Introducing two new members of staff joining our Probation project

Citizens Advice Harlow is excited to introduce to you, two new members of staff who join Barry on our Probation project. Read more about Sana and Sharon below.

Sana

I am a paralegal and have worked across the legal sectors including prisons, courts and law firms. My experience ranges from further education, across a university, working in Intellectual Properties and copyright law, and vulnerable students with disabilities. Offender Management, as an OSG at Her Majesty’s Prisons, supporting inmates and their families with visits, counselling, and general support. Across the crown and county courts as a clerk and witness service.  Legal secretarial work across local law firms and Citizens Advice work.

I have worked as an Adviser and a Supervisor in Citizens Advice for over 10 years and the skills and experience I have gained have been invaluable. One of my many roles was a Universal Credit Specialist and Project Lead for my local Citizens Advice when the new benefits system was introduced. I have trained and mentored colleagues on Universal Credit and advised clients on applying for this.

More recently I have been working for the Probation team at Citizens Advice Harlow advising clients on better money management, accessing services, and benefits.

Working with our clients has not only been rewarding but has given me an insight into what problems the Harlow community faces, enabling me to do the best I can to reduce that problem, however challenging.

Sharon

I started as a Legal Secretary in the Conveyancing Department.   I quickly moved into the Personal Injury Team as a Secretary.  I progressed onto file handling, dealing with road traffic accident cases of my own, and headed a Team of 5 people. 

In 2002, after my daughter was born, I started a new Team to deal with all initial contact with clients. It involved finding out what had happened to the client, gathering evidence, opening files, preparing funding before the file was passed to the file handler, and keeping much-needed statistics in relation to the amount of work and its sources.  In later years the Personal Injury Team merged with the Clinical Negligence Team and I became part of an integrated Team, at which point my role became more paralegal.   

I have always admired the work Citizens Advice does for the local community and all free so when I saw that Citizens Advice Harlow was advertising for a Probation Adviser, I did not hesitate to apply.   

I am finding the training very interesting and cannot wait to start putting what I have learned into practice.