greater jobs

Find out more, first hand from our people about the great support, development and benefits to working at Trafford Council.

Nicola's Story - My Career Journey - Enforcement Housing Officer

Daniel's Story - My supported Internship Journey

I am mum to a young lady who is registered disabled and who has a severe learning disability. My daughter has a rare genetic condition that has resulted in global developmental delay. She has always been in special education provision. She has severe communication problems and displays autistic tendencies in her behaviour. I work full time and have worked at Trafford Council for over 20 years.

I have always found the Council to be incredibly supportive and flexible.

My manager understands how difficult some days can be and how juggling work and caring responsibilities can take its toll.

The Council’s flexitime policy is particularly helpful – this allows me to help my daughter with her personal care in the morning and come in to work later. My team also work in a hybrid way – so I do have the opportunity to work from home. This is also really helpful when juggling my caring responsibilities.

The reality of caring for a disabled daughter can be difficult at times and can take its toll. I do feel supported at work and feel able to discuss my mental health with my manager in an open and honest way. The time off for emergencies provision is also helpful if I have an emergency and have to make other arrangements for her care.

I feel lucky that I am able to continue to work in a job I love whilst still being able to offer the care and on-going support my daughter needs. I am also really pleased that the Council has developed a working carer action plan. There is also a carer staff networking group which is beneficial as you can get support from others facing the same daily struggles.

I am the Team Leader for Housing Standards at Trafford. I started in this role in June 2021 and manage two full-time members of staff. Our team sits within Regulatory Services within the Council alongside other teams such as Environmental Health and Pest Control. The role of Housing Standards includes responding to complaints of disrepair within privately rented properties, licencing of houses in multiple occupation, bringing empty properties back into use and completing immigration inspections.

As the Team Leader, I am responsible for managing staff, completing freedom of information requests, responding to Councillor enquiries, alongside having my own caseload. The role is very varied and whilst it's always busy, we work great together as a team and are supportive and flexible in our approach. 

When I completed my first degree at the age of 21 in Cell Biology, I was really unsure what I career I wanted to do. My degree taught me that laboratory work wasn’t for me but I wanted to use my qualification to get into a career I would really enjoy. My Father was a qualified Environmental Health Officer (EHO) and thought that I might like this type of work as it would give me the opportunity to get out, meet lots of new people and from one day to the next would offer me a lot of variety and challenge.

To find out more I took the initiative to meet with one of his colleagues who really promoted the career and the opportunities available. This resulted in me applying to study a postgraduate degree in Environmental Health. Whilst completing my first year of the degree, I volunteered at Oldham Council one day per week in order to gain experience and learn as much as I could. This eventually resulted in me getting a paid placement at Stockport Council.

I started at Stockport in 2007 and was lucky to be offered a permanent post with them when I qualified as an EHO in 2009. I worked in a variety of areas of Environmental Health but started doing housing enforcement in 2012, which I really enjoyed. Whilst the role can be challenging at times, it is equally as rewarding, especially when you get the chance to really help members of the public and make a difference to their home and family life. 

In 2017 I moved to London and worked at the London Borough of Richmond as a Housing EHO. I worked as a temporary Team Leader for the team from 2019 until I left in June 2021, when I took my current position as Team Leader here at Trafford.

When the opportunity arose to become a qualified coach with full funding and support from Trafford Council and STAR Procurement, I jumped at the chance!

I had been lucky enough to receive coaching myself and knew how valuable it was to have the time and space to work through current issues, future plans and areas for personal and professional development.

Participating in the qualification has allowed me to learn more about myself as a person and helped me to develop in my own role as a leader and manager.

Through the various interactive workshops I attended as part of the programme I have also been lucky enough to meet some great peoples who, like me, were keen to invest in their own personal development and learn new skills.

The qualification at times has been challenging as there is lots of reading, research and practice to undertake, but equally it’s been just as rewarding. I’ve been fully supported by my manager, immediate colleagues and also other colleagues from across the Council who were taking part in the apprenticeship at the same time. It’s been so useful to have a forum to share ideas, approaches and challenges both within my coaching practice and the assignments. 

One of the greatest benefits to becoming a coach is that I have met and worked with Trafford Council’s own employees who have asked for coaching to support their personal and professional development. All the people I have worked with have been engaged, positive and inspirational and it’s been so rewarding as many of the people I have supported have been successful in gaining new positions and promotions at the Council. I would absolutely recommend it to others.

We champion and support a variety of work experience opportunities and placements and are proud to support supported internships. Here's Daniel's story about his journey to date at The Council and within the HR Team.....

My name is Daniel, I’m 24 years old and live in Stretford. I am on the supported Internship at Trafford Council. The supported internship is run in partnership with Trafford College and Pure Innovations and gives me the chance to try 3 different placements whilst studying.

I come into the Town Hall Monday to Thursday and attend my placement is in the morning and in the afternoon.  I do classroom sessions to study an Employment Skills level 1 Qualification. On a Friday I travel to Trafford College in Altrincham to study for my functional skills qualifications.

My first placement is with the HR retained team. I spend two days with the Learning and Development team and two days with the recruitment team.

The people on the HR teams are fantastic and helpful. In my placement, I have been sending emails to different team members and council staff. I have been going out to different events and meetings, including visiting Hotel Football for a Leadership Summit where I sat on reception and signed people in. I have also been filmed for a Health and Safety video for staff.

I have been learning new skills such as using the printers for scanning and printing. I have a number of duties to help the team such as checking the post and ensuring everyone has signed the fire safety register each morning.

I am enjoying meeting new people and visiting different places. In the future I would like to work in IT as I enjoy working with different software and connecting different wires in the correct order.
Learn More About Supported Internships 
If you are interested in completing a supported internship you can find out more information by visiting Trafford College's Supported Internship Pages.