Compassion and caring are two core values that align with Manda, a mother of three and Momentum Collective’s remarkable Admin Manager. From having lunch with her school peers who lived with a disability every single day, to now living and breathing these same values in her career – Manda’s career journey is nothing short of inspiring.
Nine years ago, Manda was first introduced to Club Latitude, which, now has been re-branded to Momentum’s Empower service.
“I remember driving past one day after I had just finished up a lead teacher’s role at childcare and noticed all these people outside this centre. I had just fallen pregnant with my son Cooper and was looking for something new”.
“My mum had told me Club Latitude was a food bank and that I should go in. I went in one day and asked if there were any roles available and the manager at the time said there was a volunteer role. I took it in a heartbeat after interacting with some of the NDIS clients and feeling positive that I was in the right place”.
Volunteering opened Manda’s world to building positive relationships with her clients and community members. A day in the life of volunteering for Manda involved assisting clients in sorting through the daily food donations, encouraging her clients to sort through items ready for the customers.
After volunteering for 12 months, Manda had to make a hard decision. “My hospital bills for my children’s diagnosis started to increase after I became aware they were showing Autistic traits. Working in this environment helped me pick up on the signs my children were showing, so I told my manager one morning that I needed to look for paid work. I asked my manager to let me know if any paid roles were available and by that afternoon I was offered a Support Worker position”.
Volunteering was a steppingstone for Manda as she learned how the service ran and developed her skills as a Support Worker. Her career progressed after she started taking up additional admin tasks. Manda built long-lasting and meaningful connections with her clients who were with her at the start of her career and are still with Momentum.
“I became extremely familiar with every aspect of my support role, from working shifts in the Supported Independent Living homes doing a lot of sleepovers and I got myself a variety of shifts in different streams so I could learn as much as possible.” – Momentum Collective’s Admin Manager, Manda Bowen
After a couple of years of working within integrated services, Manda’s one-on-one client asked her to return.
Following her career dreams, Manda recently transitioned from working at Empower as a Support Worker to taking on a role at Momentum’s Head Office as our Administration Services Manager. We are so glad Manda’s career success keeps flourishing.
Manda works passionately and hard because she wants to make sure everyone needing a support service has access to quality programs like Empower, just like her children.
At Momentum Collective, we care about our employees and endeavour to provide opportunities to build long term careers.
For more information about our organisation’s culture and current positions available, visit our career’s page or call our friendly team on 1300 900 091.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the lands on which we live and work, and pay respect to Ancestors, Elders both past, present and the emerging Jarjums.
