Charlotte Hammond-Hall (Left)
Community Intake Manager
I finished school and immediately started Support Work with an external company at the age of 17. After experiencing some extremely confronting and challenging situations at such a young age, I was sure that I would not go back to Support Work.
I was employed by Supported Care in Feb 2021 as a Support Worker, stepping into Senior Support Worker in 2022, Team Leader in 2023 and Community Intake Manager in 2024. I love the management side of Mental Health as I feel like I can do more, supporting our clients to achieve amazing things and supporting my teams to deliver those results.
One of the biggest challenges that I have found is clients and stakeholders taking my knowledge for granted and making assumptions about my capabilities due to my age. "I have often been told that I don’t know what I am talking about by family members," and "when trying to assist customers, being told that they will not listen to me as I am just a kid."
I think that we are quite lucky with Supported Care as we have a lot of strong women already in management who all lead such a great example. "From the day I started with Supported Care and being initially based at Clayfield House, I instantly looked up to Toni as a role model and followed her guidance to learn and mirror the incredible work she was doing and continues to do." Having the strong female figures that we do is empowering and motivating in itself.
"I think resilience is the biggest," as the people that we support can often take their own troubles out on you. "It is important to push through that and remind yourself and your colleagues that we are here to make a difference and to empower people to live the best lives that they can." Communication and efficiency is key, which can be challenging to navigate with your workload. "I personally am very motivated to be a strong and reliable support system to our staff after my negative experiences with other companies."
Courtney Price (Right)
Team Leader
"Prior to entering my current role, I was approached by Justin, our Operations Manager, to enquire if I was interested in a Full-Time leadership position."
One of the challenges I have faced is maintaining work/home life balance. "It can be a challenge to meet the requirement of my obligations as a single mother and my commitment to my children and transporting them to and from school and sport due to living in a remote area with no public transport available to safely commute."
Supported Care currently shows support and compassion to all staff with families. However, "having the opportunity to work from home when able to do so, to navigate parental responsibilities certainly would help to create a more inclusive work environment" — "instead of the obligation to attend on site/in the office between 9–5pm."