Cockburn Integrated Health - A 3 Man Show

The first two weeks of my placement at Cockburn Integrated Health have not been so eventful...

A little about the organisation:
Cockburn Integrated Health is a unique nonprofit organisation that provides many health care services a platform to operate. It is a new organisation that was established in 2014 As a super clinic, they have many services:

• General Practice
• Pathology
• Physiotherapy
• Occupational Therapy
• Speech Pathology
• Dietetics
• Psychology
• Child Health
• Migrant & Refugee Services
• Workplace Injury & Rehabilitation Services
• Wound Management
• Employment Services
• Psychiatry
• Orthopaedic Services
• Curtin Clinics

With that, there is a lot of PR work that needs to be done! 

With the CIH staff consisting of only one person, the CEO Clory Carrello, he relies on his interns to bring and present CIH to the Cockburn community. Currently, it's me, Clory, and another intern from Curtin Sterwina who are the PR officers for the organisation.

Since it was newly established, Sterwina and I have created the first newsletter for CIH, where we have learned the to-dos and not when it comes to publishing and obtaining release forms for the people in the photos. 

As interns, we are the firs to publish materials, create templates, and set the image for CIH. We also created a Facebook page for organisation to attract the public. we were put in charge in managing and updating the website for it to stand out from other super clinics in the area, as the website was quite outdated and unattractive. 

The other intern and I have a good dynamic going on, she deals with content, and I deal with design. 

So with such a small team, we work with very tight deadlines and a lot of content creation and organisation.

The next few weeks will be quite hectic as we get the next newsletter done, a fridge magnet designed, the website completely remade, Facebook page up and running, along with many other tasks. 

Parting is such sweet sorrow

Previously, at Student Edge...

I was tasked with creating the corporate enewsletter, which would communicate on a business to business level from Student Edge to its clients. The next step was the brief the design team. Unfortunately, this proved extremely difficult due to the designer in question working externally. I was having to describe something visual using words, which I think was difficult for both of us!

Emails - complicated?!

Image source

After much going back and forth (5+ times - I think the designer became more frustrated with me than he showed!), the enewsletter was signed, sealed and delivered, and ready to go into production to be coded and 'html-ised'. Our in house designer told me this was quite a lenghthy process, including spam filters, test sends, cross browser compatibility and consistancy - wow! Who would have thought such planning and testing went into emails? Before I started work at Student Edge, I had never given much thought to daily mailing list emails that would land in my inbox. But now I think differently, and actually take the time to open emails and appreciate the work that goes into them.

Final words

Last intern day complete, 30 page+ placement paper written - what now? I have learnt so much over the past 18 months of working at Student Edge. I loved all the tasks I was given, which included copy writing & proofing, developing media release templates, working with a wide range of stakeholders, briefing and providing feedback on design, as well as the exciting task of having complete ownership of a key corporate communication project – the corporate enewsletter. 

The highlight of my placement was not only working with such a great team, but also getting the satisfaction from developing the corporate enewsletter from scratch and see it get to the final stage. I can look at it and think, "I did that!" I don't know about anyone else, but despite us being third year public relations students, I still often feel like I don't know anything! My experience at Student Edge has taught me otherwise, and shows that a lot of the content learn at uni really did manage to sink in after all!

All the best, Semester 1 2012 PR393 students. Look forward to seeing you in the 'real world'!

Rachel