We recently welcomed a local 15 year old student on a two-week placement with WSYBCSU as part of her school studies. Read on to find out what she thought about life at the CSU…

My school runs a work experience programme as a way of preparing pupils for applying for further education and jobs. 

I was first given the idea of working in the CSU by one of its employees who is a family friend. She suggested that working at the CSU may help me to develop the skills I already have and give me relevant experience that would be useful when I apply for jobs in the future.

When I set foot in the CSU headquarters in West Yorkshire I expected it to be a very daunting experience - that some of the employees would look down on me as I am young and they would be able to tell I wasn’t a permanent member of staff.

I was pleasantly surprised to find this couldn’t have been further from the truth. Everybody I met tried their hardest to make me feel accepted and welcome.

During my two weeks with the CSU, I worked in a wide range of teams including transformation, communications and finance and got a real flavour of the role each of them play in every project. I was given some easy tasks to start off with and then given more challenging work  Some of the duties I was given included media monitoring, sourcing and collating information.

I have developed a lot of new skills ranging from being able to create professional looking and user-friendly spreadsheets to researching information. Working at the CSU has improved my knowledge of different computer programs and enhanced my typing speed. I’ve learned to listen to what people are saying, try to understand the issues they have and give constructive feedback and suggestions.

Before I worked at the CSU the only contact I had with the NHS was with hospitals and my local GP surgery. A lot of people criticise the NHS but, after working here, I can now appreciate the ‘behind the scenes’ work that goes on to make the system run as smoothly and effectively as possible. The NHS is a very important and beneficial organisation for the whole of the UK but most people don’t see the hard work that is put in to keeping it going strong.