Who Am I?
I’m Jo Whitehead, and I work as a Moving & Handling of People trainer. I’ve been providing training on behalf of OFI since Nov 2021.
My Professional Background
I have been a physiotherapist for over 20 years now and have worked in various NHS hospitals and a few hospitals internationally, too. More latterly, I worked in a nursing home for 8 years where I was the lead physio and lead for Moving & Handling. This role included assessing residents, formulating and updating M&H care plans, purchasing M&H equipment, and training staff. My speciality within physio is elderly care, so with my physio and M&H roles, I’ve helped to assist many hundreds of elderly people, and I always share my top tips for this in training sessions.
I started in 2021 when I was unexpectedly made redundant from the nursing home, which led me to evaluate what the best bits about that job were. I realised that I really enjoyed being in the training room and teaching. With my wealth of people-moving experience, I have a lot of knowledge about the realities of assisting people to move in hospital and care settings.
The best thing about my job is...
The variety! Sometimes, I’ll be providing fast-paced training in hospital settings; other days, it might be more relaxed, in a community care setting, for example. I am enjoying learning London geography to find places – they say you can’t call yourself a Londoner until you can navigate around it using buses. I reckon I’m getting there for West London, at least!
My most rewarding moment at OFI:
My most rewarding moments at OFI are generally the ad-hoc lingering-by-the-door-to-leave style feedback, such as “I came here expecting this to be another boring mandatory training session, and it’s the best training I’ve ever had!”.
Outside of OFI...
Outside of OFI, I enjoy adventure travel, and I’m excited to be planning another trip to the Arctic Circle in a polar winter.
My approach and commitment to your company’s training needs:
My motto for providing training is that it should be interesting, fun, and relevant; if any of those elements are missing, then frankly, there’s no point. I always share some real-life challenges and anecdotes in my training to make sessions more relevant and meaningful.
