The Emily Project
Words/ Lou Andrews, Emily Hawkins-Longley
Mum, stepmum, mum-to-be, HR guru and victim support volunteer – we talk to a true human resource
So, let me set the scene. It’s about 7.45pm on a Wednesday night and I should have been on a Zoom call with Emily Hawkins-Longley at 7.30pm…but, due to my pretty awful tech skills, it’s not going to plan. Finally, we are both in and I apologise for my tardiness! Emily doesn’t seem to mind at all. In fact, I must say, she looks pretty damn chilled and somewhat glowing…the latter is due to the fact that she is 27 weeks pregnant (a fact that I’m reminded of every 10 minutes as she changes position in the chair and a splash of guilt slaps me in the face)! Now, before I share the actual interview with you, let me debrief you a little on Emily. She has been in HR for around 20 years and is currently Head of People at Hearst UK (Elle, Good Housekeeping, etc). She is a stepmum to three, a full-time mum to one and, as I mentioned earlier, she also has one on the way. So, as you can imagine, she is one heck of a busy lady! She has also recently taken on volunteering for Victim Support. Now, many of us have had a burning desire to help people at some point in our lives and some of us may have even thought about taking up volunteering, but we just don’t have the time…well, this girl is proving that that may not necessarily be true…
I think the first thing I wanted to ask you, is how did you get into victim support and what made you choose them?
So during the pandemic, I mean, working in HR was not fun! I was doing lots of redundancies, lots of furloughs and at that time I was an HR director, so it was like the buck stopped with me. I’ve always loved HR, but I got into HR because I liked dealing with people and at that stage I just thought ‘the way that I’m dealing with people at the moment is not the most positive’. It just put a lot of things into perspective for me and I had a conversation with my husband, and I was just like, “I feel like there’s more that I could do that I’m not doing”. And then, one day, I just decided to see what was out there. I was quite interested in supporting those that had been through domestic abuse, so I did a Google search and the role of victim support came up, working across Kent, so I thought I’d apply. I read through the role and they were only asking for three hours a week and I thought, actually, I get a lunch break every day, surely I can spare three hours a week? There was training that also needed to be considered and one of the barriers to doing something like that before was ‘oh, they wanna do in-person training’, but during the pandemic obviously everything was online. So it was a lot easier and they’ve continued to do it online, because it is easier to train groups of people.
What does a typical day look like working for Victim Support? How does it all work?
I have about four cases on at any one time and I normally call those people once a week or every other week. It depends on the situation. I’ve also got a couple of cases that are long term that I might call once a month just to check in.
The calls are booked in advance and for my first call with somebody, I usually just introduce myself and it’s a five-minute call and I then arrange a time to have a proper conversation with them. Because of the nature of the things that we’ll be discussing they need to be in the right head space and have the right environment to have that conversation. During that call, there are certain things I might need to do, for example, there’s something we do called a distance travel survey where we’ve got set questions to ask them such as ‘how would you rate your support network?’, ‘what’s your perception of safety?’. There might be things that help trigger a conversation if somebody is not feeling comfortable to just open up. Um, but yeah, normally those calls are about an hour, so I’ll fit them in amongst my workdays. Some people like to be called after work which is fine and a lot of them like to be called around lunchtime ‘coz they’re also working.
So, can anyone do it? I think this is a key question, ‘coz a lot of people look at things and think, ‘oh, I’m not qualified’ or ‘I don’t know what I’m doing!’ So can anyone do it, really?
I think so. You don’t need qualifications; you just need to complete the training. I think it’s just having the will to do it and learning how to be an active listener. It’s about really listening to the person and thinking about what you could do to help. A lot of people just need to feel like somebody cares.
And, you know, when you get to the stage where you feel ‘I dunno that you need me anymore’ – that’s the most satisfying thing
Yeah, I agree. I think that’s the key thing really – being a good listener and being able to make people feel comfortable. So, in terms of development, I’m assuming they don’t just throw you out there and off you go! What’s the training like with things like this?
It’s very good. For the first stage, the types of things you might learn to support would be serious crime so maybe a burglary or an assault. The first bit of training is learning how to support people through that and there might be a bit of role play that you do. Like I said, everything I did was done online and it was a day session with regular breaks, but they make it interactive. It’s very interesting and you’re hearing different scenarios with videos, so it does really hold your attention.
