We have a diverse and experienced group of colleagues at Outward. A few of which have shared their Outward journeys below.
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Cynthia
Support Worker
"The most rewarding part about being a support worker is making people happy and seeing them achieve different goals, become more independent, and a part of society."
Cynthia has worked at Outward since 2019 and has worked in a number of supported living services as well as Hub Club.
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Helal
Team Manager
"What I like about working at Outward is, when I need support, I can always find someone to help.
If you become a support worker it’s a great opportunity to learn and be coached until you feel confident. There are plenty of opportunities to develop according to your skill.
I joined Outward in 2001 as a support worker and after a couple years I became a senior support worker, then moved up to deputy manager and now I’m a team manager.
If you asked me which job I preferred out of all the roles I’ve worked in at Outward - I would say - support worker because I love to make people smile. It makes my day seeing the changed lives of the people we support from the day they joined us, up until now.
If you have good intentions and your heart is in it, you can really help the people we support. It’s a very rewarding job to help people and give them a good quality of life."
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Lewis
Supported Housing Manager
"I started at Outward as a Tenancy Management Officer and although I’ve only been at Outward for 3 years, I have progressed up through 3 roles.
My expectations have exceeded at Outward in terms of the progression. People have actually put their trust in me and realised I’m worth taking a shot on which has given me such a large confidence boost for the last three years. I’ve also encouraged close friends to come and get jobs at Outward.
For anyone who wants to join Outward I would say – don’t be afraid of work, don’t be afraid of learning something new, because as soon as you can apply those skills and responsibilities, there’s nothing that can stop you from gaining a promotion or going somewhere else. As long as you’ve got the transferrable skills to go into another role and you’re willing to take on that responsibility, Outward are very good at hiring from within, building and up-skilling people who may have been support workers up into management. If you can stay professional within your role and become an expert in what you’re supposed to be responsible for, that will give you the best tools in order to move on or move up in whatever you do. I’m also supporting my team to get management positions because they have all the tools."
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Samina
HR Officer
"What attracted me to Outward is what Outward stands for and how we’re trying to enable and empower people with learning disabilities to live as independently as possible. The reason this attracted me is because I have a daughter who has learning difficulties – she’s got global developmental delay and I’ve always been a strong advocate to make her as independent as possible because I’m not going to be around forever, so I’ve always tried to push her as much as I can and get her the help she needs so she at some point is able to live independently. So when I read up on Outward and what they do, it spoke to me because on a personal level it’s always something I tried to do with my daughter.
It has been extremely rewarding for me to see that we employ people we support as co-trainers or quality checkers. It is important because they’re involved in the training we do with our colleagues, to understand the way they see things. They’re also involved in welcome days for new people that join us and they visit services to complete quality checks to make sure that the services are doing all that they need to do to enable and empower them.
At Outward I have a better work-life balance. It’s quite nice to have flexibility and easy working arrangements, especially when the pandemic hit. They’ve accommodated colleagues on a personal level with what they can do and what they can’t do. As an organisation they’ve made as many accommodations as they can to keep everything running but to support you at the same time. That’s made me feel good about working here because they support you and understand you have a life outside of work, so I think that helps as an organisation."
