Meet The Team: James Mitchell, Individual Worker for West Country.

Was your first job as an Individual Worker?
Yes, it was. Before Blue Sky, I was mentoring children and young people in the Southwest, so it was similar but without such a strong therapeutic requirement.
I’ve worked in lots of different capacities with young people: as a youth worker, a teaching assistant and as a listening support worker for young people too.

What does your role involve?
I work with children and young people with a therapeutic element.
We have clinical meetings that direct our focus on what young people need support with. We do interventions: targeted work providing support with current issues, things that young people are struggling with at the moment. For instance, if they are struggling to manage their emotions, we could do an intervention around coping strategies. It could be relationships, friendships, grief, or loss - all the challenges that young people face, but specifically from a trauma-informed perspective, because all the young people we work with have experienced trauma.

Do you have any hobbies?
My aim this year is to get better at that because, for the last few years, I've just been focusing on work! I’ve just moved into a new community, so I want to explore what’s out there – I’m interested in trying lots of different classes, e.g. music, yoga, dance. I’m definitely going to go on a retreat this year!

What’s your favourite genre of music?
I listen to a lot of different genres of music. If I had to pick one now, the music that puts me in the best mood is probably Chase and Status.

What’s the best aspect of working at Blue Sky?
The people: the young people, the foster carers, and the great team that I work with. The young people come first and are who I spend most of my time thinking about. But what’s unexpected is the relationships that I’ve built with some of the foster carers. It’s not like work. In previous roles, I didn’t really know the family around the young people that I mentored. In my job now I build a relationship with everyone, and everybody knows you. And that's actually really nice; little things like, if I knew that one of our carers was having a tough day or something while I'm driving to see her, I’ll stop off and get some cheddar strawberries.

And then when I get there I can be like, ‘Oh, look, I've got these in my car, do you want these?’ And that will just brighten up their day. Or I’ll share a recipe for something they love. It’s just little things like that. I feel like I know these families and I'm going on a journey with them.

And the greatest challenge?
There’s a lot of driving for me, visiting all the foster carers and young people in their homes!

What would people be surprised to know about you?
I have two guinea pigs that I love dearly, and I think guinea pigs are massively underappreciated, and they could have a massive role in therapy. Just holding them releases oxytocin and they actually work to reset the central nervous system. I’m a huge advocate of guinea pigs. They are magical creatures - and currently underappreciated!