Cheryl joined the Design and Technology Association in June 2013. As a Corporate Social Responsibility professional, Cheryl has spent the last 13 years working with business and industry to develop their CSR strategies and design corporate community investment programmes in areas such as education, health and wellbeing and social inclusion.As Head of Community Affairs, UK and Ireland, for Cadbury/Kraft, Cheryl developed and implemented the company's Community Investment strategy, linking areas of business risk; such as employability and skills with employee volunteering and community development programmes. In 2007, she worked with a team of D and T teachers, Cadbury engineers and the local authority to design and deliver the Taste of Work programme. The programme supported teaching and learning in both D and T and the Engineering Diploma. Now operating in Primary, Secondary and Further education, Taste of Work is in its 6th year and has supported many hundreds of teachers and young people in Birmingham and Sheffield. The programme continues to win and be shortlisted for awards with organisations such as the IGD, the Food and Drink Federation and Business in the Community.Cheryl's career began with Business in the Community where she formed part of the founding team who created the Business Action on Homelessness campaign, now in its 12th year. The campaign supports homeless people, ex-offenders and other groups to develop workplace skills and confidence. The programme's in-to-job figures surpassed those of the Jobcentre who became an integral programme partner. Cheryl was able to develop programmes which supported the skills development of socially excluded groups and the skills of the employee volunteers they worked with. The experience of developing volunteering for mutual benefit enabled Cheryl to go on and grow employee volunteering rates at Cadbury to the highest they had been since records began.
