Emma Sheppard, 29
PR Manager

'I have worked at SJA for two and half years. After doing a degree in Biology and jobs in editing and writing health information and news for books and websites, I went on to work for Breakthrough Breast Cancer first as a Media Relations Officer and then becoming Senior Media Relations Officer.

I worked there for nearly four years and then joined St John Ambulance as PR Manager for career progression and new challenges. My job involves managing the PR function nationally and the strategic planning direction we should go in. I also take the lead on specific projects such as promoting the work we do at high profile events such as the London Marathon and raising awareness of our first aid work in schools. There are five of us in the national team and we work together to secure high profile positive coverage and support our colleagues around the country in their local PR.

This organisation has a lot to offer, but we need to make more people aware of the range of work we do, for instance in helping out in emergency situations like the floods of summer 2007 or that we have a youth movement with over 26,000 members. I felt I could help to raise the profile and demonstrate that our volunteers are hugely professional in the work they do, training and caring for people and saving lives.

Our vision is that no one should suffer for the lack of trained first aiders and as a team we are always trying to get across the importance of learning first aid – illustrating this with strong stories of people who have saved lives thanks to their first aid skills, as well as by working with the media to give first aid advice. When we demonstrated CPR on ITV1’s This Morning we hoped viewers would find it useful but we later heard that a mum was able to save her daughter because she remembered this advice – that’s why I love this kind of work.

I really enjoy securing coverage for our charity and seeing tangible results like magazine articles and television programmes that I hope will change the way people think about us. St John Ambulance has such a wide scope that I have had the chance to be involved in so many different things and am always learning something new.'