Danielle is a young person who has been known to Silx for a long time, firstly as a young person and volunteer in our Teen Bar sessions but more recently a regular attendee of our Employability Project.

Danielle suffered a tragic bereavement at the start of 2018 and understandably this affected her confidence. Danielle’s need to find work was certainly not a priority as she slowly began to rebuild her life.  She came to see us in October 2018 and explained she didn’t quite feel ready for work but wanted to take some smaller steps to assist her when she was ready. Workers sat with Danielle and made an action plan and decided updating her CV, doing some online training and then looking into a possible work placement or a childcare course would be the best place to start.

Within a month Danielle had enhanced her CV and completed online courses in Safeguarding and Equality & Diversity. Workers assisted her to explore placements and courses and suggested referring her to a level 2 childcare course if she could find a suitable placement. As well as looking into childcare, Danielle also wanted to explore other adult care work as this is something she has done before.

By the end of January Danielle had completed other online courses in Health & Safety, Autism Awareness, Safeguarding Children with disabilities, Dementia awareness and COSHH; she also took the plunge with workers support and encouragement to apply for a care assistant job at Dementia Matters in Brunswick, Danielle told the workers that since coming into the project she was starting to feel more confident and much more motivated to get back into work.

To her delight, she was offered an interview at Dementia Matters at the beginning of February, one of our workers took Danielle there on the day and waited for her, she came out feeling very pleased, she had done incredibly well and was feeling confident. Within a few hours of her interview, Danielle was offered a permanent 30-hour contract and begins her induction on 1st April! We are so incredibly proud of her and what she has achieved in a small space of time.

Since being offered her job she has continued to enhance her skills by completing courses in Fire Safety in a care home and Advanced safeguarding adults. Danielle is much more confident now and we are very pleased that we were able to support her and wish her the best of luck in her new role.

Danielle Said; ‘ I couldn’t thank all the staff at Silx enough because if it hadn’t of been for them listening and understanding to how I felt at such a low point in my life it wouldn’t have given me the push I needed into getting back into work. I would highly recommend Silx to any young person that was looking for work or even courses to get them where they needed to be. Silx have helped me with online training courses and to bag myself a job all within the space of 4 months doing it alone would of took way longer. So, to every member of staff I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. Silx is a friendly place and always has someone to help with anything you may need whether it be a hand doing a CV or giving you the opportunity to do online courses. Always friendly and always there to lend a hand where needed.’