Youth cabinet member Elmyra tells us about her work experience week..

I have just spent a wild week with the Trafford’s Children’s Rights Service and a wild week it has been! Two conferences, several document reviews and a trip to town have all played a part in making my weeks work experience a true experience. The lines provided in my compulsory work experience booklet have been insufficient to document my daily adventures. Everything becomes so much more colourful with the responsibilty of work. Undertaking basic tasks like photocopying and printing are so much more exciting when the machine is 10x the size of your one at home or school. My kind employer brought in a scanner simply to allow me the chance to scan a single document, I felt like a true office worker. Speaking of kind employers, I found my week-long colleagues to be extremely warm and welcoming, not to mention their refreshing office banter.

With it being a tough time for local government, the conferences have been extremely beneficial in allowing me to see how these changes may affect us and how the council can adapt. I found it very reassuring to see that Children and Young people were constantly being considered and hopefully will continue be in all the difficult decisions that now need to be made. I have been lucky enough to be given a true sense of responsibilty during this week, reviewing strategies and guides but I have truly enjoyed getting to know how local government works. Who would have thought a week in an office would be much more preferable to a week in the classroom?