After being made redundant, Mark found himself out of work for the first time and despite a strong employment record working in retail, sales and social care he was struggling to find a new job. Realising that he needed help to get back in to work, Mark turned to the Hub for their support.
Once the quick enrolment was completed, Gemma was assigned to be Mark’s personal mentor and she would work closely with him to help him achieve his goals.
At their first meeting, Gemma learnt how much Mark enjoyed helping others and found him to be very personable and owing to his experience and skills realised that he had so much potential and was capable of great things. Weekly meetings then followed while Mark’s CV was refreshed and they discussed Mark’s career options and the direction he wanted to take. Deciding he wanted to pursue a career in social care, Gemma arranged for Mark to meet up with the Council’s Social Care Employment Mentor, Emma Thomas.
Emma talked Mark through the We Care Wales website which details the various job roles within the sector, as well as discussing the variety of job roles within the Council such as Learning Disabilities, Vulnerable Adults and Older People. Emma was also able to give Mark an insight into other organisations in the sector including the Rowan Organisation where Personal Assistants worked on a 1:1 basis with people in their own homes.
Armed with all this information, Mark was able to make an informed decision on pursuing work within a day centre. Utilising her contacts, Gemma was able to get in touch with Rebecca, one of the Council’s Community Support Team Managers to ask about current vacancies and although there weren’t any, Rebecca was keen to meet up with Mark knowing that there would be Day Services Support Worker roles coming up in the near future. As well as meeting up with Rebecca, it was also arranged for Mark to visit the two day centres in Llandudno and Llandudno Junction.
The meeting went extremely well and Mark knew that this was the job for him. Rebecca’s feedback to Gemma was also very positive as the service users had really taken to him and Rebecca said she’d let Gemma know as soon as vacant position arose as she was really keen that Mark applied.
When a vacancy did come up, Gemma and Mark went through the job application to ensure that Mark was setting out his skills to meet all the essential criteria in the personal specification. Mark then completed the rest of the form on his own and submitted his application in plenty of time before the deadline.
Before long, Mark was invited for an interview and Gemma worked with him on his interview skills and held a mock interview to cover some of the questions he could be asked including those on health and safety, equality and diversity.
The interview was successful and to Mark’s delight he was offered the job. The job though wouldn’t start for a couple of months and as Mark was keen to put that time to good use on a course that would benefit him in his new job, Gemma enrolled him on to a Makaton Course, a communication tool with speech, signs and symbols to help people with disabilities or learning disabilities to communicate, through Conwy Connect.
Mark is now working as a Community Support Worker within the Learning Disability Team at Conwy County Borough Council. This is a permanent role working 35 hours a week and he is thoroughly enjoying it and finding a huge amount of job satisfaction.
Commenting on his experience with the Hub, Mark said “Without Gemma’s help and guidance and the confidence she gave me I would never have believed I could achieve such a job role. The whole experience has really changed my life and I have a job for life that I will be happy in.”
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