CAST: Meet the team!
Continuing our series of Q&As with members of the CAST team, we chat to Joyce Borgs, CAST’s Head of Digital Learning and Transformation. Joyce works across strategy and delivery, designs learning experiences and supports the sector and funders to embrace innovation.
Hi Joyce! Firstly, please could you tell us a bit about your background and how you ended up working at CAST?
I’ve worked in the charity sector in various roles for over twenty three years. In my last role I managed a large UK wide home visiting service for Parkinson’s UK. It was an exciting time to be at that organisation — we had one of the first Directors of Digital Transformation in the charity sector and we were exposed to digital and digital ways of working early on. We had an innovations lab for use by staff teams and my service was part of a large service redesign project supported by FutureGov. The latter was a deep dive into the world of digital service design and agile methodologies. It brought together advice and healthcare workers and people with Parkinson’s with service designers, data analysts, product managers, content designers and developers. It helped me redesign and reframe my own and my team’s approach to problem solving, project management and digital. The more I learned the more I clocked that the folks from FutureGov had my dream job — supporting the sector to discover the joy, creativity and power of user-centred, test-driven design and become more flexible, responsive and resilient.
What sectors have you worked in?
I have mostly worked in mental health and health and social care as well as the environment sector (I’ve lived and worked at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) when I first arrived in the UK from the Netherlands) and infrastructure for the charity sector — always with an organisational and staff development focus. I have done some work with Public Health around impact evaluation of training.
What is the most valuable course or professional qualification you have completed?
I did a degree in organisational and personal development in my 30s at the University of Chester. It was quite an out there leadership course at the time and through it I was exposed to lots of interesting influences like Nancy Kline’s Thinking Environment.
Are there any courses you would particularly recommend?
That would have to be Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). I coach and train trainers for this programme. Not only does this two day course help you to save lives by giving you the skills and knowledge to recognise and talk to someone with thoughts of suicide, it is also an extremely well designed course from a learning design and strategy perspective. Even as an experienced trainer/learning designer you’ll learn lots from it.
What is the most enjoyable project you’ve worked on?
I love learning and having aha moments — you know when you discover something new or have a sudden insight connecting patterns and knowledge: that feeling of something in your brain and the world opens up. I enjoy any project where I, and the people I work with, are in it for the learning.
What skills/knowledge have you picked up over the years which supports your role at CAST?
Through my suicide intervention work I have worked internationally with a wide variety of people, including charity workers, medical staff and first responders, as well as community members and volunteers. It has really taught me how to facilitate people and groups from all walks of life with different experiences and backgrounds and I use my facilitation and coaching skills a lot.
I have developed an in-depth working knowledge of the sector by having worked in it for so long. I think this in-depth understanding of the sector and the pressures those who work in it are under, combines well with my knowledge of skills in organisational development, how people learn and user-centred, test-driven design.
What would you say is your ‘superpower’? What’s the thing you particularly excel at?
I’m fairly comfortable in uncomfortable situations, and with uncertainty, something I’ve learned through my suicide intervention work. It’s a skill that pays off when holding space for people learning new things. All learning that’s worthwhile requires leaning into uncertainty and discomfort and being able to model this is important.
We are allocated two volunteering days per year at CAST. Can you tell us about any ways that you have used this in the past — and any plans for the future?
Last year I became a trustee for the Prison Phoenix Trust. They support prisoners to develop their spiritual welfare through yoga and meditation and do this through teaching, workshops, correspondence, books and newsletters. It’s been rewarding to finally take this step and use my years of experience in the sector in digital and leadership roles to support this valuable work.
Do you have a particular area or sector you’re most interested in?
I’d like to think a different and better world is possible and I really thrive on working with and supporting organisations and people who are making the world a better place. I worked in the environment sector years ago and would like to do more with this as well as the arts, I went to art college many years ago and never lost my love for it.
Can you give us a typical ‘day in the life’ of your role at CAST: what would a typical day involve?
My working days tend to be a mix of meetings, facilitation, deep work and of course some more mundane stuff like admin. At the moment I don’t travel a great deal for work so most of my day is spent at home behind my computer. I try and balance this out by starting my day with a cup of tea and filling up the bird feeder outside my window. I live in the Welsh countryside and so try to go outside on my breaks, when it isn’t pouring that is.
What do you enjoy doing outside of work?
I’ve recently taken up singing and have joined a community choir. I wasn’t quite prepared for how positive this would be. It’s been empowering to learn something new as an adult, and something that I was really quite scared of doing. Joining the choir has also helped me to root into a new community after a house move. Apart from my new singing hobby, I love painting (taking inspiration from my meditation practice), doing yoga, reading, walking, gardening and hanging out with my dogs.
