Getting the best of both worlds

Sharon Goodwin is a union learning representative (ULR) for UCATT, having started out as a carpenter in the building trade. After taking a break to bring up her children, she tried something new.

“I ended up working in an office, which didn’t really agree with me because I’d worked on site before I even left school,” she says.
During her career break, the government introduced site safety cards to ensure only trained workers were allowed on site. Sharon needed a National Vocational Qualification to be allowed back on site and it was while she was working to achieve it that training manager Graham Harris asked her to work for him as an assessor.

Sharon now gets the best of both worlds, going onsite to visit candidates and gather evidence as they work towards their NVQ’s whilst keeping warm in an office.

“If I hadn’t gone into training, I would have still been on site working on the tools every day. I’m getting older now and the winters are cold,” she grins. “It’s a progression up.”

Sharon still continues to support union members who are struggling as a result of the economic downturn.
“Being a ULR allows me to talk to other people about the training we can provide,” she says. “I can let them know what’s out there and what’s available for them. It helps their confidence, finding what they’d like to do and what we can provide for them.”