Continuing our series of team profiles, we’re delighted to introduce our Programme Manager, Julia.
Julia Prudhoe, our intrepid explorer, joined the Care City team in October 2019 as a Project Lead and tackled, very successfully, some of our more complex projects including developing training materials and facilitating training for Mental Health Peer Support Workers and supporting the recruitment of Kickstart Digital Champions into care homes in BHR. All in the midst of moving house, a brief lockdown stint in the north east, becoming a first time Auntie to Freddie and keeping the dog lovers amongst the team entertained with pictures of her sister’s new springer spaniel puppy Maggie.
Julia studied Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham from 2012- 2015 and spent her days learning about the history of British social policy, Health Policy and the NHS, triggering a desire to follow a career within the NHS, local authority or similar. It’s not fair to say that Uni was her only inspiration to follow this path however. Her Mum is a Director of a charity and social enterprise in Northumberland that is focused on improving the quality of life of disabled people and those who are unable to access services due to living in a rural location. Graduating from Uni, Julia spent time supporting her Mum with the administration, day to day running of the organisation and supporting some of the community projects, as well as Healthwatch Northumberland.
This helped gain an understanding of the health and care sector, the various structures and acronyms (‘still don’t know what they all mean’), and how it all fits together. But a lust for travel saw Julia heading to Asia, Australia and New Zealand for 4 months, and then another trip the following year to South America. Some may say her timing was bad, as an application she had made for the NHS General Management Graduation Scheme, saw her invited to an assessment centre, the invitation for which she received whilst seeing the sights of Rio De Janeiro! Needless to say, she was unable to make it home in time to attend!
Next stop Peru and it was here, her mum emailed her details of a job vacancy at the HIN. Her application was written in the mountains of Haraz, but the dodgy wifi did not hold her back as she states “it was clearly a good application as I was invited to interview”. This time she did make it home in time! Just. She returned to Northumberland and a day later was on the train to London to meet with the interview panel. Her only memory is of being so incredibly tired, oh and receiving the job offer!
It’s at the HIN, she met our Deputy CEO Hannah Harniess and after a year of working as a Project Support Officer, Julia was ready for the next challenge. An unsuccessful application to the Guys and St Thomas internal general management grad scheme (she did get through to the final 20 candidates!), she packed her bags and headed off on her travels once again. It was while on holiday in Gran Canaria, she received notification she was successful in getting an interview for a job at Imperial Healthcare NHS Trust in the Improvement Team. A role there as Senior Project Officer swiftly followed, seeing her jump from a Band 4 to a Band 6 and she speaks very fondly of her time there. But after gaining success and experience with managing the Flow Coaching Academy training programme she was ready for the next challenge. This time, timing was on her side as in June 2019 she saw a post from Hannah on LinkedIn, recruiting for a Project Lead. The rest as they say, is history…
Julia’s journey with us at Care City has seen her continue the whirlwind of self development. Showing a real aptitude for managing multiple complex projects and a real passion for engaging with young people and promoting the wealth of roles available in health and social care, we were delighted to promote her to Programme Manager where she now heads up all our workforce development and education projects. But not one to sit still, with our support she is also embarking on the NELFT Mentoring Programme, using some of the QI skills she developed at Imperial to mentor someone who is on the NELFT QI Facilitator Programme.
But what do we know about Julia outside of her work? Well her boyfriend, Sam is a die-hard Chelsea supporter, Julia is not! Instead she is happy being yelled at by some Boot Camp Instructor at ‘Toot Camp’ – boot camp but on Tooting Bec Common. She is a self confessed fan of bottomless brunches and was a member of The West End Musical Choir, but singing round the house must now suffice due to the Covid restrictions. However Julia’s big love is travel! But we’re all a bit worried about her travelling in the future given her track record of job offers while out of the country. We’re just not ready to say goodbye to Julia yet!
