Hello everyone,

I’m Katie Roper, the newly appointed outreach Librarian for Lancashire and South Cumbria. My role involves supporting all Trust staff, students and service users to efficiently and effectively use resources to support evidence based practice.  I have to admit, it’s rather surreal starting a new job in the middle of a pandemic but the support I have already received has been fantastic.

My background is within the education sector, where I taught Primary pupils both in mainstream and within special needs schools. It was actually due to my time teaching at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, teaching on the Oncology wards and running the Primary Classroom for all children, where I learnt more about the world of the NHS and made me consider a career change and now here I am!

I am completely new to the trust, but have been so overwhelmed by everyone’s support and encouragement so far, both within my team and across LKSNorth. I am hoping that I will be able to bring a new insight from the education sector along with fresh ideas and will certainly be reaching out to those with experience in the post- as I’m sure you can imagine, it can be quite daunting when there is so much to learn.

I’m really looking forward to building some relationships with you all, and will hopefully meet you, (in person or virtually) in the near future.

In the meantime, stay positive, happy and safe.