/ Who We Are / Meet the Team

Meet the Team

    Alan Lamb

    Support Staff

    Alan joined us a volunteer many years ago and spent a lot of his time raising money for various charities in North Norfolk. He now works on our supported living and outreach service helping our members at home and in the local community. He is also the only staff member willing to drive our soapbox derby car during carnival season.

     

    Allen O’Keefe

    Support Staff

    Alan Heads up our Wednesday club and works in our charity shop for our workskills service but this is just the tip of the iceberg he also helps in our youth and bespoke service our adult social programme as well as our supported living service!! Another busy week for Alan

     

    Amanda Miles

    Café Lead

    Came to AWF from the Benjamin Foundation where she worked as a support worker preparing young adults for independent living. When the opportunity came along for her to support adults with learning difficulties and make use of her catering skills gained in her early career she didn’t hesitate to join us and is now our Café lead.

     

    Amanda Wright

    After spending nearly ten years as a child care officer and teaching assistant Amanda joined our Bespoke and Adult leisure services bringing with her a sense of fun and excitement to every event.

    Before working with children Amanda spent many years working as a travel agent and is now our Adult leisure holiday lead.

    Andy Lee

    Head Gardener

    Andy trained in amenity horticulture at Easton College, he then was a self- employed gardener for a short while. Andy then returned to Easton college as a horticultural technician, as part of this work he worked with a variety of client groups. He then moved on to a charity similar to About with Friends, gaining experience working with learning difficulties. After 13 years Andy was ready for a new challenge and an opportunity became available at About with Friends in the Youth and Bespoke area. Andy then transferred to the workskills department when a position a lead gardener came up.

     

    Beverly Hymas

    Bespoke Support Staff

    Bev has come from a nursing back ground but re-trained as a teaching assistant.  She then worked at Woodfields school and realised she had a love of working with young people with complex needs and so she applied to AWF and is now a key part of our Bespoke team

     

    Carmel Leyland

    Charity shop Lead

    Carmel had spent many successful years owning her own care home as well as a restaurant. She decided to take things a little easier and sold the restaurant and started volunteering for the Salvation Army charity shop after 2 years there she took on our own charity shop in Cromer

    Caroline Larke

    Support worker

    After completing her contract as a teaching assistant supporting a young man with special needs she started looking for a position that would make the most of her years of experience in teaching, child protection and special needs support and that’s when she came across AWF. She now supports our Adults in workskills in a wide range of crafts and life skills.

     

    Carolyn Berkson

    Support Staff

     

    Catherine Seaward

    Outreach Senior Support Staff

    Catherine joined us five years ago, starting as bank worker and is now Senior Support Worker in the outreach team.  Previously Catherine had worked for different care companies working in residential care homes and supported living services.  She puts her NVQ level 3 In Health  and Social Care  to very good use supporting our members.

     

    David Register

    Finance Manager

    After many years in commercial finance, David became our Finance Manager as well as keeping a tight hold of the Charities’ finances you will regularly find him helping out in our lunch club or delivering a buffet for our catering team. If the job involves money or food David won’t be far away.

    Elliott Large

    Catering Support Staff

    Studied BSC Nursing (Mental-Hea1th) at Anglia Ruskin University and gained a Higher Education Certificate in Applied Health Studies. Deciding to have a change of career he became the Commis Chef at a local fine dining eatery in Norfolk and was a volunteer at AWF in his spare time.

    But how could he combine his love of food with his passion for working with people with learning difficulties? Easy he joined our catering team and has been an inspiration to all the wonderful things they now produce.

    Georgia Atkins

    Apprentice

    After spending two years as a residential support worker for adults with challenging behaviour she decided to develop her experience and knowledge of care and joined AWF as an apprentice, She is not only a key member of the team but is also working hard towards her level 3 in health and social care.

