I’ve just started a fast track postgraduate training programme to retrain in a new profession. The course is 90% in placement, with biweekly study days and my main placement is a 5 minute drive from my house. I specifically chose this placement as I’ve got a pre-teen disabled son and it means I’m able to get him into his taxi to school, plus I’m home just after 5 to deal with the general faff of extracurriculars that come with two kids.
As part of the course, we have to do a secondary placement. My team have been allocated the placements and everyone else is either the same distance from home as they are to their main placement, or a little bit closer.
Except for me. I’m going to be 30 miles from home. This placement lasts for 6 weeks and I don’t know how a) I’m going to afford the additional fuel bill (I’m on a tiny bursary) b) how I’m going to make this work around my kids lives and c) it’s in a team I’ll find incredibly triggering to work with (that has nothing to do with the job I’ll be doing once I’m qualified, it’s working with people in acute mental health crisis and I have some severe childhood trauma around that).
I’ve spent a few days and sleepless nights trying to figure out how to make this work, but it won’t. We’re a one car household and obviously I’ll have the car at my placement. Is there any point raising this with my supervisor and telling him outright that I simply can’t make this work? Genuinely, I think I might have to leave the course if they refuse to offer an alternative. If anyone has been in the same position, either as a student or a supervisor, what’s the best way to go about this, please?