I’m Milly, I am Regional Manager in the North East and have worked for Shannon Trust for over 12 years. I have a number of priorities in this role, so switch throughout the week to support the different aspects. The biggest commitment that takes up lots of my time currently is our team of facilitators in the prisons where we have contracts. As those in the role are fairly new and building the programme in their prison, I ensure that I am supportive by helping them plan and carry out tasks, trouble shoot and find creative ways to ensure learners in their prisons are offered the programme when and where it suits them.
I also oversee a team of volunteers. In a typical day I might interview a new volunteer, respond to queries or support a volunteer that hasn’t been able to visit their prison recently. I meet regularly with our senior volunteers, called area coordinators to keep up to date with what is happening in their team, and we hold quarterly area meetings.
I speak with learning and skills managers in all the prisons in my region on a quarterly basis. Keeping up to date with the programme in their prison and helping them to identify areas where they can start, grow or improve support for our learners.
I also lead on resources for the organisation. I ensure that everything we offer to prisons is in stock, working with our administrator and outsourcing printing. I assess resources to ensure that they remain up to date, relevant and useful for our mentors and learners and develop new resources in response. I am currently working on developing some new activity books that will bring our reading books into a more useable resource and gives our learners an opportunity to develop some practical writing and comprehension skills.
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