     

    Gina Godwin-Harmer

    Lead Support Worker

    After spending nearly ten years working with adults and young people with learning disabilities and challenging behaviour across a range of different residential homes and day centres Gina gained her level 3 diploma in health and social care. She joined about with friends in 2015 as a support worker for work skills and progress to her current position of lead support worker for adult social activities which she love’s doing and gets a great deal of satisfaction out of  organising exciting events and days out for all our members to enjoy.

     

    Hannah Pennington

    Workskills manger

    Hannah joined us from “Jeesal” as Deputy Workskills Manager, her vast experience in support care has had a positive effect on all areas of our service. With her extensive training in Mental Health-Autism, and person centred planning, our service has gone from strength to strength with new ventures being added to our range of services regularly . Hannah has recently been promoted to Workskills Manager.

    Jamie Moses

    Head of Workskills Operations

    After spending many years as a business development manager Jamie moved on to a career in Business Finance and progressed to the position of General Manager at Honda. In 2010 He decided to try something new and moved to Norfolk.  Having enjoyed a fantastic time volunteering at AWF  an opportunity came along to join our support staff team and he has worked his way up to his current position.

     

    Jeanette Plumley

    Catering Support Staff

    As a support co-ordinator for Victory housing Jeanette provided a safe and caring environment for her residents. This caring approach is evident in the support she gives our members in our catering department from teaching them to make edible rose petals to making the wedding cake for our CEO she seems to bring a new skill to work every week.

     

    Julie Cook

    Support Staff

    Julie Ison

    Support Worker

    After spending 20 yrs as a carer for her late husband, Julie continued to work as a home career. She gained experience of dementia patients while working at Halsey House Cromer. To further her knowledge and experience she joined AWF and finds daily inspiration from working with our members

     

    Karen Funnell

    Laura Smith

    HR

    After 12 years in Construction recruitment both in Norfolk and Cambridgeshire Laura took 5 years out to raise her 3 young children. After re locating back to Norfolk she took a part time post with About with Friends as our HR Administrator, she is now an integral part of our strong back office team managing and overseeing our staff recruitment processes

    Leanne Grey

    After spending four years as an outdoor activities instructor Leanne decided on a change of direction having worked with children with learning difficulties as an instructor and having previous knowledge of AWF she successfully applied for the post of support worker on our Youth and Bespoke team

    Lesley Osborne

    Matt McMahon

    Support Staff

    Matt has many years experience working with adults with learning difficulties in farming, gardening, woodwork and IT. He enjoys a varied workload at About With Friends covering all aspects of Work skills, from gardening and catering to supporting our members in the events and presentation team.

     

    Michael Clancy

    Registered Manager & Head of Tailored Support

    Michael has spent all his working life in the care sector working in various roles, He joined the about with friends team in December 2015. In that time he has seen the organisation grow and develop enhancing the life’s of it’s members, it’s a privilege to be part of an organisation that listens to its members ensuring their voices are heard.

    Michelle Angus

    Adult Leisure Manager

    Michelle recently moved to Norfolk, after a visit to the Community Café in Cromer she knew she wanted to be part of AWF. She previously worked as a Care Manager providing private care, social visits and short respite breaks for vulnerable adults where she was able to have a positive and profound impact on the people she cared for and their families. She now leads our adult social programme and enjoys seeing our members learn new skills, overcome fears, having fun and increasing their independence and self-esteem

    Nicola Cummins

    Workskills Administrator

    Nicola has worked for most of her career in the voluntary sector including ten years as Marketing Officer at  Break Charity, six years as Volunteer Co-ordinator at Priscilla Bacon Lodge hospice and seven years as Administrator for the National Trust on the Isle of Wight. Nicola volunteered for AWF in an admin/fundraising role in 2016 and subsequently joined the staff team as Workskills Administrator in January 2017.    She says she has worked alongside some amazing, inspiring people over the years – members, patients, families, carers and colleagues and feels very lucky to continue this at AWF

    Rob Swann

    Support Staff

    Rob has brought with him over 20 years experience gained in the care industry from working with children in residential care to fostering in his own home. Rob has had a wide and diverse knowledge of care that he puts to great use everyday with our members in workskills.

