Samson’s Story
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Case Studies
Case Study: Samson, Team Manager
I’ve been at Certitude roughly two and a half years. I’d just started my apprenticeship with another organisation when the place I was working at became part of Certitude.
I have a genuine passion for mental health support work that’s grown as I’ve got older. Through life experiences I think you just become more aware. Whilst I wanted to increase my earning power and move up the career ladder, doing the apprenticeship course was also about personal learning and development.
“During the course, I became unwell and was supported with flexibility and reasonable adjustments in my work as well as my studies.”
Following surgery, I was off for a while and was supported back to work gradually. I was having dialysis three days a week at the hospital as well as work. I thought ‘when am I going to get the time to write 4000-word essays on each topic’? Once I described that difficulty to my tutor, she introduced the idea of a professional discussion – instead of writing an essay, you record a discussion and answer questions about each topic.
That really helped my studies, but it also helped me feel more confident in speaking about my work.
Just before I’d finished the course, my line manager encouraged me to apply for this team manager position. I’d been a support worker for seven years so it felt like the right time to move to the next part of my journey. Working as a support worker all those years, I’d taken in a lot of good knowledge. By the time my interview came around for this role.
I’d also done so many professional discussions as part of my apprenticeship, I was really comfortable talking about my work. I was successful and have been in this position since June last year. I’ve found it challenging in a good way.
When I first came into this role, I promised my colleagues that I would make it my priority to improve our team rotas whilst still maintaining the quality of our support. It was important for our health and wellbeing. I’m happy that I was able to keep to my word.
