Steve McGuane.

Steve McGuane is 44 years of age. He was paralysed from the waist down (paraplegic) after suffering a road traffic accident in 1982.

Until Steve was 21 years old he worked as a technician for British Telecom. He had very little knowledge of computers before attending SHARE, only having dabbled a bit by making posters for school fetes and jumble sales.

"My first encounter of SHARE was six years ago when I saw an advert in the local paper announcing an open day at Share Community. After being shown around the various projects, which included IT, and being treated so generously by the staff there I was motivated to become a trainee within the IT Project. At that time I only attended three days a week as my energy levels were very low from hospital treatment and was an outpatient. As time went by my energy levels increased, as did my enthusiasm for SHARE and I became a full time trainee.

SHARE provided me with an environment where I could work at my own pace and allowed me the flexibility for me to complete units in my own time. Access to workstations at SHARE was quite good at that time and staff would endeavor to make all areas accessible for my wheelchair.

Over the coming months and steadily adding work to my portfolio I eventually gained my NVQ Level 1 qualification in IT. During this time SHARE was fortunate enough to be awarded a grant from the Ian Karten Charitable Trust to upgrade the IT Project. While the Project was being refurbished I was asked if I would like to become a volunteer in the IT Project as I was good at interacting with other trainees, helping to motivate them to improve their IT skills. Part of my volunteering remit was to train and qualify as an Assessor for IT within SHARE.

After the refurbishment, the CTEC Centre was launched and it looked in everyway the part. The atmosphere in the project had previously been good and everyone would have time for a joke and a laugh during the course of the day. Since the refurbishment of the CTEC Centre that atmosphere is still there but with a look and ambience of professionalism which has helped me to gain my Assessors qualification.

Within a year of the refurbishment, job vacancies became available at SHARE. One of the posts was for an ICT Training Assistant in the Karten CTEC Centre for which I applied for and was successful in being offered the post".

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