Sam S. - Welfare Rights & Debt Caseworker, Learning & Skills Council
Sam works as a Welfare Rights & Debt Caseworker for the Learning & Skills Council (LSC) at the Citizens Advice Bureau.
Q. Please describe your current job role and your main duties.
A. LSC Welfare Rights & Debt Caseworker. Duties include giving advice to normally poor/excluded people on the full range of benefit and debt problems, and regular representation by letter and telephone.
Q. What skills do you need in this job role?
A. A wide range of skills: good verbal, written, computer and numerical skills. Effective time management is crucial to avoid burn-out; working for the LSC can be demanding in terms of time and the energy needed.
Q. Can you give an example of a training course that you have attended while in this job role and how it has benefited your work?
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"Training is a central part of the job." |
A. Training courses in specific areas of advice. The Certificate in Generalist Advice however was the most crucial piece of training in order for me to get the role I am in now. It prepares a new person in a full range of advice skills, knowledge of the advice subjects, and how to manage difficult clients and advice areas.
Q. What made you decide to do this training?
A. I was in very unsatisfying temporary employment after leaving a fairly high level university with no ideas, and was then unemployed. I had a crisis period and couldn’t decide what to do in any aspect of my life. I sought training/volunteering for advice work in the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB), and fortuitously discovered a ‘calling’
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"I can’t emphasise the difference this training has made on my life." |
Q. How has this training impacted on the organisation you work for? Are you doing anything differently as a result?
Although the particular training I did was an essential component for volunteering and working at the CAB, there is no doubt that the courses have a tremendous impact on volunteer retention, and effective advice-giving of those volunteers.
Q. In what ways do you think the training you completed will benefit your future career?
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"I now have a career path that I didn’t have before." |
A. It was the base that allowed me to join this area of work without any specific skills or knowledge in the work area previously.
Q. Do you have any plans for the future related to training?
A. I will be attending regular training in Welfare Rights and Debt matters, and who knows – maybe other advice areas, depending on what the future may offer.
Q. Do you have any advice for other people working in the sector on why they should address their personal and professional development needs?
A. The training course run by the CAB was the linchpin for turning me from a directionless dissatisfied unemployed graduate, feeling estranged from workplaces, to embedding me and preparing me for an often fantastic role.
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"I could not have considered this kind of work without the training." |
