Young Women Lead - Part 4

A Young Woman Understanding the Strains of Leadership 

It’s our fourth YWL meeting. We’re back in private for this one… pheewww! No live cameras or feedback streaming to worry about! This one was all about making sure we were on the right track for our engagement plans and checking in with some key parliament experts for some tips & advice. The engagement of our group was lacking a bit before this meeting, quote a few people didn’t contribute much and so it was a bit of a struggle trying to come up with a solid engagement plan to take forward. We did try to organise a night where we could work on it as a group, however, even then some of us worked hard whilst others were distracted and had their own separate conversations.

I found this whole experience particularly challenging. I think I am quite a resilient person, I try to stay positive even when things are tough but this period of my life really stressed me out and even at times caused me to act slightly out of character. There was a lot going on in my personal life. At the end of January I moved from Aberdeen to my parents’ house, back in Lanark after nine years, as I had a new job in Edinburgh. My partner and I decided we wanted to buy a house, instead of renting, we had always put it off in Aberdeen as we knew we had no intention of staying there. However, trying to start a new job, which was significantly more challenging and a huge step up from what I had previously been doing, plus go through the process of buying a house and sorting mortgages etc, coupled with living with my parents and younger brother after nine years of independence was really tough on me.


The commutes from Lanark to Edinburgh every day were long. I was extremely  sleep deprived. Every weekend was spent viewing houses in Edinburgh, that drive in and out every day really took it out of me (my partner can’t drive so it was all me) and then on top of that I had my final MEd deadline due the beginning of April so every spare

second was spent writing my 20,000 word thesis. I took on too much at once, I didn’t have much option but I still probably took on too much personally without sharing the burden, at least verbally, with someone else as to how difficult I was finding it all. So adding young women lead to the mix and the lack of support from some of the other groups members really frustrated me and caused a huge amount of pressure! I should have reached out though and that’s a huge learning curve for me, that I don’t always have to be the strong one and that it’s okay for me to not always be 100% on top of things.

Part of the wider problem is that I have always been like that, which has created a very unrealistic expectation from my friends and family, I get put on a pedestal a lot. I am the first to go onto higher education for example. It’s a huge amount of pressure to always maintain that level of expectation and I always feel that I can’t admit when I need to take a break because of it. To quote my aunt “Oh but don’t worry about Jennifer, she always does perfect at everything.”
Cheers for that auntie!

Anyway, personal rant over. Our group eventually came up with a solid plan, we had to move away from the idea of focus groups as no one had the capacity to facilitate them, most of the group didn’t feel confident or that they had enough training on how to facilitate them effectively and we had really limited engagement from the organisations that we had contacted to host them. Instead we decided to ask for case studies from organisations as we felt that this required less capacity and commitment from them and also we could format a template so that our responses were consistent and reliable.

Fortunately, when we fed our plan back to the rest of the YWL group and the expert from parliament everyone seemed content with what we had proposed. The experts from parliament were also ace at answering our questions and provided some useful tips on engagement for those that hadn’t been involved in something like that before.

We also got the opportunity to hear from two of the previous young women lead cohort, the co-ordinator and intern from the 2017 – 2018 group. It was really nice to hear their reflections on the programme and their visions and hopes for the rest of our time as a group together.

As a group we had to decide who was going to present back our findings at the next committee meetings. This was a challenge for our group as all but two of us were panel members on the committee and so it was left to two of us to appear as witnesses. This terrified me a lot, as previously stated in blogs, I don’t cope well under pressure in public speaking situations. My brain doesn’t work as fast as it needs to, and I can never think of the appropriate thing to say. Then five minutes later when the moment has passed, I always have an epiphany moment when my brain clicks in and I realise what I could have said and what would have been a good answer. So understandably the thought of being in a situation when someone could ask me a question that I had not prepared an answer for in advance completely freaked me out. Especially that I had realised by this point that the rest of my group were more than likely going to use the fact that they were appearing as panel members as an excuse not to write up any of the findings. I predicted that the bulk of the work was going to land on me. Which was a bit overwhelming considering all of the personal reasons above but I figured I would be fine. I had experience of coding data before and writing up evidence so I tried not to think about it so I wouldn’t get too stressed or worried and enjoyed the time with the rest of the young women at the pub afterwards!