     

    Sam Harwood

    PA to our CEO

    Sam joined About with Friends in 2016 after spending 11 years working as a school administrator and working with young children. Although her title is PA to our CEO she does much more than that from helping in our catering department on events to manning our charity shop. If help is needed Sam will always be the first to raise her hand.

     

    Sarah Hacon

    Support worker

    With over 10 years experience in catering Sarah Joined us from a special needs school where she held the position of catering manager. She now works across the whole charity from preparing meals for our cafe customers to supporting our members in workskills.

     

    Su Lee

    Sue started volunteering over 9 years ago which soon led to her becoming our Volunteer Co-ordinator working hard to find other volunteers to join and support our members both in working situations and social fun experiences.
    Sue enjoys helping our members try new things, go to new places and grow in confidence making  new friends along the way.

    Tim Funnell

    Gardening support staff

    After spending many years in retail sales Tim joined AWF as a general Bank support worker. During this time he soon built a strong rapport with our gardening members and when an opportunity came along to join our Gardening team full time he was our first choice.

     

    Tom Reading

     

    Tom joined us from residential care but brought with him a vast range of skills and experience from his years as a Teacher, to time he spent as a fine cabinet maker and boat builder. As workskills support co-ordinator Tom is here there and everywhere, supporting our catering,café gardening and production members and staff. In addition to all this he also leads on our basic maths and English class for our members.

    Tracey Winterbone

    Support worker

    Joined AWF as our café lead and after a successful time running the café she decided she wanted a change but we weren’t going to let her go that easily so she decided to stay with AWF and moved over to our supported living service and now works with our members in their own homes or on our outreach programme supporting members in the community.

     

Having spent many years in school with little improvements in I’s behaviour and speech, in just a few weeks with you the improvements in both areas are plain to see. Please continue as you are, as life at the moment for us as a family is greatly improved because of your input.

I haven’t seen D for ages and he looks like a new man . The stress has gone from his face – he looks great Well done !!!!

I just cannot thank you enough for taking K my daughter so that she could have fun with her friends on holiday in Milton Keynes, […] it made her extremely happy.

Selfishly for me it gave my wife a much sought after period of respite exhausted after 16 years of constant care. Complete respite is dependent upon the knowledge that your child is in safe professional caring hands. The ‘about with friends’ staff impress me because they display such enthusiastic vocational attitudes towards their care.

About with Friends and you particularly, have done some great work with excellent outcomes for D. I was particularly pleased to hear that you are working on integration with the Youth Group as I felt he would miss out on peer interaction if he didn’t come to college.

We cannot tell you what AWF means to us as a family – a lifeline, a light in the dark. Something that has offered our daughter equality, to have a social life and really support us as a family.

Over the last five years I have had a fortnightly, 2 hour designated gardening slot. I highly value your service and ethos.

Many thanks again for J’s lovely break in Derbyshire with About with Friends. He really enjoyed himself, had loads of fun and told us all about the cable cars, stepping stones, cinema, meals out, etc.! We would be very grateful if you could pass on our sincere thanks to all the staff who organised the holiday and supported our youngsters to enable them to have such a wonderful time. We are also very grateful as we, ourselves, were able to enjoy a short break in Paris, which was wonderful and recharged our batteries!

After 30 years of trying to get P engaged in activities, he is now, under your care, beginning to grow like a great Oak tree.

A big thank you to yourself and the About with Friends staff for another great trip! J had a fantastic time, going on the Harry Potter Studio Tour, which he had wanted to do for ages and ages.

It was a massive decision for his family to make and by choosing AWF it means they trust totally in the service. I am of the opinion that AWF is the only provision in the county for D and he is very happy to attend.