Chloe

Where I started

"I came to Southwark Council after spending the first decade of my career in the community and voluntary sector in North West England. I had been on the delivery side of services for disabled children and adults and had experienced many frustrations working with the local authority. When I relocated to London, I decided to seek to broaden my experience to gain a greater understanding of how other parts of the health and social care system operate." 

Coming to Southwark

"I saw the External Funding Officer post advertised and felt that it would be a good first step into the local authority world, whilst drawing on my past experience of bid-writing, fundraising, partnership working and service development. 

 

For the past 4 years, I have worked in this role, writing and developing proposals with colleagues and partners for external funding. I have also had the opportunity to work on some key campaigns such as Laptops 4 Learning, a Southwark-wide crowdfunding campaign which raised funds to keep children connected to their education during the pandemic, and our local Cost of Living response, delivering workshops to hundreds of partners and colleagues to ensure people could access vital sources of support and funding during those challenging times."

Seeing projects through

"More recently, I have worked with colleagues and local partners on a £1 million bid to the Department for Education’s Short Breaks Innovation Programme. Following a successful outcome, I applied for a secondment to be the Programme Manager to oversee the resulting projects and was appointed. This has allowed me to draw on my past experience of developing and managing services for disabled people in the voluntary sector. It’s nice to be involved in seeing something through from inception to delivery again!"

What it's like to work for a local authority

"I did not think I would last in the Local Authority when I joined 4 and a half years ago – I was accustomed to working in a very agile and responsive voluntary sector and had found the local authority where I worked previously hard to navigate and engage. There have been some challenges in adjusting but there are also great opportunities for influencing and affecting change and I have been pleasantly surprised by the amount of autonomy that I’ve had in my roles! I have also been able to get involved in more strategic work with a range of partners – giving me a far greater understanding of the wider systemic issues at play – I have learnt a great deal and continue to do so every day!"