Last night 12 young people attended the second ever Dynamite Pizza evening.
Dynamite are different to other groups for young people.
This is because Dynamite are all about young people having a say in how services for young people are run.
Last night we were talking about the support available to help young people get into work.
We sat in two groups of 6 young people and talked about 4 different things.
First we talked about our experiences of support to get into employment including work experience and careers guidance.
There were lots of different types of support that people had received, this included:
National Citizens Service.
Reed employment agency at Highbury.
One to one meetings with careers advisers
Support with preparing for work actually on the course (including how to behave, how to go to someone with a problem, hygiene, having good body language at work Role playing selling Christmas cards)
volunteering (including in a nursery and in charity shops)
Group sessions which get young people used to teams and discussions
Leaflets to take away
next we talked about what had been good about our experiences.
Some of the good things had been:
Staff that spoke but also listened.
Staff that helped young people with learning new things and skills.
Having fun.
Staff that can say whether you would get a job.
Connexions.
Visiting different places of work.
Help with getting a good CV.
Having the option for parents to come to meetings too as they know young people well but also being able to say that you don’t want parents involved.
Support to be more confident and make a good impression, mock interviews were useful and advice on how to conduct yourself.
Feeling safe.
Not just career but life advice.
Friendly staff.
Then we talked about things which weren’t so good or could have been better.
These things were:
Videos how to interview
Being told about health and safety issues
Tasters of different work and work experience was helpful but more choices are needed.
Help with the social side of work
Not everyone had been on work experience at school and it was thought that work experience should be there for everyone.
Information you are given should have pictures.
Bigger, bolder, print.
Open minded support
allowing opinions (letting you have a say)
Finally we took some time to imagine what a perfect career support service would look like.
These are some ideas that we had:
From a careers interview young people should improve their chances of getting qualifications.
Young people should have tasters of different jobs
Education should be part of helping young people get into work.
There should be videos on the internet to learn from.
There should be extra support for young people with disabilities as it is harder for them to find work.
Support to understand dress code and how you present yourself.
It’s also important for young people to be committed and want to work.
Allowing tasters for jobs over a weekly/monthly period
Staff being more available
Note taking during meeting – it would be good to be able to have a third person to scribe in meetings.
Wider knowledge of disabilities in employment – mainly from employers who are sometimes not good understanding disability.
Shouldn’t try to push people in a certain direction.
The event was attended by some professionals who work helping young people to get into work.
The were Julie Laws, Kath Constable and James Mahon.
Julie and Kath are careers advisers and James teaches on the Foundation Prospects at Highbury College.
During the event we were able to ask some questions to Julie, Kath and James.
Over the next month we are going to write up the things that were talked about at the Pizza evening and we are going to use the information to film some interviews with other professionals.
These interviews will be put on the Young Persons IASS website and the Local offer website.
If you'd like to hear more about future Dynamite events then please get in touch
