“At Southdown, I felt I could be a human”

I have quite an eclectic work history, as I have worked in childcare, retail, trade sales, marketing and events. After being made redundant and finishing my maternity leave, I found a temporary part-time role as admin support at Southdown for Peers in Partnership.

Whilst at Southdown I felt different. I realised I was a person, not a number. My manager asked my opinion – me! The lowest person in the pecking order suddenly had a voice that people wanted to listen to!

After finishing temping and working in other organisations, I decided I had to get back to Southdown! I applied to a few roles at Southdown before I was hired as the Manager for Staying Well Eastbourne, the out-of-hours crisis prevention service. I had a great team around me who were incredibly knowledgeable and patient with me as I learned the ways of the sector.

Wanting to be more present for my young children, I moved over to the daytime role of managing the Wellbeing Centres in Eastbourne and Hailsham. The level of passion and experience the teams had to offer was humbling. Their support and determination were inspiring and really motivated me to grow.

Before joining Southdown I had some pretty harrowing experiences in my work life, some of which have greatly impacted my health and wellbeing. On one occasion, I was made redundant whilst 5 months pregnant and I had to go on job seekers.

At Southdown, I felt I could be a human, and learnt that my experiences are what make me important – not my job title! The people around me were human – human managers, who understood human reasons that something might not have been perfect. This unknown place of acceptance and belonging was heaven!

I recently started the role of Client and Tenant Involvement Lead, as I wanted to work in partnership with clients, tenants, students, and teams, to ensure that what we do is meaningful for our clients, tenants and students. I love that I’m going to be able to positively influence change in bigger projects organisationally and bring forward the voices who are living the end product.

In my previous roles, I learned about nuance, collaboration, unity, individuality, and the true joy of watching someone succeed on their own. Being one of the lucky few who was able to join the Manager Development Training, I learned so much more by being able to share experiences with peers and truly work on myself.

There are variations in the way services work at Southdown. We need to get better at sharing our knowledge, resources, and our successes! I really want to improve this joined-up way of working as part of my new role.

Everyone I’ve met at Southdown is incredibly lovely, like, next-level loveliness. Everyone shares the same compassion, empathy, the same purpose. Everyone wants the best for those they support.

People at Southdown don’t boast enough about the amazing things that they do, day in and day out – it’s just normal for them! But it’s literally life-changing work.

No matter what service or function you’re in – you’re doing an incredible job for a wonderful reason and you should be proud!