In this month’s blog I wanted to give everyone some idea of how our community outreach staff have found the transition from other lines of work into the role of community outreach worker and how they have never looked back.
I have worked in community outreach and know how each day can be very different from the last and the real joys you can get from working in outreach and seeing the confidence grow in individuals.
I asked a few of our community outreach team to get a real feel of what it is like to change career path to become a community outreach worker and to be out there every day working for LD:NorthEast
Rachael was very kind to answer a couple of questions on how she has found her experiences within LD:NorthEast and where she worked before.
“I worked in retail for 10 years. I didn’t want to stay in retail and make a career out of it, I wanted a change, I love helping people so when I found out about this job, I thought it was a perfect opportunity. While working at Sainsburys I found I gravitated to those who needed that extra support, and this helped me.”
I wanted to know how Rachael found the transition from her previous work to working in outreach.
“I found the transition hard at first, I struggled with having confidence in my self to do something I had never done before but with the support from the staff and doing shadowing sessions with the clients I soon found my confidence in my job role.”
Rachael is one year into her role now and I wanted to ask how she is enjoying it.
“I absolutely love my job, every day is different, I love going out in the community and supporting the clients. I have never looked back once at the job I was doing before.”
I also spoke to Lennon who joined us two years ago and asked him what he did before working at LD: NorthEast and what made him change.
“I worked in retail for almost 5 years, and I was tired of doing the same routine every day, I wanted a change. I saw the advertisement online and applied and never looked back every day is a different day.”
Lennon also shared how he found the change of career.
“I settled into the change straight away it was much easier with the support I received and training. It’s a job I should have done a long time ago.”
Since working in community outreach Lennon has been promoted to become a Senior Outreach Worker, I was keen to find out how Lennon found the change into this new role.
“I found the change exciting. When I got the senior role at LD:NorthEast, I like how I can still be out in the community supporting but also managing my own clients and staff and be given that responsibility and trust within the organisation.”
If hearing from two amazing staff and hearing more about Community Outreach has given you the ambition to have a change of career and really make a difference to people’s lives, we would love to hear from you, please get in touch with info@ldne.org.uk for more information about vacancies at LD: NorthEast.