Reflections and other such stuff… 


Reflect on the March meeting. What did you do? How did you feel? What did you enjoy and dislike, and what did you learn?


I think that I have mainly covered this in my general blog above. I was stressed and probably anxious about the engagement plans not going according to plan and the rest of the group not taking much ownership. I was particularly worried about how the next committee meeting would go, especially due to my own fears and insecurities about public speaking.

I enjoyed being with other young women lead participants outside of our TOR groups, I think that it became quite segregated at points because of the TOR groups. I understand that it would be impossible to research in one whole group but I did find there wasn’t as much opportunity to connect with participants from the other groups. I was quite fortunate that I had formed a bond with some of the participants from the initial project presentations and we still had out group chat and I work with one of the other participants. Otherwise I don’t think I would have had much opportunity outside of the parliament days, even then we were sitting in our TOR groups, to speak and build relationships with the other young women.


What did you learn from the Scottish Parliament Experts?

 I already had quite a solid knowledge on research due to academic experience and my job is in youth engagement and campaigns so that side of things I already understood a bit. I think there were a few useful resources and tools that one of the experts mentioned that I wasn’t aware of before. Especially linked on how to present data visually. That’s a really useful transferable piece of information that I can use in both my personal and professional life. I was surprised at the lack of information on consents, ethics etc. when working with young people in research. Maybe because that’s intrinsically grounded in my brain due to my professional career, but I think that would be a useful session from parliament/external organisation for the next young women lead cohort. Something around ethical considerations when interviewing/requesting data from young women under 16 and the appropriate safeguarding process such as consents.


What were the key things you learnt from your experience of planning and delivering engagement work?

I learnt that not everyone has the same basis of understanding as I did in regard to engagement and research. I had been taking my skills that I had developed at university for granted without realising and so that was a bit of a pleasant wake-up call for me. It gave me a bit of a reflection to see how much I had grown as a person without realising it. It’s useful to be kept in check so that you don’t start to make assumptions based on your own foundation of knowledge which are actually completely ignorant to other people’s experiences.

I also learnt that I need to learn to ask for help more. If I am finding something stressful I need to learn to recognise that emotion, recognise the symptoms and characteristics and figure it out in my own head. Then learn to say no I can’t do that because of x, y & z. I need to learn to not always try and be the hero of the group, that takes on everyone’s burdens and tries to fix everything. Sometimes that actually just makes things worse. I have to acknowledge that sometimes I might be the one who needs someone to take on my burdens and that’s okay, it doesn’t make me weak or a bad person or a bad friend.

Recently with everything that has been going on I have found that I have been letting more and more people down and I emotionally have really struggled with that. I often find that people ask me for help with things, such as, old colleagues asking me to look over application forms or help with interview prep and old employees asking for help with theory for their upcoming uni assignment. My parents even ask me to do a lot for their business or to help my brother with his school work.  I say yes to everyone because I don’t want to be that person who says no to someone who needs help but recently have found that I just didn’t have the time or capacity or energy or emotional strength to help everyone alongside manage my own life. But letting people down was hard for me, and I let them down because I said I would help and then struggled to fit everything in. If I had just said I am really sorry but I don’t have time this week, have you thought about asking x or y for help, then I wouldn’t have let them down as much. It’s something that I think I have to be aware of going forward. I have a huge fear of disappointing others, probably based on that pedestal that I have been put on by family members throughout my life until this point. It’s actually quite a toxic fear and can be really damaging when I feel I have done something well but I don’t get the praise or recognition that I expect – that’s when that fear that I’ve not stepped up to mark, that I’ve disappointed others sets in.


What leadership skills and experience have you gained from the programme so far?

Public speaking, learning to own that space that I am in and occupy it without feeling like an imposter. I mean don’t get me wrong, I still feel like that a lot of the time and it’s going to take a lot of work but being around the other young women and having that sense of collectiveness and unity really helps boost your belief in yourself. With the knowledge and understanding and the belief and support from the other young women, I feel I have formed a strong basis to take forward and continue to push out my comfort zone and develop.

