Lisa Greenfield is a project worker for the Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union Learning Services. After training as a ULR Lisa applied to become a project worker was successful and has been in the role supporting workplace learning in food factories since June 2010.

As with any union learning project worker Lisa helps support a wide range of activities and learning to support learning in the workplace she covers. These have included English and maths classes, basic ICT to British Sign Language.

Though the project workers offer far more as Lisa explains:

On a sadder note, we offer help with people that are facing redundancy. This includes help with CV’s, job searching and using the government website Universal Job match.

I have recruited and supported many ULRs throughout our project. This includes attending a session on the ULR Course's to help them understand our own policies and procedures."

On a recent workplace appraisal Lisa’s manager, John Vickers, asked if there was was any training or development that she would be intested in or that would be helpful to the role.

John asked if there was anything I would like to learn, this didn’t have to be work related but could be something I wanted to do as maybe a hobby. At the appraisal I told him that I would really like to learn more around learning and development, to increase my understanding of the area, and better support our members. 

Following this an opportunity came to do a Level 3 Apprenticeship in Learning and Development - and I was fully supported to do this by my manager and the union."

The course Lisa signed up to was provided by JT Development Solutions (JDTS), who are located in Pudsey and work closely with colleges including Hull and Kirklees as well as unionlearn in the region. As the course was fully funded it was an ideal opportunity for Lisa to complete something that she was interested in.

Lisa thoroughly enjoyed working towards her apprenticeship:

I’m someone who has a passion for learning so I don’t see any course that I do as being hard work. I actually thoroughly enjoy learning and see it as more of a hobby than a task.  The hardest part for me was the functional skills element. But looking back, I had nothing to fear and passed all three parts. 

The union are very supportive with any forms of learning. John Vickers was extremely supportive allowing me time to meet with my assessor and offering encouragement."

When asked if she would encourage other people to sign up for an apprenticeship scheme through the work Lisa was very enthusiastic:

Do it! Learning isn’t scary and can open a whole host of other opportunities. Believe in yourself as anyone can achieve what they want to if they are willing to put in the work."

Lisa is now looking for her next course and feels that she couldn’t promote and encourage learning if she didn’t possess a passion for learning herself.