Richard has worked for Equip for over two years. He came from the UK after having been employed by a large social service organisation there over a period of 10 years.
During that time he had a number of roles as a Support Worker. He came to New Zealand with his partner in January 2009.
“When I came to Equip, to work in the Residential Service, I noticed that a lot of the staff had formal qualifications – in fact this was encouraged within Equip. There is a culture of learning here and before too long I was encouraged to think about studying and obtaining a formal health qualification. I mean, it did not escape my attention that my first boss at Equip was only 22 years old!!!! So after much investigation and procrastination, I have enrolled to study Occupational Therapy full-time at AUT. This will be a steep learning curve for me as I have never done anything like this before. In fact, until I came to Equip, I was very resistant to undertaking study of any kind. But I was getting left behind. People younger than me were getting positions that had them becoming my boss!!! Really I had no excuse when I was working alongside colleagues that were working full-time, doing University level study AND bringing up a family. If they could do it, I figured maybe I could too.
I have absolutely loved my time working at Equip. The work itself has been pretty much what I expected and was used to from my UK years. But the culture of Equip has blown me away. It is an absolute joy to work here. There is a high level of fun amongst the team but that fun is not at the detriment of professionalism. Somehow Equip recruits really great people that I have loved working with. I have been supported here more than anywhere else I have worked. I am not a Christian, and this organisation is a church based one and working with the team here has made me feel more positive about Christianity.”
Richard hopes to be able to continue doing Casual work for Equip while he is studying.