Angela, Hub Support Assistant

Tell us a bit about yourself...

Hi, I’m Angela and I am a 54-year-old woman. I have worked for over 20 years at WSCC. I am separated and have 2 adult children. I live in a village outside of Horsham. I love reading and embroidery.

What inspired you to become a Hub Support Assistant?

I was lucky enough to be offered the Hub Support Assistant role after being injured and no longer being able to complete my family support worker role. This was a change but it was a great new challenge for me.

Why did you choose to work for West Sussex?

I was recruited as a volunteer by a Family centre manager who attended a home start support group in my local village. I attended a presentation about the role of sure start and started as a volunteer. It felt great being part of WSCC as I could see the impact of my volunteering on my local community and vulnerable families. I understood my role in the wider organisation.

Can you tell me a little about your career progression so far?

I started as a part-time volunteer helping in groups, then widened to helping with admin. Slowly started to work more hours. The service went through a restructure and for several weeks it was just me – opening the centre, doing the H&S, running the groups and completing the admin. When the new centre manager was appointed I was encouraged to become a Temp which I did for several months. When a vacancy for support worker came up I was encouraged to apply. This is did and when successful I really enjoyed the role. I then suffered a bi lateral shoulder injury which meant that I was incapacitated for month. While recuperating I was offered the role of HSA at Hurst Road – local FIO and youth offer. I accepted and worked there. It was a change from 0-5s to working with 11-25s – best described as trying to learn a new language. Then once again we were restructured, and I have been at Horsham Family Hub since. I have continued to learn and train within this role and I am hoping to be more involved in presenting training to my peers as a career progression. I think that it should be noted that throughout my journey I have always been supported and encouraged to challenge myself and provide great service within the organisation by all levels of staff, peers, and management.

What is the best thing about being a Hub Support Assistant at West Sussex?

I think the best thing about working for West Sussex is twofold. Firstly, the range of opportunities within the organisation. Secondly, the emphasis on progression, training and development for all. You are supported in the role that you have but you are also encouraged to follow paths that are of interest to you, to enrich and/or expand your knowledge and experience.

What do you particularly enjoy about working in the Hub Support Assistant team?

I love that we are genuinely a team. We all have different skills and outlooks which helps create a fabulous, flexible and efficient team. We will take on various tasks that benefit the other team (making resources, note taking, etc) and this has enabled us to further support families by giving other teams more time. I feel valued in the team, and in the role that I do.

How does West Sussex, particularly Children, Young People and Learning support you to develop and progress?

Additional to the comment above, I love to attend the lunch and learns to see other parts of the service. These snapshots into available services have been invaluable. For example, I attended one session around visual disabilities. It was very informative. Then literally the next day a mother came into the hub looking for support for her visually impaired son. This empowered me and helped the parent to access the support that she needed.

Supervision is very helpful when looking out development and progression – you can examine steps or pathways with your manager to enable you to see where you want to build up to and how this progression can support the role you are currently doing at the same time.

Is there a particular case or something about your work here that makes you feel proud?

Yes, although there are many great case studies and pieces of work that could be highlighted here. What I am most proud of, is the way as a team, we have developed the hub. Made it a place where families and young people feel safe and want to attend. We are helping to bring together lots of different parts of the community, to the benefit of everyone. When people leave feeling better than when they come in…we have done our role.

What would you say are the challenges of being a Hub Support Assistant?

The challenges of being a HSA are learning and keeping up with the variety of tasks within the role and being ever in contact with changes in the local community.  Some parts of the role occur monthly, and so it can be several months before you repeat a task. This can be frustrating for new starters.

If there is one myth you could bust about Hub Support Assistant, what would it be?

Some people use the words “bottom of the pile” as if the role is something that is not important. I have never thought this. I have seen from the work here in Horsham that the HSAs are the glue that holds things together and also the people who can take some of the pressure/stress of other workers to enable the whole system to work better.

What would you say to somebody considering joining us?

I would encourage anyone thinking of joining WSCC to do so. I would explain the great advantages, staff programmes, EAP, flexible working, great teams, great support both within teams and from management. I would also stress that although we deal with very serious matters, vulnerable families and crisis situations, there is always someone to talk to, colleagues to bounce off and it is great to see the positive differences that the whole team makes. It is fun to.