Social Scientists in Health's Victoria Palmer shares her experience of ECR life and COVID

The context for my COVID experience begins when a global pandemic was something reserved for TV or movies. 3rd May 2019 - my last day of work before maternity leave.

I'd planned to take a full year, returning part-time in May 2020. We'd been able to pause the project I work on while I was off, and I had planned to use my Keeping In Touch (KIT) days at the beginning of 2020 to be involved in preparations to restart the project.

January 2020 - I finalised my plan to return to work. I was going to do 1 KIT day per week until April, then use some annual leave before I returned properly. I did 3 or 4 KIT days in the office. The project I work on is developing and testing the feasibility of an intervention to support older people to be more active and sit less in their daily lives. We were working with Glasgow Housing Association to roll it out as a group-based intervention. We met with them in February, everything was falling into place, and seemed positive, we planned to start recruitment in June.

And then, lockdown. The start was fine, I kept doing my KIT days for the first few weeks, then I was on annual leave anyway. I can't remember at what point I got a phone call from my line manager to say there was a chance I could be furloughed, but I remember it was a relief. It seemed like the best option, it removed a lot of the stress of trying to figure out balancing working from home and childcare. Something I know a lot of people had to do, but for me it was such a daunting thought. I wanted to be able to focus on work properly, I’d been off for a year and I felt like my brain was a bit rusty! I tried to think of the positives – this was bonus time I got to spend with my son, an extra long maternity leave, and lovely sunny weather (occasionally). But it wasn’t like that all the time, it was long, it was monotonous, it was intense.

I kept in touch with my line manager regularly. One day she phoned me to chat about an opportunity to get involved in some COVID related research, this was round about the time they’d announced that furlough was extended until October. If the grant was funded, I’d be able to return in July. If it wasn’t, it looked like I’d be furloughed until October. I nearly burst into tears on the phone, the thought of being off for another four months was so overwhelming. I wanted to go back to work, I had been preparing to go back and all of a sudden I was at home for the foreseeable. And by this point it was getting harder to stay positive.

The COVID grant never got funded, but I got another call from my line manager just before we heard about it. The research office had been in touch to say that because my post was funded by CSO I could return to work to work on related work and they would fund my post until we could restart the project. It seemed almost too good to be true. We agreed that we’d wait to hear the outcome of the other grant and then I could decide. It was now July. By the time we heard about the grant, it was just about time for a review of the guidelines – a big one, including childcare being opened up to everyone. It was perfect timing really, I agreed to go back once the new guidance came into effect at the end of July.

It was a bit weird coming back to work from the dining room. It was nice to be back, but my project was still paused. We still had no idea when we might be able to do work with older people again. I was working on a paper mostly, and some other bits and bobs. I wasn’t sure how long the CSO would fund me. It was all still a bit up in the air. Not long after I came back and after more restrictions were put in place in Glasgow that made it clear that we wouldn’t be able to do what we had planned for a long time. We decided to redesign the project so we could deliver it under COVID restrictions, which was approved by CSO.

I feel very fortunate that the CSO offered that support for me to come back, and to restart the project in its new format. I know that this wasn’t available to other researchers, and that many people are still dealing with a lot of uncertainty.

Victoria Palmer
Research Associate (Social Scientists in Health)

First published: 21 September 2020

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