Last week we celebrated 27 years of service to ubu by one of our specialist managers.
Mark began working for ubu as an Enabler back in 1990 when there were just a few supports in Harrogate and Leeds. “They were very different times” says Mark. “Our support teams were much smaller and less experienced. The people we served typically lived together in group homes, sharing bedrooms, facilities and care from staff.”
During the next decade Mark gained a huge amount of experience firstly as an enabler working in the new supports ubu was opening around the country then as a service manager. “I was there when we open our first respite home, I was there when we were first accredited with an autism award and I was there as the first person in ubu to receive a NVQ 3 award.
In 1996, ubu was presented with its first Investors in People Award by Sir John Harvey Jones and Mark was asked to give a speech to hundreds of people at this event.
As the new millennium dawned, ubu expanded its services across the north of England. “It was a very exciting and challenging time” says Mark, “I took on various managing roles including leading inductions for new team members and in 2013 participating in our company-wide Re-alignment programme. As ubu began to pioneer the uStep flats model of support which enabled many of the people we serve to live with much greater independence, I had opportunities to work with our growing enabling teams, mentoring and encouraging them to embrace change and to move forward.”
“I’m as excited today as I’ve ever been about whatever I will be doing next. My current role is Specialist Peripatetic Manager, which gives me the chance to work with people from every part of ubu helping them to find truly audacious outcomes and successes.”
“Whilst working with ubu I have seen a partial eclipse of the sun, severe droughts, wonderful snowstorms, Haley’s comet, the first mobile phone and laughed my socks off and no I wasn’t around when electricity was invented…cheeky!”
