Interning at Ellenbrook
Christian College has reinforced to me that I want to work in an organisation
that heavily focuses on community engagement.
For my public relations internship I have been interning at
Ellenbrook Christian College (ECC). ECC is one of the seven SCEA (Swan
Christian Education Association) schools that exist from the Hills and Eastern
suburbs of Perth down to Australind. As one of the seven SCEA schools, ECC aims
to partner with families and communities to provide Christ-centered education
to help shape and grow future generations. Having now completed just over half
of my public relations internship at ECC, I am realising that I choose the
perfect placement for myself in terms of interests, work ethic and ideologies.
Having attended the College myself from year six to 12, I am
thoroughly enjoying being able to have a professional influence and input on
tasks that I was once involved with on a student/student leader-type basis. I
am thoroughly enjoying being involved in many projects, and I often laugh to
myself when I am working on a task and it dawns on me that I was ‘doing’ public
relations far before I began studying PR at Curtin.
Here at the College, the marketing and public relations coordinator,
the community liaison and a number of other staff members are dedicated to
effectively communicating and engaging with each and every one of its’ key
publics. Having now completed approximately half of my internship, it has
dawned on me just how crucial public relations is to schools such as ECC. Not
only does the PR staff at the College have to regularly communicate with their
key publics (students, parents, the wider community), but they have to do so in
a way that current students feel involved with their school community, parents
feel properly informed as to decisions/events affecting their child/ren and
community members feel compelled to send their children to the College in the
future.
As a Christian association, there’s so much more to lose if
the organisation doesn’t succeed in their roles, as the College isn’t just
attempting to enrol students, but aiming to enrol students with the intention
to provide them with a Christ-centered education that they would perhaps not be
offered at one of the surrounding public schools.
One of my favourite days at my placement would therefore have
to be when the PR department, myself and a handful of different teaching staff staged
a community engagement initiative at The Shops at Ellenbrook. From approximately
9am to 6pm, ECC had a set up at the local shops, which was manned by one or
both of the community liaisons, and one or two members of the teaching staff.
ECC stages this event each year and the aim of the initiative is to get out
into the community and talk face-to-face with the community members. In staging
the event, ECC aims to communicate/interact with community members in an
engaging and memorable way. This event was no ordinary “enrolment drive”!
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| Ellenbrook Christian College's 2015 community engagement initiative at The Shops at Ellenbrook. |
So there you go, that’s my first blog post for PUBR3002. I’ll
be back soon to talk some more about the PR world at ECC!
Emily
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