And also probably linking to the above question, I have learnt that being a leader doesn’t always mean taking on all of the problems and struggles of a group. That leaders are allowed to have days where they need support too.


What else could be done to improve the leadership aspect of the programme?

I think some dedicated time and space to develop specific skills in a safe space would be good. A specific session spent working on communication, public speaking, decision-making, styles of leadership etc. would be really useful. SCVO women’s network do some amazing sessions on leadership for women in the third sector and I’m sure there will be loads of others too, perhaps bring in an outside organisation to shake things up and offer a different perspective. The journals are a really great reflection tool, but I often find that although we are developing skills, the realisation, awareness and articulation around skill development is something that people struggle with. Using the journals as a tool to further deepen those reflections with specifically targeted skill based questions on leadership might be a way to encourage the participants to recognise where and when they have been developing those skills.

Young Women Lead - Part 3

A young women still on the path to lead... 

February 2019 

The third meet up of Young Women Lead was our first public and live committee meeting. It was the first time we would meet our committee chair and MSP Linda Fabiani and it was the first time I would need to speak in public in front of people other than the young women on the programme. Safe to say I was pretty nervous about it all! It was my role to ask a question to a panel of experts on the subject of "young women's barriers to sport". I don't enjoy public speaking, I get very nervous public speaking and I seem to lose all train of thought when public speaking. So I did not imagine this going well.

However, all went smoothly. We had some to practice and I knew which question I would be asking, which really helped. I even went on to as a follow up question, which really shocked me. We got some excellent evidence, findings and thoughts from the panellists and I got to meet Dani from the Chachi project, who is a pretty kickass individual!

If you really, really feel the need to, then you can catch up on me speaking and also making some ridiculous faces in the video on the Scottish Parliament's facebook page.

Reflections and other such stuff...

 If you were part of the questioning: what did you learn about the process, and yourself, from the experience? 


In February, the Young Women Lead Programme had our first public committee, streamed live on Parliament TV. I was on the committee panel to ask questions to some of the audience and was extremely nervous about this. One of the aspects that I had highlighted in a previous meeting, when thinking about our goals for the programme, was that I really suffer from imposter syndrome and I get really nervous public speaking. I struggle to think off the top of my head and give a coherent response which ends up being a cyclical problem as my nerves don’t help my response, I overthink things. I was really scared about being on live TV, what if I messed up the question? What if I said something that I shouldn’t? What if I made a fool out of myself? In my head I didn’t belong on the committee, I didn’t belong on the programme and I didn’t belong in a leadership or public facing position.

However, the process of the committee was fairly easy to get to grips with, Linda Fabiana was a real comfort and left me feeling relaxed before the session went live. And I knew what question I was going to ask; it was highlighted on a sheet of paper in front of me , it was comforting that all I had to do was read it. I was nervous speaking but having watched the clip back, I realised what I was feeling in my head doesn’t show in my body language or voice.

I ended up asking a follow up question which was completely out of character for me and although I did trip over my words slightly when asking, was proud that I even had the courage to do it in the first place.

Was there anything raised that you found particularly thought-provoking or interesting that you think needs further investigation?


 I found the evidence session very thought-provoking, although at the time I was so nervous I hardly took any of it in and had to re-watch the clip to properly soak up what was said. Coming from a Youth Work background, I was particularly interested in the evidence given on lower socio-economic areas and the barriers to young women’s participation due to income. This is something I personally advocated that we take forward in the research process later on in the programme. I also found the evidence given on aspects of clothing such as the lack of awareness, education and provisions for young women to buy a sports bra and the damage physically that could cause. The concept of uniforms in a school settings was interested, normally I am against uniformity in a school setting, however, found myself agreeing with Danielle from the Chachi project, that it could be used as a positive tool to increase participation. As long as the young women had a substantial choice of which garments they could wear e.g. t-shirt, vest top, hoody, leggings shorts. I think the choice aspect is really important and was interested to hear that it had worked in some school settings already.


The format you experienced of hearing evidence from witnesses is standard practice in Parliamentary Committees. Are there any ways you think this could be changed to make the format more engaging, inclusive and accessible?

