Early memories highlights:
I began my career with Workbridge and St Andrew’s Healthcare as a volunteer in 1990. I worked for Cheryl Roy in the WWASP department which was known back then as the Industrial Therapy Unit.
One memory I have of those days is that I would support patients and chat with them during their sessions and get the tea and coffee ready for break times.
In March 1999, I joined Workbridge as a Technical Instructor. Workbridge was a seperate charity to St Andrew’s Healthcare at the time, later merging with the hospital in 2009. They both worked very closely together and Workbridge rented the land and buildings from St Andrew's.
At the time, Workbridge was funded and reliant on paid sessions from the hospital and the community - providing services and selling the goods that our departments made. We also ran various fundraising efforts in town and would receive donations from the public, local businesses and from the friends of Workbridge, who have always been avid supporters.
One of the first departments I worked in was Catering and in those days they had a department attached to it called Housekeeping. The Housekeeping team’s job was to keep Workbridge clean and tidy. Service users could earn a certificate by demonstrating they were competent in specific skills. (We later went on to implement AQA city and guilds certificates into Workbridge in every department.)
I remember 2005 and 2006 in Catering, we worked alongside the service users and provided a daily main course meal and a pudding for Workbridge service users and staff, as well as Daily Bread Cooperative staff next door to us.
The Coffee Shop, now very popular in Northampton, was at the time basically a "self-service" small vending coffee, tea, chocolate machine on a table top. Customers would visit to make their own drink and pay for them and staff and service users would replenish the machine.
A few years into my role at Workbridge, I was asked by the then Head of Workbridge to run a Youth Project. The youth project was intended for 16 to 24 year olds community service users with learning disabilities who had left school. I worked alongside support services like CANTO based in the Mounts, Northampton. It was my purpose to teach life skills such as budgeting and how to live on a budget. It also included skills like how to write a cheque, how to read a bus or train time table, literacy and numeracy skills such as paying for goods in a shop, utility bills, reading gas and electric metres. Some of the service users on the youth project went on to employment locally.
Later on, I moved into the Office Skills department. Office Skills was the main reception area for Workbridge at the time. It was one of my job roles to teach the service users reception skills, answering the telephone and connecting and announcing calls and greeting visitors at reception. We also ran a mini bus service for St Andrew’s Healthcare service users to get them to and from sessions with us.
It was in Office Skills where I worked with Adam Griffith, who set up the Workbridge Design and Print department. We originally ran our canvas printing service from the office skills department and building.
Workbridge became part of the leading mental health provider charity St Andrew's Healthcare, going from strength to strength supporting patients and service users.
There are so many staff members who have played a role and contributed much to Workbridge in the earlier years and beyond. More than can be mentioned here.
Thank you for reading about my memories of Workbridge. Lisa
