TEXT Fanny
Welcome Fanny, can you present yourself briefly ?
My name is Fanny Moreau and I’m a Master’s degree’s student in Clinical Psychology. But today, I don’t want to talk about my academic background. I prefer to share you my firefighter’s activity and the link with my future career.
Okay, so let’s discover this unknow world of firefighting ! Since when you do you practise as a firefighter ?
I began in 2012 as a “young firefighter”. Every Saturday morning I went to the rescue center from 8.00am to 12.00am, to do sport and learn about firefighter’s techniques and skills. I finished this training period in 2017 and I started the real activity.
Nice ! What does this voluntary activity consist of?
In France, firefighters do a lot of operations. Of course we put out fires but it’s only 8% of our activity. Another little part of our activity is various operations including lopping, flood, power cuts… But we mostly provide assistance to the population, for example for discomfort, road accident, injuries, Cardio respiratory arrest, conflicts, aggressions or suicide attempt. We see lots of social distress.
Can you explain in which aspects it can be linked with psychology ?
Thanks to the firefighter’s activity, I have developed several skills, such as teamwork, observation, composure, and quick analysis of a situation… I have helped some people in a suicide crisis. I already have supported family or friends who were witness of a death or a traumatic event. So I developed my listening and support’s abilities, which are central in the psychologist profession.
All right, so I understand it better now. But I suppose that psychology helps you too in this activity ?
Of course my psychological studies had a benefic impact on my practise as a firefighter. For example, I helped some colleagues who didn’t know what is depression or psychotic disorder. Indeed, they can react differently and more efficently if they understand what’s going on for the victim during a psychotic crisis or a suicide attempt. I think I am less in a judgement position.
Really interesting ! And to conclude, what do you mean ?
For the final word, I want to say that it’s a passion for me and I learned a lot about myself and others. But it would be interesting if more courses can be given to firefighters to prevent psychological risks and consequences. Our intervention is short but frequently, people come back to the rescue center to thank us. They say that our actions help them. Their gratitude is appreciated because we have no way to get news of the victims after our intervention.
VOCABULARY :
- Firefighter : sapeur pompier
- Young firefighter : jeune sapeur pompier
- Rescue center : centre de secours
- Lopping : tronçonnage
- Flood : inondation
- Power cuts : coupures de courant
- Injuries : blessures
- Suicide attempt : tentative de suicide
- Witness : témoin
- Composure : sang froid
TEXT Elsa
Elsa, would you like to explain your most recent professional experience ?
Since the begining of september, I started to intervene a temp worker with mentally disabled adults, in residential centers. Sometimes it’s for 4-5 hours, sometimes for one day or one evening. The centers are group homes, where each resident has his own tiny flats. They’re different from medical centers, because there isn’t any medecine or psychologist, but only special education social workers, and house keepers round the clock .
The residents suffer from various diseases or disorders, sometimes both mental and physical, such as autism or Trisomy. But they all have a mental disability. Half of them work every day in “work integration social enterprises”, called ESAT or CAT in French. The other ones are too disabled to work, or they’re retired. These ones stay home, or participate to group activities in the center. Some of the residents leave the center for the weekend and go back to their parents’home.
My job there is to provide them supportive care and to help them to develop life-skills. For example, if it’s their “cleaning day”, I go to their room and check with them if it’s done or if they need help to use the dryer.
Can you share with us what were your feelings the first time you worked there?
An funny anecdote about the cleaning tasks : the first time I worked there, I was quite anxious about my own capability to face mental disability. I was asked to go to a young man’s room because he has problems with cleaning and hygiene tasks. When I arrived, this tall 30 years old man had not began the cleaning at all, because he had stolen the digital tablet and was laughing watching an episode of “Babar”, which is a cartoon for very young children. So I had to ask him several times to put down the tablet and get the broom, which he finally did.
What kind of tasks do you experiment in this job ?
I also give them their pills and treatments, which are prepared before by professionals, and support them in the meal preparation and service.
To stimulate them, I can propose activities, such as relaxation workshop, drawing, gardening, etc..
Last time was a great and rich experience for me : when my collegues and me organized the
planning meeting, a group of residents wanted to go out, see the Elephant and have a drink in a bar. For us, the aim was to work on socialization skills, and for them it was just to have fun, go for a walk, and meet ordinary people. So for the first time, I went to the town-center with a group of 6 mentally disabled adults, which is at the same time a big responsibility, and a strange experience because you see both their joy and the weird looks ordinary people (especially children) give us.
But I realized that most people were kind to them, for example at the bar, and most of all I was very proud of them and glad to live that with them.
What does this work bring to you ?
As a conclusion, I should say that these people make a better person out of me, offer me a lot of emotions and kindness. And even if I wouldn’t like to work with them as a psychologist, I hope I’ll meet them again. This experience also showed to me that a dread public can turn to be such a good surprise, and so I’ll probably do my training session in an EPHAD, although I thought I could never work with elderly .
VOCABULARY :
- Mental disability : déficience intellectuelle
- Residential center : foyer de vie
- Round the clock : 24h/24
- Supportive care : soins de soutien
- Life skills : compétences pour la vie quotidienne
- A dryer : un sèche-linge / A broom : un balai
- relaxation workshop : atelier détente
- a dread public : un public redouté
- elderly : personnes âgées
TEXT Alice
Welcome Alice, What do you want to share with us today ?
I have worked for 4 years as a social worker in an association called « Solidarité femmes Loire Atlantique » or simply « SOS » that receives women who are victims of domestic violence and abuse.
It can consist of psychological, physical, sexual, financial and emotional violence.
Okay, and what did you do in this association ?
In SOS, social workers have different tasks :
– First, SOS has been delegated by the social SAMU to provide emergency shelter to women victims of violence during its opening hours. The rest of the time, the social SAMU takes them.
Women are housed in different collective apartments whose address is secret. If there are no available rooms, hotel accommodation is offered.
A social support to manage the economic, legal, housing and family consequences of separation is provided.
– Also, the SOS’s staff has a helpline. The social worker offers confidential, non-judgmental support and information.
– once a week, SOS proposes a support group. It is opened to anyone who has experienced domestic violence. Women can share their experiences, have a better understanding of violence abuse mechanism, and share their safety strategies.
Nice, thank you. And why did you like this activity ?
I particularly enjoyed working in an organization with feminist beliefs. We used to work with women by giving them back the power to control their life, which was a very interesting professional posture.
I have learned a lot about offering a social support that respects the person and their decisions.
In particular, accepting that for some women it was not the right time to leave their partner. In this case, we tried to be available and discreet, so that they felt free to ask for help when they needed it.
I have loved meeting women in my work who were very different in terms of age, experience, profession, nationality and social background.
If someone wants to integrate the SOS team, which difficulties do they need to know ?
One of the most difficult parts of this job for me was to deal with all the legal, administrative, and social difficulties that make it very arduous for women to leave their partners and then be safe with their children, if they had any.
Some of these situations, especially those of foreign women in very complicated administrative situations, made me very angry.
Also, receiving people in emergency and having to find them an accommodation solution for the evening was, for me, quite stressful. Especially when I had young children and could not easily exceed my work hours.
However, I particularly enjoyed to conduct interviews. This is one of the reasons that led me to start studying psychology.