I started with P3 in 2016; I have worked in lots of other jobs but my background is in support and many years ago I was homeless myself so this kind of fitted.
I was working in the Property team, then when that came to an end, P3 said they’d like to keep me on, what would I like to do? And I said I’d like to try my hand at maintenance.
I’ve learnt from doing up properties myself. I’ve never had any professional experience or qualifications, but I was left a 12-bed nursing home when my mum died, and I made it into self-contained flats, did it up, bit by bit, room by room, plastering, new tiles…
They said don’t worry, we’ll train you up. So I was doing lots of shadowing and had lots of support from Andy Derbyshire, Simon MacDonald and Kerrie Gayes [P3 Property Services] – they believed in me that much, I knew I had the confidence to do it.
The apprenticeship
But I thought: there’s still expertise that I need. There was an apprenticeship coming up this year, one day a week at college, you learn things like basic plumbing, drainage, roofing, bricklaying…so I jumped at it.
I’m not academically clever by far, but you give me something to work out and fix, I’ll do it.
I’ve been doing this apprenticeship with Access Training since January. The assessor’s really pleased with us—myself and Ben Lord, who’s also doing the apprenticeship through P3—we’ve done 95% of the theory already. I love it, it’s the best thing I’ve done.
P3 are so good, with progression, where I’ve come through the 2-3 years I’ve worked here, the management, the staff, how they all help. We are one team.
Supporting people
I still get to see people, and that’s a big thing, interacting with people we work alongside. Sometimes they don’t see anyone for days on end. My aim is to make our tenants feel comfortable in their home.
I’m based in Erewash, and cover Central Derbyshire. It’s having that consistency, the same maintenance team in the same areas going out supporting people, so that when I’ve got to come in and fix their TV, I can knock on their door and they’ll say ‘Yes, Cat come on in!’
We went to one lady’s house a couple of weeks ago, and she was not letting anybody in. She’d been sectioned, she was really low, had difficulties with self-harming. But she had no electricity in her property, so she had to let us in.
I tend to notice if people have pictures around the place, so you can get the jist of what they’re into, and I noticed she was into cheerleading. I brought it up, and it lifted her completely and she started laughing. Then she started talking about how she grows her own vegetables, from seed. She was teaching me something. It just lifted her such a lot, somebody being interested in what she’s interested in, rather than the negative stuff.
We’ll just have a cup of tea together, we’re just talking – it’s normality. They’re not service users, they’re just people. They’re no different to who I am. The lady said after that visit, she wants me to go back and I thought: do you know what? We’ve done something right.
Sharon lives in one of P3’s properties in Ilkeston and has had maintenance work done in her home by Cat. She says:
“Until I get to know someone, it takes me a while to trust them; I’m quite wary of new people. Cat’s easy to talk to, she’s a lovely person. She understands and I feel comfortable around her.”
