environmental studies as well as my first year in the MDP program.

Team PILC-MDP Zoom meeting

Undertaking my field placement remotely has been an interesting experience. I've had to work on improving my time management skills in order to stay focused while working at home every day. We have been having Zoom meetings every Monday and Thursday to check in and update everyone on our progress, which has been a helpful way of staying accountable.

I'm looking forward to continuing my work on this project over the next several weeks! 

Work from home