 I think the setting of parliament is an immediate barrier to participation from some backgrounds. There is a perceived assumption that parliament is only for politicians and therefore you have to have a certain level of education to be welcomed there or taken seriously.  Coming from a working-class background, a lot of people I know just would never see it as a space that is open to them or their way of life. The way politics is platformed has to be changed for the culture to shift. It has to have less jargon, more engagement with young people from an early age, more positive stories of politicians like Mhairi Black as an example, showcasing that politics is for everyone and communicating in a way that people can connect to.

I also think evidence by video conference could be introduced, if it isn’t already, to ensure people from rural communities are able to participate in giving evidence. I think the fact that it is streamed on parliament TV is fantastic as people can watch from everywhere but again, I think the platform itself is a barrier. It is attracting a particular audience and is not appealing to the working-class backgrounds who
are unlikely to be watching parliament tv as one of their common channels.


What key ideas and suggestions did you put forward to your group, for the engagement plan?


 I suggested the survey within our group and also agreed with the focus group aspect. However, I think I was perhaps unhelpful at certain points in regard to the research as I have experienced quite intense academic research processes in my university programmes. I probably questioned engagement plans more than I should have and brought in considerations that could have added confusion to the group. I think in future programmes, a thorough training session for the young women on data collection e.g. how to facilitate a focus group, ethical issues and consent and collating data, would alleviate some of the pressure they faced. I tried to add some structure to the process by creating a spreadsheet document of organisations we wanted to contact, who would contact them, their contact details etc. however engagement from other group members at this point was not great.

What personal experiences, if any, influenced your input on the engagement plan for your group?

 As above, personal experiences of academic research at MEd level meant I was probably overthinking the research process and was being quite particular in regard to process, consent and ethics.

Have you ever responded to public engagement activities, for any kind of research project? If not, what would encourage you to participate? If you have, what was it about the request for your engagement that made you want to respond?


 I have responded to quite a few public engagement activities, for a variety of reasons. Some were because the topic is something which is important to me such as consultations from feminist organisations such as Rape Crisis or Womens Aid. Sometimes because I am aware that the consultation is going to make a difference to policy, strategy or frameworks and I have a specific view that I want taken into consideration. This is usually around Youth Work, Community Education or work with young women. I have also filled in consultations that I potentially wouldn’t have otherwise due to personal relationships with colleagues, friends etc. who are involved and have asked for my input.


Using an existing public campaign or consultation of your choosing, tell us what you like about it, what makes it work well and what you think could improve it.


 I really liked the #MeToo movement as a campaign. I think it was really accessible for all women & men to take part in on social media, through articles and blogs, in day to day conversation. It was well profiled on a variety of media platforms and endorsed by celebrities which created a buzz. The shared hashtag brings a sense of community to people wanting to engage.





With all the work and collaboration of the last few weeks, what have been some key things you've learned from the process?


 I think I’ve already touched on the imposter syndrome aspect further up and the fact that I tend to be really organised and like things done well and through proper processes, which I think I struggled with for the engagement aspect as people weren’t following procedures that I would have through my professional experiences. I’ve found that some people are easier to work with than others, some are really efficient, hardworking and want to contribute and others are all talk and no action. This a huge bug bear of mine when it comes to recognition, I find that those that shout the loudest get the most attention but have not necessarily always done the grafting behind the scenes. I also try and stay positive but have found myself getting sucked into the negativity by other’s personalities. This is something that I need to work on and learn to remove myself from those situations.


Are there any worries or concerns you still have, or that have emerged since the first meeting?


 That those who are putting in a lot of effort, hard work and time will be overshadowed by personalities who do nothing but can shout loud and be seen and heard. I know this happens in all walks of lives but I think it’s useful to be aware of.

Also very nervous for the having to provide evidence at the next meeting, when I signed up for meeting 1, I didn’t realise I also had to then take part as a witness in meeting 2. I probably would have signed up as a committee member for meeting 2 if I had known so maybe this was a good thing as it pushed me out my comfort zone. It also concerns me that it is only me and another group member on the witness panel as the rest of the group are committee members. I panic when put on the spot at speaking and don’t have time to rehearse my answer so this frightens me, especially as it’s on live tv.