Tina Leads The Cheers At St Helens Celebration

TINA Quirk didn't just lose her job when her 14 year career came to an end with redundancy, the devastating blow shattered her fragile confidence, her self esteem and left her fearing she would never work again.

You are invited to send your reporter and photographer to Shaw Trust's St Helens Celebration Day, which will be attended by St Helens Mayor, Councillor Sheila Seddon, and Shaw Trust's Director for Scotland and the North, Thomas Moan.

TIME: 11.45am on Friday March 14, 2008.

VENUE: The Park Inn (formerly the Hilton Hotel),

Link Way West, St Helens WA10 1NG

TINA Quirk didn't just lose her job when her 14 year career came to an end with redundancy, the devastating blow shattered her fragile confidence, her self esteem and left her fearing she would never work again.

Now, with the help of national charity Shaw Trust, Tina is not only back in employment, she's in line for upgrading, studying for new qualifications and is brimming with confidence and hope for the future.

Tina's success is just one of the remarkable good news stories being celebrated in the St Helens Celebration Day, organised by Shaw Trust, which provides training and work opportunities for people disadvantaged in the workplace due to disability, ill health or other social circumstances.

The prestigious March 14 event at The Park Inn is being hosted by the charity's St Helens project, which supports 16-65 year-olds who are either unemployed, disadvantaged or disabled, but who are all also hungry for employment. The project helps them to find work, develops their interview techniques and employability skills and gives training in IT and basic skills.

St Helens Mayor, Councillor Sheila Seddon, and Shaw Trust's Director for Scotland and the North, Thomas Moan, are expected to attend the ceremony to see some 70 clients receive certificates in a range of subjects, before the morning is rounded off with a celebratory buffet lunch and disco.

Among the smiling faces will be Tina, who is positively beaming. In addition to collecting health and safety and first aid certificates, she has been working on the checkout at the Tesco store in St Helens and is already in line for upgrading.

A mixture of her own determination and support from Shaw Trust Development Officer Ann-marie Leather, plus the charity's trail-blazing Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Tesco, helped Tina, 41, to get her life back on track.

Her checkout team leader is Yvonne Godbold, 32, who had also struggled to find work until she was referred to Shaw Trust. The two of them attended the same workshops provided under the innovative SLA.

Tina, from Newton Le Willows, left school without qualifications and no confidence in her abilities. She managed to get work as a cleaner but was encouraged to apply for a job on the shop floor. Not only did she succeed, she stayed there for more than a decade, progressing to the checkout, which was where she was when she was made redundant in her 14th year with the company.

"The job was everything to me and I felt like I was having some sort of breakdown," she recalls. "I didn't know where to go and I didn't know much about the dole. When you've always worked, you just don't know where to go."

Painfully aware of her lack of qualifications, she started studying on a Learn Direct course at her local community centre and it was here she found out about Shaw Trust.

At the St Helens project, Ann-marie worked with Tina on building up her confidence and she was able to gain her first aid and health and safety qualifications. When Tesco started recruiting for its new store, Ann-marie helped her to apply and went with her not only to recruitment and application days, but accompanied her to the interview as well.

"She didn't need me there at all. She shone and was absolutely brilliant," Ann-marie remembers. "She sold herself very well and was so professional."

But her support was enormously important to Tina, who's married with a 10 year-old son. "It just gave me the confidence. I'm not used to having interviews," she says.

Now she's back on checkouts and loves being back at work. "I learn quickly, it's the skills side of thing that I'm trying to brush up on," she explains. "I'd think about how I'd done at school and it used to stop me from applying but that's changing now."

Tina's job experience shines through in everything she does, according to her team leader Yvonne. "We never ever get any problems from her, and if there's anything that I need, she'll help me. She's doing really well and she's really good at her job," she said.

"We have been looking at people to up-skill and she's one of them. If she wants to be a team leader, I think she'd be very good at it."

Yvonne knows just how good Shaw Trust has been for Tina, because the charity helped her too.

She also started at the store in October, having been out of work for a couple of years. "I'd just had a baby and was going through a separation, so I was finding it hard with having a young son and trying to find work," she says.

Within two months of being referred to Shaw Trust by the St Helens-based Starting Point, which offers information, guidance and advice on jobs, she secured the team leader's job at Tesco, having been helped and supported with her application as part of the SLA and gaining a Back to Work grant.

"Shaw Trust is excellent and if I knew of anybody else having difficulty trying to find work, I'd suggest they contact them," she insists.

"I just knew that I was going to get work when I went there for the first time. The support I got was fantastic."

Tina and Yvonne's experiences also underline the success of the national SLA between Tesco and Shaw Trust.

"It gives people an opportunity to show what they can do, even though they might need a bit of support along the way," Ann-marie emphasised.

"All Tina needed was help with literacy. As soon as she got the job, she knew she'd be able to do it and to a very high standard. It was just getting through that interview and application process which was her barrier. The SLA opened up doors."

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. For further details, please contact Marketing Communications Manager Helen Durnion on 07814749844 or PR Officer Becky Gammon on 07779 784901. Or you can email:
crucialpr@shaw-trust.org.uk

2. Shaw Trust is a national charity, formed in 1982, which helps people with disability or disadvantage to find work and achieve independence. We do this not only by delivering government programmes, but also through our own self-funded initiatives, and by campaigning to change attitudes at all levels.

3. Across the UK more than 1,200 staff now oversee a diverse range of more than 200 projects.

4. The Tesco and Shaw Trust Service Level Agreement offers instant access to job opportunities nationwide for eligible clients of Shaw Trust. Local Tesco stores also offer visits and work tasters.

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