Celebrating our colleagues who are upskilling during National Apprenticeship Week 

Apprenticeships are not only for school leavers. They can help you progress in your career at any time with qualifications from level 2, through to degrees and postgraduate.

As part of our commitment to being a great place to work, we promote learning and development to help grow our own talent and we currently have 65 colleagues upskilling and working towards degrees as part of a Higher Level apprenticeship.

Today we’re hearing from some of those colleagues.

James Bennett is completing an apprenticeship to become a Level 4 Business Practitioner. He says his learning has already brought massive benefits to his role as Customer Experience Officer.

“My apprenticeship includes a project to identify an area of our organisation that requires improvement and to use my learning to put those improvements in place. My role as Customer Experience Officer is to listen to customer feedback and to act and implement changes across the organisation, so my apprenticeship is giving me the extra tools and different techniques to help us achieve our goals.”

Before starting the qualifications, James says he was apprehensive about going back to the classroom.

“I really wanted to do an apprenticeship, but my concerns were that I’m 41 and I hadn’t been in education for a long time. I was also concerned about maintaining a work-life balance, I have a young family and I was worried about it taking up too much of my free time.

“But the business has been really supportive and have given me the time I need to do my learning. I learn in a professional environment talking to other professionals from other organisations and it doesn’t feel like being back at school.

“I’d 100 per cent recommend doing a Higher Level apprenticeship.”

Charlotte Whitehouse joined the organisation in 2017 as a support worker, before completing her the RQF Level 2 Diploma in Care. Charlotte then secured a new role within the organisation as a Senior Support worker and has worked in many of our care and support schemes.

In 2022, Charlotte took on the challenge of the RQF Level 3 Diploma in Care. Charlotte’s hard work and dedication led to her promotion to Team Leader, where she played a key role in the opening of a new scheme in May 2023.

Charlotte is now a Care Manager and is currently studying the Leader in Adult Care Level 5 Apprenticeship.

She said:

“Housing Plus Group really allow their staff to develop and progress within the organisation. I started as a support worker and it’s taken me a few years, but I’m now a care manager. My managers have shown a lot of faith in me, and I’ve really grown in confidence over the years due to the support I’ve received.

“I’ve had some brilliant managers during my time here, they’ve pushed me to try these courses and get these qualifications. It’s something that stuck with me and I’m trying to do with the staff that I now manage.

“I am speaking to staff about their personal development. If they would like to progress and get more qualifications. I’m also trying to help develop new leaders and ensure they get as much experience as possible.”

As our Director of Housing, Samantha Allcott has a highly demanding role. But by fitting in her studies around her work commitments, she completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Level 7 Senior Leadership apprenticeship, making her a Fellow of the Chartered Management Insitute.

“It was really manageable in terms of fitting the studying around my work. In this new world of Teams and Zoom calls, it was easy for me to be able to attend the lectures,” Sam explains.

“Everything I learned on the apprenticeship I could apply to my role and vice versa. It was like I was being coached in the first years of being in this job, everything I was learning was very relevant to my role.

“It’s made me a better manager and a better leader and I feel more confident in my position.”