Meeting the young people ‘Kickstarting’ their careers at South London and Maudsley
We became a Kickstart employer in December 2021 supporting 12 young people to kickstart their careers. Open to young people aged 16-24 on Universal Credit the scheme aims to get people back into work or jump start careers for those without work experience. The Trust offered a variety of roles as part of the scheme, from Digital Services Support Assistant to Educational Development Assistant and Assistant Nurse Education. We are catching up with the Kickstarters and their mentors to find how they have found the experience so far.
Each Kickstarter was given a mentor to ensure that they received the support and guidance needed for them to succeed.
Angela Mitchell became a mentor in March 2022 because she wanted to share her experiences and for her experiences to be useful and valuable to the young people who were just getting started. Attending Action Learning sets and regularly connecting on a Mentor Forum, Angela is doing all she can to ensure the apprentices enjoy their time working at the Trust and gain the skills and confidence that they need to succeed in their job search at the end of the six months. Angela said: "My first job was as a primary school teacher, I would have loved to have had a mentor to share their experience with me and help me to feel ok with the difficulties I was having."
The Kickstart scheme has given us the opportunity to meet some bright and talented young people who, coming from different experiences, joined our Trust, developed crucial skills, gained confidence and became welcome additions to our teams. We have been catching up with the Kickstarters to see how things have been going.
David Koridch is one of the Kickstarters who joined our Trust earlier this year working with the Education and Development team. The pandemic certainly impacted the last few years of David’s education and his experience looking for work, he said:
A few months prior to starting my Kickstart placement, I had been studying for an Art & Design diploma. I enjoyed learning about the history of artists and experimenting with different mediums, but I did not feel as though the course was right for me. This was back in October 2021, and I continued with the course for approximately a month before deciding to leave.
After leaving the course, I began to feel isolated in myself as I did not have many opportunities to go out and meet people; especially with another Covid peak on the horizon. I signed up for universal credit and with the help of my work coach, I started my search for work. My work coach then introduced me to the Kickstart scheme and within a week or so, I had my first ever job interview with my line manager.
Since David’s successful application onto the Kickstart scheme things have started to change. Watch his story.
