Member of the Month: Garry Brough

Hey Garry! Congratulations on winning Member of the Month - could you tell us a little bit about your background, what apprenticeship you are doing & where you work?

Thank you. I work in the voluntary sector, in an organisation called Positively UK. We are an HIV peer support organisation who help people to live well with HIV, through one to one and group support, as well as workshops and training opportunities. My role is Lead for Peer Learning, Partnerships & Policy, so I deliver or organise all our staff and volunteer training opportunities and work with partner organisations around the delivery of peer support or peer mentor training projects. I’m currently an apprentice on the Project Management Programme, as there are limited opportunities to support management training within the voluntary sector, as funding is tight. 

So, how do you feel about winning Member of the Month? Can you tell us a bit about your nomination? E.g who you were nominated by and why?

I’m very touched to have been nominated, as it was by an apprentice on the same programme, who I actually Line Manage. We have both found some aspects of the apprenticeship challenging, mainly due to previously unidentified neurodiversity issues, so I have done my best to try to ensure a supportive environment by factoring in mutual problem solving and revision practice. This allowed for additional learning and support opportunities and helped my colleague pass the exam. 

The Multiverse Community gives Apprentices the opportunity to build meaningful, social and professional relationships. Have you found the Community has helped you to build your network throughout your Apprenticeship and if so, how?

I’ve also had the opportunity to work in a similar way with another apprentice in our cohort, as we had both failed the initial APM exam. To try and improve our chances of passing the resit, we scheduled in revision sessions to try and get more confidence and exam practice. Thankfully I received a (long delayed) clinical diagnosis in advance of the resit and with the additional time allocated, feel a lot more confident in passing this time. Interestingly although not in the voluntary sector this apprentice was also working in a role that provides support to vulnerable people, via a local authority, which has been a useful link for my organisation’s youth team. 

What has been the most rewarding experience you’ve had so far as an apprentice?

Other than the ability to help each other out in the revision and learning process, the most rewarding experience was undertaking a scheduling assignment in my apprenticeship and then receiving a request from a funder the following week for exactly the document which I had just prepared. It was an amazingly timely opportunity to demonstrate the new skills I’d acquired, and impressed the person requesting the information a great deal.