UNISON Gateshead Health Branch ran a successful event for apprentices and nursing cadets at the Trust in January with a guest speaker from the local credit union explaining the pitfalls of payday loans.

The lunchtime event also featured speakers from the Trust’s payroll department and work-based learning team and Northumbria University, with lunch laid on for everyone attending with the help of a Kickstart grant from Learning and Organising Services.

Branch Lifelong Learning Co-ordinator Maria Alberts explains:

We invited the credit union because when I spoke to the apprentices who started a year ago, they were saying they would have found it a great help, because some of them were getting into trouble with payday loans."

While Maria had been expecting a couple of dozen participants, in fact 50 attended on the day, with around three dozen of them being apprentices or cadets.

After a screening of the UNISON Young Members video at the event, several of the apprentices attended the branch AGM a few weeks later.