Chris Roberts
Former builder, building manager and plumbing lecturer, Chris Roberts had to take early retirement 11 years ago; this was followed by Chris hitting ‘rock bottom’ with severe depression.
He could not leave the house, hold a conversation or even take part in work or hobbies. A local mental health charity helped him take the first small steps on the road to recovery and then Chris, 60, turned to learning as therapy.
He enrolled at the St Thomas’s Community Network in 2007 – busy local colleges and training centres felt too stressful – to learn web design. Chris had absolutely no prior knowledge of the subject, but is now an experienced user of Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Microsoft PowerPoint and Access, and Cam Studio.
He first used these skills to produce a web page for the mental health charity that helped him. He then created an audio-visual training programme – also using voice recognition software – so that other voluntary workers could develop these web production skills.
Chris said, “Learning keeps me motivated; I socialise with different people, I learn new skills and I use these skills to put something back into the community. I am amazed at the progress I have made. From knowing very little about web design to actually having pages on the Internet, most of my achievements are due to the correct learning environment [and] the flexibility of the course and the patience and high calibre of the tutors.”
His nominator, Alison Price, said, “Chris has found a focus for his energies and a distraction from his anxieties.”