Hello everyone! We’re Josephine and Jack, and we wanted to say how excited we are to be part of the Skills for People family.
Since joining Skills in 2025, we’ve been welcomed with curiosity, kindness, and more than a little buzz. Lots of people have got to know us, and that’s helped us settle in after what felt like a huge (and slightly scary) change. Luckily, we’ve been surrounded by great people who helped us feel right at home.
We’ve made new friends, reconnected with old ones, and most importantly, spent time with lots of people with a learning disability, supporting each other along the way. We’re thrilled that Tom and Viv have been right beside us on this journey, as they’ve been our colleagues and friends for 14 years, and it means the world to continue working together.
What have we been up to?
Quite a lot, actually!
- We’ve been dropping into loads of Skills groups like Men of the North, Meet n Connect, and Women Zone, exploring topics such as trust, friendship, wellbeing, and physical, mental and sexual health.
- We launched our monthly Coffee n Chat sessions, a relaxed way to introduce ourselves, learn how people like to work, and find out what Skills users want from us in the future.
- At Coffee n Chat, we’ve explored bite-sized topics like What makes a good friend?, Dating, Christmas pressures, and Keeping it real with New Year’s resolutions.
- We were honoured to be special guests at Disability North’s 40th birthday celebrations, where we danced along to the Signing Choir and chatted with loads of brilliant people.
- We visited Disability Action Darlington’s Independent Living Hub, meeting some fantastic young people and running a wellbeing workshop.
- And behind the scenes, we’ve been busy creating a new two-day course on grief and bereavement, something we know really matters to our community.
What people have said about us
We’ve been especially touched by the feedback from Coffee n Chat sessions:
“They are like nice friends.”
“I would love to work with them!”
“I really like how you turned the negatives into positives.”
“Today’s session was fab. I got to know what things meant. I know relationships can get confusing at times but I will get through it I am sure. Thank you for your support!”
“Can Jack help me with my confusion about my sexuality?”
As we head into the new year, we’re feeling full of hope, optimism and enthusiasm, and we can’t wait to meet even more of you. Come and say hello, we promise we’re friendly 😊.
All our Love,
Josephine and Jack 🧡