Once I’d had a few cases of serious crime and really sort of ‘cut my teeth’ on those, I then had further training. I went on to have domestic abuse support training and I’ve also done stalking training as well. More recently, I’ve gone on to have training in supporting serious sexual violence. Although these sound-like heavy topics, the calls can be quite positive, and you do feel like you’ve made a difference. And, you know, when you get to the stage where you feel ‘I dunno that you need me anymore’ – that’s the most satisfying thing.
What I wanted to ask about is what’s the ongoing support from Victim Support like as you’re going along? So, you’ve done your training, what happens next? Are they there to support you throughout as well? If you’ve got questions and things like that or a tricky case?
Oh yeah, yeah. I mean each case has a case manager. Every time I speak to a client, I have to fill out a report and submit that back to Victim Support and I can put notes on there for a case manager to review. So, for example, we can do letters for people that are trying to move home. So, in cases like domestic abuse, they might need something for the housing association to put forward for a new house so they can leave the area for safety reasons. I could add this request to my notes. Also, with domestic abuse cases particularly, we have to keep asking questions with regards to how safe they are and if I ever have any concerns or there’s been an incident that hasn’t been reported to police, you know, I might raise that with the case manager. In terms of my own mental health, I have check-in’s regularly with my manager at Victim Support and there are phone lines if you feel you need a bit more support yourself. I guess the thing that I’ve learned is to kind of really manage the way that I deal with it and to sort of acknowledge that I’m not a robot. So, like, if I hear something upsetting, I’ll do the call and I might like come off the call and, and feel a bit upset, but that’s a normal response.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So the next question I think we’ve touched on, but I just wanna drill down into it a little bit more…how much time do you have to dedicate it to it realistically? Coz I know everyone’s got families, everyone’s got work. You mentioned three hours a week, is that pretty much what we’re saying?
Yeah. I mean that that’s what I do and there are some weeks where I don’t have calls at all, or you might try and call someone and they don’t answer so you work around that.
So do you need to get your Employer on board with stuff like this? I mean your company (Hearst UK) know you are doing this and they’re fully supporting you, which is amazing and I think more companies need to be doing the same. But I mean, if people are gonna be doing this in their lunch hours should they be letting their managers know?
Yeah for sure. I mean, I go into an office twice a week with my job, so I generally try and make sure that my calls are on the days that I’m at home, but actually there have been times where a call happens to fall on a day that I’m in the office and I’ll just like book myself into a meeting room. And it’s not just the duration of the call…you have to think about how you might feel afterwards, so for example, I wouldn’t go straight from a support call into another meeting. I would make sure I have like a half hour break before I go into another meeting just so that I can sort of get my head straight. I also have to say, in regard to work, lots of companies now offer volunteer days. So, if you were thinking of doing something like this, it could be something that you put forward as a proposal to your workplace.
Okay. So, tell me a little bit more about that ‘coz that sounds quite interesting actually…what’s a volunteer day and how do companies get involved in this?
There’s loads of volunteering opportunities out there and lots of companies have already got corporate social responsibility policies and that sort of thing, so it could be something that they would consider. The other very positive angle with the volunteering is diversity and belonging. Some companies write it into their diversity strategy, because it’s a way of employees being exposed to other people they wouldn’t normally be exposed to and moving in circles that they wouldn’t normally move in.
So, what sort of things do you have to deal with? I know you can’t talk about people’s direct personal problems and things like that, but I think this one’s quite important to give people an idea of the types of things they may be dealing with.
I mean with serious crime, it might be things like neighbour disputes, somebody who’s suffered an assault or even burglary, which is quite a common one. It can be all sorts of things. I had one that was a very random accident that had happened to somebody, but they believed it may have been caused on purpose by another person. In general a lot of it is dealing with some form of response to trauma and helping people realise that there’s nothing wrong with them – it’s a natural response to have. And I have to say with the serious sexual violence cases, some of the stuff that’s happened to them is heavy, but it’s helping them realise that they’ve done nothing to deserve it. That it’s in no way their fault and they do, over time, start to recover. It’s not the thing that defines them and actually a lot of the calls you’re talking about quite positive things that they can do to cope with what’s happened to them. I’ve had people that have discovered things like arts and crafts and stuff as a positive way of coping.
