A Week in the Life of Amy: How Development Trusts Look After Their Staff

Most small charities and development trusts are stretched. Limited budget. Big ambitions. Small teams doing massive work. When you’re in survival mode, it’s easy to ignore something important: looking after your own people.

But here’s the thing. If your staff are burned out and unhappy, everything else falls apart. Your work suffers. Your impact shrinks. People leave.

That’s why DTAS has a Wellbeing and Learning Officer. Amy does that job. She works with development trusts across Scotland on their wellbeing and culture challenges. She also works on DTAS’s own internal wellbeing, equity and diversity, and developing resources that help the sector. It’s all mixed together—some days member-focused, some days internal, some days both.

We asked her to walk through a typical week. Here’s what she does.

Monday: Understanding What’s Actually Happening

Amy’s back from holiday. First thing—she doesn’t dive into emails. Instead, she sits down and plans her whole month. What matters most? Where should she focus?

The morning goes into analysing DTAS’s staff survey. This is real work. People have answered questions about their jobs, their stress levels, whether they feel supported. There’s loads of detail in the responses.

It takes a few weeks to go through properly, Amy explains. There’s so much useful information, and we want to make sure we don’t miss anything.

If you don’t ask your staff how they’re doing, you won’t know they’re drowning. The survey tells DTAS what’s working and what isn’t.

Tuesday: Turning Numbers Into Decisions

Tuesday is about getting the survey report ready. Raw numbers are just numbers. The People, Wellbeing and EDI meeting is on Thursday—that’s where the real conversation happens.

Amy writes the report. She pulls out what matters. She explains what it all means in a way that makes sense. By Thursday, Amy and the Head of Central Support Services, Kay, will read it and talk about what DTAS should actually do about it.

Those recommendations then go to the Senior Staff Team, who decide what DTAS commits to.

She’s also working on DTAS’s Annual Review—the report we share with members. It shows what we’ve done, what we’ve learned, where we need to focus next. This stuff matters even if nobody’s watching.

Wednesday: Making Sure Everyone’s on the Same Page

Wednesday is meetings and coordination. One thing stands out: planning the relaunch of Come Dine with DTAS.

This is just staff getting together for a meal, outside of work meetings. Sounds simple. But it matters. When people connect informally, teams get stronger. People feel less alone. The whole organisation feels better.

Culture doesn’t happen by accident, Amy says. You have to actually create the space for it.

She also attends the Central Support Services (CSS) weekly team meeting. The internal wellbeing part of her role is relevant to that team, so she’s there to hear what they’re working on and how it connects to the wider organisation. It’s about making sure everyone working on different parts of the organisation—member support, central services, wellbeing—is talking to each other. That Amy isn’t working in a bubble. That the efforts join up.

Thursday: In the Office

Thursday, Amy’s in the office. Deliberately. Working from home is fine most of the time. But sometimes you need to be in the same room as people.

She has a team meeting with Member Support colleagues spread across Scotland—some in the office, some joining in remotely. It’s a hybrid meeting where people share what they’ve been working on with members. What challenges they’re seeing. How things are moving forward.

One-to-one with Errin, Head of Member Support. Real conversation about where Amy’s role is going. What DTAS should focus on next.

In the afternoon, Amy and Kay plan the year ahead. They look at what worked last year. They look at what the staff survey says. They decide what to focus on. The table gets covered in post-it notes—ideas, priorities, themes. It’s messy and visual and it works. There’s something motivating about it, Amy says. About seeing everything laid out. About making decisions together. About knowing that what you’re doing actually matters and will shape how the organisation moves forward.

This is invisible work. No one sees it. But it’s where real change happens.

Friday: Talking to Other Organisations

Friday’s about the Funders Plus Forum. That’s a group of funders and support organisations that work together to understand what is happening for grantees across Scotland’s third sector.

This quarter they’re asking: do charities struggle with staff wellbeing? And if they do, what could the sector do together about it?

Amy’s preparing for that conversation. She’s got data. She’s got evidence. She’s ready to say: yes, this is a real problem. Here’s what we’re seeing.

What Amy’s Week Shows

If you just skim Amy’s calendar, it looks like meetings and reports. But there’s something underneath.

She listens to what DTAS staff are telling her through the survey. She takes that information to the People, Wellbeing and EDI meeting on Thursday, where actions are suggested. She makes sure different parts of the organisation are talking to each other. She feeds what she’s learning into bigger conversations with other funders.

That’s what looking after your organisation actually looks like.

Most development trusts know they should care about their staff. But many don’t know how to start. They don’t have data. They don’t have a plan. They’re not sure if their problems are unique or if other organisations struggle the same way.

That’s where DTAS comes in.

Why This Actually Matters

This is obvious but easy to forget: if your staff are exhausted and unhappy, your work gets worse. Your impact shrinks. People leave. You have to start over again with new people.

The evidence is clear. Organisations with happy, supported staff do better. They keep people longer. The work is better quality.

Yet most development trusts treat wellbeing like a nice extra. A wellness app. A team away day. Not as something central to how they run.

Real wellbeing isn’t like that. It means asking your staff how they’re doing. Listening to what they tell you. Making changes based on what you hear. Doing it consistently, not just once.

Three Things Amy’s Week Shows

1. Ask before you fix. Amy spends weeks going through the survey properly because you need to understand what’s actually happening before you decide what to do. Guessing doesn’t work.
2. Leadership has to be on board. If the people at the top don’t care, nothing changes. The meetings and planning sessions Amy does are about making sure leaders understand the problem and commit to solving it.
3. Culture needs real investment. Things like Come Dine with DTAS aren’t fluffy extras. They’re how people connect. They’re how organisations get stronger. But they don’t happen by themselves. Someone has to make them happen.

How to Start

If you work in a development trust and you’re thinking about this, here’s what matters:

Ask your staff how they’re doing. Really ask. Listen to what they say. Make at least one change based on what you hear. Keep doing it.

Get your leadership team in a room. Talk about what matters to you. Make actual decisions about how you’ll look after your people.

Create space for connection. Informal stuff. Not more meetings.

That’s it. You don’t need a massive budget. You need intention and consistency.

Ready to Build Better Organisational Wellbeing?

If this resonates with you—if you know your development trust needs to focus on staff wellbeing and culture but you’re not sure where to start—DTAS is here to help.

Our Member Support team works directly with development trusts across Scotland. We can help you understand where your organisation stands, develop a realistic plan, and support you through the change.

Whether you’re already a DTAS member looking to deepen your engagement with our wellbeing work, or you’re interested in becoming a member and accessing our full range of support services, we’re here.

Learn more about DTAS Member Support | Find out about DTAS membership