Gillian Hutchinson of Frosterley, is Head of Department – King’s Trust at The Education Training Collective (The Etc.), a college group based in Tees Valley which is proud to have been delivering King’s Trust programmes in the North East of England for 30 years. This article is part of our 50 stories for 50 years series.
Our first 12-week Team (then called Volunteers) programme took place in September 1996 at Stockton Riverside College. By the early 2000s we were running courses in many community locations across the North East. We had also become the funding college for the programme across the North of England, supporting other organisations from the Scottish Borders down to Leeds.
I started as a Prince’s Trust Team Leader in 2002 and ran my first Team programme in Bishop Auckland. I came upon The Trust in a very roundabout way. My degree was in costume production and, after four years in London working at the BBC and a short spell at Rambert Dance company, I needed to move back to the North East. When I saw the advert for the Team Leader role, I thought “Well, I have done all of my Duke of Edinburgh Awards… they must be similar!” I was very mistaken about that though!
Stepping up
I took up the challenge and absolutely loved it. No two groups of young people were the same and I thoroughly enjoyed meeting new people in the community to organise work placements, community projects and challenges for the young people. I also delivered the then Prince’s Trust XL Club (now called Achieve) for school groups and was honoured to be able to lead two European Team programmes in 2005 and 2006. The project in Romania, where we took a ten young people from County Durham to undertake a transformative project at a junior school in a Romanian village, was life changing for the children, our young people and also for me and the other staff involved. This project was runner up at the 2007 Prince’s Trust Awards.
In 2008, I picked up the mantle of Department Manager. I have never been unfulfilled in my work! The young people and our amazing communities have kept this work interesting, and in 24 years I have never looked back.
In the early years, our Prince’s Trust delivery felt like added value activity for the college, enabling us to support young people who would not normally access further education. Now my King’s Trust department is a strong curriculum delivery department in its own right. We have been graded as outstanding in seven out of the last eight years. I am constantly looking at new ways to develop and enhance the work we do for young people.
Team of the year
One of my proudest moments in this role was when the Etc./Prince’s Trust staff team was awarded the Pearson National Further Education Team of the Year (gold award) in 2020. This is a prestigious teaching award which enabled us to showcase the work of The Trust on a national stage and enabled our delivery to be recognised as transformational for those who would not normally step foot inside a college. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we were all in our own homes when we saw the result announced on the One Show!
The standout joys for me in delivering the King’s Trust programmes remain people and partnerships. The amazing young people we work with, the transformational work that the Team Leaders, Achieve tutors and support staff do every day with our young people across communities in the North East plus the amazing partnerships which help make the work of The Trust stand out as exceptional.
Emotional moments
The most rewarding part about my work is seeing the young people move forward and achieve. The final presentations are often an emotional moment. For some young people it is simply achieving getting out of their house and attending a course for 12 whole weeks. For others, the King’s Trust has been life changing.
A young man who came to us, via probation, with a face full of anger on day one, proudly smiled throughout his final presentation. He told the audience that he had secured a scaffolding apprenticeship – his nan and probation workers were in floods of tears! We have worked with learners on the Achieve study programme who didn’t think they would be able to complete a college course and have now progressed onto university.
We currently have three members of staff who first came to us as young people on the Team programme. In addition, a five-year partnership with Help 4 Heroes enabled medically discharged veterans to work with our Team programmes and led to at least six of them becoming members of staff in my department, bringing their motivation, dedication and inspiration to help support our young people.
Never a dull moment
I absolutely love this work. Never a dull moment! I was told, when I first started as a Team Leader, that if you can deliver a Prince’s Trust programme, you can tackle anything. There have been lots of challenges throughout the years, but lots of sunshine moments too.
