SARH customers’ chance to learn new skills

Customers of Stafford and Rural Homes will be able to swat up on their IT skills, learn about eBay and how to save energy in January.

The housing association is launching its biggest ever programme of free customer learning courses in January with plans to offer different sessions all year.

“We are committed to offering training opportunities that are accessible to all our customers, are enjoyable and provide useful life skills,” said Laura Buckley, Customer Participation Officer for SARH.

“Our new customer learning programme is full of new and exciting courses and we are really keen to get new customers involved that have never taken part in our courses before.”

The sessions kick off with ‘IT for Beginners’ on Thursday, January 13, ‘Buying and Selling on eBay’ Monday, January 17, and ‘Save energy, save money’ on Thursday, January 25.

All of these courses will be run at SARH’s head office at The Rurals and for the first time, SARH will be repeating sessions in rural areas – making the sessions more accessible for customers living outside of Stafford.

Customers will be able to download a copy of the training schedule from a dedicated learning programme page on the SARH website and this year 10 new courses have been added to the programme including sign language, parenting and accredited first aid.

SARH staff, customers, and partners are running the training courses at several community centres and other locations around Stafford and the surrounding areas.

Since the Customer Learning Programme was launched in 2008, SARH has put on more than 70 courses with more than 700 customers attending lessons.

The lessons are open to anyone regardless of experience or ability.

“Our courses are all free to attend and offer our customers the chance to improve their employment credentials, build on existing skills or just meet new friends,” said Laura