Christine makes fantastic progress on her journey into work

Christine has come on leaps and bounds since joining Kennedy Scott’s Help to Work programme. She was referred by her work coach from Brighton Job Centre Plus in September 2018, after not being in paid employment for a long time.

The Help to Work programme is a voluntary scheme funded by the European Social Fund, helping unemployed people find work through Kennedy Scott’s specialist team of case workers. Christine is over the age of 50 and has been volunteering at a charity shop for over 9 years, but struggled to find employment due to her lack of computer skills.

Christine demonstrated a very confident and enthusiastic approach about finding employment, although due to her lack of IT skills she needed some support with job searching, creating new CV and cover letters. Jorge, Christine’s advisor assisted her with this and together they created different CV’s focusing on different type of jobs, completed job searchers and submitted numerous online job applications.

To help Christine with her lack of IT skills and general technology knowledge, Jorge helped her with buying a mobile phone and showing her how to use it. Jorge also encouraged Christine to join a basic IT course, which she started at the Friends Centre in Brighton, helping her to obtain basic computer knowledge and grow in confidence. In addition, Christine with the encouragement of Jorge, completed a course in Health and Social Care at the Met College in Brighton, obtaining a Level 1 qualification.

During all her time on the programme, Christine has demonstrated a very open and positive attitude to all opportunities to improve her skills and apply for jobs. Christine said, “I feel a lot more confident in general, but it’s mainly when I’m speaking to others”.

Christine believes that the support received from Jorge has been fantastic as she has improved her skills by attending a variety of courses allow her to gain a qualification, be supported with job applications and supported with the creation of several customised CVs and cover letters. Christine feels that she is closer to securing paid employment than she has ever been since she joined Help to Work Programme and is positive that now is her time to shine.