Spotless Services staff celebrate Stepping Stones graduation

15/06/2011 | Spotless Services

Seven Palmerston North Hospital-based Spotless Services staff were supported by friends, colleagues and family members at lunchtime yesterday to celebrate their completion of the new Stepping Stones literacy, language and numeracy skills course.

To show their support for the graduates Spotless senior manager Vaughan Biggs travelled from Auckland with the company’s training manager Barbara Gaston who developed and managed the 20-week Stepping Stones course for the Whanganui, MidCentral District Health Boards, and four other DHBs.

A joint venture between Spotless and the government-funded Workplace Literacy Fund, the course enables adult students to attend 20 two-hour onsite, work-time training sessions which they back up with assignments completed in their own time.

Spotless Regional Manager Peter Birch says: “It is having a significant impact on our staff members’ confidence.

“For most Palmerston North students, English is their first language but for one reason or another they’ve struggled with reading, writing and basic maths and until now, many have been reluctant to address this.

“When we offered them the opportunity to study together and support each other they jumped at the chance and it’s pleasing to see class sizes increasing nationwide.”

The impetus for government workplace literacy funding arose from the International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (ALLS) conducted in 2006. Surprisingly, the survey showed 43% of New Zealanders aged 16 to 65 were unable to read and write at the level required by modern society, and 80% of those affected were in the workforce.

Under the centralAlliance agreement Spotless is contracted to both the Whanganui and MidCentral District Health Boards where the Stepping Stones programme is run simultaneously. The Whanganui DHB graduation ceremony for their 10 graduates was held earlier in the day at a morning tea function in Wanganui.

The Palmerston North graduates were: Lucy Ohlson, Thaweeporn Saengjan, Booranee Roskruge, Kay Murray, Jocelyn Ware, Colin Pickthall, and Sattar Hussein.

Contacts

Whanganui District Health Board senior communications and media advisor Sue Campion, telephone (06) 348-1312; or MidCentral District Health Board communications spokesperson Dennis Geddis (06) 350-8900.