STAFF at a Herefordshire care service have taken on a major challenge after they were inspired by a training programme.

Staff members Karen Hunt, Millie Davies, and Lydia Lawrence, who are all office staff at Herefordshire’s Services for Independent Living, have raised an incredible £3,467.19 for the charity after completing a sponsored walk up Snowdon.

Their decision to take the challenge on came after they successfully completed the Springboard Early Career Success Program, designed by Hereford’s New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE).

The three, who started the course in February 2023 took over a year to complete it as they were also working full time. But with all of their hard work, they achieved their goal and all felt the experience had been a valuable benefit to their career development.

After months of training an intrepid team of climbers from Services for Independent Living (SIL) has successfully climbed Mount Snowdon, along with friends from the Vixens Rugy team.After months of training an intrepid team of climbers from Services for Independent Living (SIL) has successfully climbed Mount Snowdon, along with friends from the Vixens Rugy team. (Image: SIL)

When asked which part of the NMITE course has had the most impact, both Ms Davies and Ms Lawrence agreed upon the project management module. It was from this session that the idea of ‘Walk with SIL’ was born. Ms Lawrence said how “after the day, we wondered what we could do as our project to put our new skills into practice,” before deciding on “something that would help our service users.”

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“From this we decided a challenge with all the planning that would involve was the right thing to do – and so came up with Walk with SIL, a sponsored walk of Snowdon. We completed it last month and raised over £3,467.19 for SIL,” Ms Davies said, with both agreeing that the course has helped them with goal setting and reflection; both important skills for a workplace.

Ms Hunt also agreed with her colleagues about how useful the course had been. 

“For me the best thing is that it has made me push my own boundaries," she said. 

"I am now much happier working outside my comfort zone. We all really liked the first session on self-management. That has taught us so many useful tools for looking after ourselves."