Everyone at Crow Recycling knows the muscles in their legs are stronger than the muscles in their backs thanks to a grant for manual handling training from the Heart of England Community Foundation.

The cash from the Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire Communities Fund has paid for one of the Crow staff members to train as a manual handling instructor. Once he had done the training he teamed up with fellow staff and some of Crow’s trustees to devise and teach a course tailored to the needs of Crow’s volunteers. Most of the Crow Recycling volunteers have learning difficulties so the course included lots of practical skills, plenty of time to learn key theory and verbal rather than written assessments.

Office manager Lucy Lynch said: “The course means trainees can tackle a wider range of tasks at Crow. They have the knowledge, the practical experience and the certificate to prove it if they want to move on to a more demanding work placement or a paid job.”