Jenny Travassos

Prior to joining Broadway, Jenny was a stay at home mom, raising her daughter. After seeing an advert in the Big Issue, Jenny started volunteering in Broadway's Manor Place hostel for about 5 months. As a volunteer, she was given a lot of varying tasks which gave her an understanding of what was needed to work in the hostel environment. Noting Jenny's enthusiasm, the Deputy Manager of Manor Place encouraged her to apply for the Broadway's traineeship programme. She saw it as an opportunity to put some of her personal experience with homelessness back into an organization similar to that which helped her. She joined the traineeship in January 2005.

During her traineeship, Jenny has had to learn very quickly. As she puts it, she was "thrown in at the deep end", as the hostel she was assigned to was closing for refurbishment. During this time, she had to find alternative places for the clients, while still supporting them with their needs. Looking back, she said that she valued this lesson as it gave her an opportunity to jump in and try different ways of working with clients. Although it was daunting at first, she was reassured by the support of the Broadway infrastructure behind her.

Among the many things she learnt during her traineeship, one of the most important things was that the clients needed to be treated as adults who can make their own decision with support to implement them. She recalled that at times, it was easy to fall into the trap of assuming someone's end goals were similar to others. It was when she took the time to listen that it became clear; some clients may not want to stop using drugs, alcohol or address their mental health. She had to keep reminding herself that it was not up to her to decide their future, it was up to them but her role was to find ways of supporting them to make their decisions educated ones.

Another important learning curve for Jenny was how to be aware of boundaries and her own emotional response to the clients. Quite early on in her career, she had to go through the death of a client. Alongside his long term alcohol problems, the man was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It was difficult to go through, especially since he was Jenny's first client. The experience has taught her a lot about the health services and what support was available to those with cancer, and not to get too emotionally involved.

Jenny has come a long way since she started volunteering for Broadway in 2004. She has worked her way up from being a trainee to a Housing Support Worker to working in a specialist project to becoming a manager. Jenny then worked in a specialist project before becoming a manager in Supported Housing, moving to manage a hostel based service, and now being seconded to an Area Manager role When asked about what she thought of the traineeship, she said:

"Broadway supported me to get a qualification in Addiction Studies and the Leading Places of Change course for Managers. I have been given a great many of opportunities throughout my time here and I would recommend it to anyone. Out of my previous team of 4, there are 3 ex trainees!"

Jenny is currently on a secondment as an Area Manager, with responsibility for several of Broadway's hostels and other advice and support services.