I have to write these reports after I’ve spoken to someone (they’re not very long – it sounds like a bit of painful admin, but it’s really not!) and it’s actually quite therapeutic to just write down what you’ve spoken about.
So how do you manage to leave the problems you deal with at the office and not take them home with you into your personal life?
So as I said earlier, I have to write these reports after I’ve spoken to someone (they’re not very long – it sounds like a bit of painful admin, but it’s really not!) and it’s actually quite therapeutic to just write down what you’ve spoken about. I do always give myself a bit of time before I go into something else. So, for example, I would never do one call after the other.
I would do a call then have a break maybe, or like, you know, check my work emails or something. Sometimes if I’ve had a heavy call, I might just go and stand outside. I find taking myself out of the actual environment that I was in when I had that call and going somewhere else sort of helps me psychologically deal. I’ve also got my manager so if I was struggling with the case, I would talk to them. I do feel like some of the calls are quite positive because I’ll often have the call and feel like, ‘oh, they’re doing so much better’.
So I suppose that doing something like this can be very rewarding. Can you tell me the impact this has had on your personal life in a positive way? Coz I imagine there’s a lot of positive things that you can share about it.
Yeah, I mean it really is. You do feel good when you feel like you’ve helped somebody and also people are very appreciative. You’ve helped somebody through the most traumatic thing that’s ever happened to them and when you have that final call and they are like ‘oh my god, you’ve helped me so much, thank you for giving me your time’, it does make you feel good…but then that can make me feel a bit guilty sometimes when I’m like, ‘yeah, I’ve done so well’ then all of a sudden I’m like, ‘oh, hang on, that’s not why I’m doing it’. Like, I’m not doing it to make myself feel good.
No, maybe not, but you’re giving your own time to help others…why shouldn’t you feel good about that? And, by you feeling good about yourself, that makes you feel good about going to help the next person. So, it’s exactly the right thing to feel. I can imagine it is very hard doing this sort of thing, so I think it’s really important for people like yourself to take the positives out of it. And I can imagine you learn from them as well?
100%. They are just so strong and some of the things that have happened to them, you do sort of imagine yourself being in that situation and think ‘I dunno if I would cope as well as you have’. And a lot of my clients want to help change things, so that if someone else were to go through something similar, they would have a better experience (like maybe contacting an MP). So yeah, it can be quite inspiring. Some people’s situations are quite desperate and they just really appreciate having somebody. We all assume that everyone’s got family or friends, but often the people that I’m talking to don’t and are very lonely. I think sometimes some subjects, let’s face it, they are quite difficult to talk about. So sometimes they just feel more comfortable talking to strangers. Also, so often, people that have experienced that trauma don’t want to inflict those thoughts on someone else – especially someone they care about.
I think it’s just literally having the will to do it – go online, make some enquiries and just pursue it.
A big thanks Emily for your time today and for giving such an open interview. Before we go – for anyone that is reading this article and thinking that they really want to get involved, what’s the first step for them?
I think the first thing is to think about what sort of thing you want to do and then look up what is available in your area. So, I mean, Victim Support specifically will have different regions, where you can apply to be a supporter. There’s also loads of websites dedicated to volunteering. You literally just have to go online and Google what you might want to do.
For example, there are groups that support lonely elderly people that just want a phone call every so often, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be with someone who’s experienced something quite traumatic. The Mayor of London’s website has got some really good volunteering opportunities, for London specifically. I think it’s just literally having the will to do it – go online, make some enquiries and just pursue it.
As the call comes to an end, I find myself sitting alone in the silence of my home office. The last dredges of my cold coffee are a lost cause and and my mind is deep in thought. A conversation like that provokes these emotions in people. I now find myself wondering ‘is there more I could do to help people?’ In life, it seems we may not always have physical things to give, but there’s one thing we can give…our time. And this, it seems, is our most valuable asset.
In conclusion there are Clarke Kents walking among us! Superheroes in office worker clothing, giving up their spare time to make a real difference to a strangers life…and that could be any of us!
Lou x