Tracy Holohan - Development Coordinator, Coalfield Forum

Tracy Holohan is a Development Coordinator for the  Coalfield Forum which is a Charity organisation based in Hetton le Hole.

The Coalfield Forum is made up of local people and workers from the voluntary and statutory sector with the aim of improving the educational, economic, training, employment, social, health and leisure opportunities of the area and the improvement and development of public and community facilities with a particular reference to environmental issues.

Before becoming involved with the voluntary and community sector, Tracy was a wife with 2 children whose husband was a heroin addict; along with two other women who had personal issues with the drug issues in the community. They were angry at the lack of support available for carers of addicts and the services available to the addicts themselves. The women found out about the Coalfield Forum and decided to take their concerns to the meeting. From the meeting they met with two development workers from Houghton Racecourse Access Point who helped them set up the Fence Houses Action Group, which was constituted in 2001.

Houghton Racecourse Access Point helped the group develop an action plan and provided them with training in ICT and management committee skills. In 2002, Tracy was invited to become Vice Chair for the Coalfield Forum which at the time did not have a lead agent who could fully commit to the Forum. Tracy was instrumental in securing a funding bid for a full time development worker and admin worker and began working as Development Coordinator in May 2006.

In recent years Tracy has completed training in Research Techniques, Interviewing Skills and Health and Safety, and in 2003 began a full time degree course in Community and Youth Work Skills at Sunderland University . Since then, some of the research work the Fence Houses Action Groups did has been used by Barnardos to improve the drug issues in the area!

When asked about her views on training, Tracy believes that it's natural to be apprehensive at first but everyone has the capacity to learn new skills and the more you learn the more you want to learn. Training courses don't have to be accredited to be useful and taster sessions are a great way of getting people back into learning. People often don't realise what skills they have until they talk about them and training helps boost confidence and raises aspirations as well as helping people to think outside the box!

On a typical day, Tracy offers advice and support to community groups throughout the coalfield area, helping to assess their training needs and find training for them, whilst working to remove barriers to participation by providing transport and childcare.

Although she says there are never enough hours in the day, one of the things Tracy enjoys most about her job is getting out and about to meet people who are working at a grass roots level and the Coalfield Forum meetings are a great  way of sharing ideas and finding out what's going on in the community.

Her advice to anyone interested in working in the sector is to "Find out what's out there and go for it! People in the sector tend to get involved for a reason so it's a good idea to do some voluntary work in something you're interested in and then use these networks to ask people for advice. Working in the sector is so worthwhile and you won't know what you can achieve unless you try."