Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

My responsibility is to ensure the homeless people in our service, our 'customers', are involved in the running of the organisation. This could be through co-designing services or activities, co-delivering projects, or co-auditing services through scrutiny panels, audits and surveys.

The aim of my role is to:
› Enable customers to contribute as partners to the delivery of Evolve's services, including in the development and governance of the organisation
› Increase customer involvement in co-production throughout Evolve
› Support Evolve's services staff to recruit and develop Customer Champions (who are customers who become a voice for their service)
› Support and maintain an overview of local co-production activities (this could be monthly customer meetings or general involvement activities such as cooking workshops or women's groups)
› Recruit, train and develop customer champions, auditors, interviewers, trainers and Customer Scrutiny Panel Members
› Co-ordinate the Customer Champions’ forum and support the Customer Scrutiny Panel

My work also includes policy consultations with customers, training staff on customer involvement and empowerment, coordinating a quarterly customer newsletter, and running events such as the annual customer conference.

Every day is completely different - I'll work at the head office twice a week and the hostels three days a week. Sometimes I'll deliver training to large groups of staff - such as Customer Involvement and Empowerment, or to customers, such as training to be on Evolve's interview panels.

I am the main point of contact for staff who want to involve customers in any consultations and will advise how to do this.

I am always pushing for new ways to engage our customers, for example using WhatsApp to broadcast team meetings or Facebook Live to stream senior meetings to increase transparency.

Every day is different and challenging. I love working with our customers who inspire me every day.

Our customers have a wide range of support needs; mental health problems, drug and alcohol addictions, gang involvement, history of violence etc. I am lucky to have undertaken some wonderful training, but in my line of work difficult situations will always occur.

After getting involved with Sheffield RAG I became interested in charities. Homeless charities appealed to me because I'm a real homebody; I love coming back home and feeling completely relaxed and safe and I believe everyone should have this basic right.

Prince2 Project management
InDesign training
Training and facilitation skills
Excellent verbal and written communication needed
Stakeholder management
Budgeting
Creative problem solving skills
The ability to work with a wide range of people

I graduated in summer 2014.

I was successful in applying for the Charityworks graduate scheme, where I started in September 2014 as a Management Trainee, undertaking various projects for the charity Queen Elizabeth's Foundation for Disabled People.

In May 2015 I applied and was successful for a job at the same charity as Heritage Project Manager. I managed the delivery of a £81,400 heritage project commissioned by the Heritage Lottery Fund for QEF’s 80th anniversary. This involved creating exhibitions, curating an archive, taking a performance about disability to schools with a group of disabled actors, recording oral histories. My project was featured in the BBC and the Guardian.

As this was fixed term, I had a two month break before starting at Evolve as Co-Production and Involvement Advisor.

I would like to stay in the non-profit housing sector, possibly getting involved with more of the quality aspects of the role. I am extremely happy with my position and company currently.

Be enthusiastic and be prepared for challenges - but it's worth it!