Kirsty Laidler
ASB Coordinator East Durham
When I left college, I found myself working in the retail sector, as a Christmas temp in Tesco. I worked on the checkouts and enjoyed chatting to people as I served them, I knew then I wanted to continue working in a customer facing role. When my contact ended with Tesco, I found myself struggling to get into anything customer facing and ended up working for Npower in their Peterlee contact centre as a customer service advisor. During my career with Npower I trained in a Web Support role helping customer with issues with their online accounts, and then went onto being a mentor for the new staff. I had my little boy in 2014 and took around a year off returning to work in 2015. When I returned, I trained as a complaints advisor and worked in this role for several years before deciding I wanted more and needed something more rewarding.
This is when I started my career as a support worker, working with 4 adults with various levels of disabilities. I knew then I had found my passion working with people who were vulnerable and needed support. My goal was to ensure they kept as much independence as possible and I did everything I could to help them learn new skills whether that was cooking or arts and crafts, to get out into the community and support them with the upkeep of their home and their bills.
In 2021 I saw a job advert for Durham Constabulary as a 101/999 call handler, and applied for it thinking this was another great opportunity to help people but in a totally different way. I enjoyed the fast pace and the feeling you got when you knew you had supported someone through what was the most traumatic time of their life. I was then promoted to dispatch where I had several responsibilities, and made critical decisions based on the information I had in front of me. Initially I enjoyed the role, however, I wanted a more hands on approach to helping people.
This is when I spoke to a previous colleague who had left to work for the Community Peer Mentors and made the decision to join the team. I did my research and instantly knew this was the career for me. I now get to have the hands-on approach I wanted and make a real difference to people’s lives, seeing their journey and progress from beginning to end and I couldn’t think of anything more rewarding than that.
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