Hasna A – Building a Pathway to Employment and Education

Background Information

Hasna, a mother of two, sought to overcome barriers to employment and pursue a part-time role as a lunch-time organiser or retail assistant. She learned about the project through word-of-mouth from her job centre. Prior to engaging with the project, Hasna faced several challenges:

• Lack of Formal Work Experience: While she had volunteered with Islamic Relief, gaining valuable customer service experience, she lacked paid employment history.
• Personal Challenges: Hasna was dealing with ongoing personal issues that hindered her ability to secure long-term employment.
• Childcare Responsibilities: As a mother, childcare presented a significant obstacle to pursuing work or training.
• Limited IT Skills: Hasna expressed a desire to improve her IT skills to enhance her employability.

Primary Goals

Hasna’s primary goals were:

• To secure part-time employment as a lunch-time organiser or in retail.
• To improve her IT skills.
• To build her confidence and become more employable.

What did the participant achieve?

Hasna engaged in a variety of activities to achieve her goals:

• Individual Learning Plan: Hasna and her assigned session staff looked at her goals, vocation, availability, obstacles and such, to ascertain how we can best help her gain the confidence to achieve her goals
• Extensive Skills Development: Hasna took part in the 5-week TECHWELL Digital, Career, and Health & Well-Being skills set of courses, addressing fundamental digital, professional profile and personal health & well-being needs. She produced some of the deliverables such as creating a tag cloud, an exercise that got her to reflect on her strength, put it into words and create an image to present it to the world, strengthening her cognitive, communication, interpersonal, introspective, creative and career skills.
• Personalised CV Support: Hasna received personalised support in CV building, including a comprehensive review, revision, feedback and recommendations from 3E Web Media including using their ATS proof CV template. This included structural and formatting improvements, rewriting her professional statement, and ensuring consistency in design and skills presentation. She also learn how to value and add her transferrable skills and experience as a mother and homemaker to her CV.
• Job interview preparation and Placement/Volunteering Exploration: Under the programme’s guidance, Hasna prepared for interviews, explored available real-life placement opportunities (to apply her interview skills) and chose, acknowledging her session staff’s advice, and applied for a Family Services role at Image. She also applied for a catering assistant role.

Outcomes for the Individual

Hasna has definitely made significant progress since engaging with the project, in her confidence, her skills, her professional profile, her understanding of the labour market and its requirements which has significantly boosted her confidence.

• Confidence Building: The structured learning environment and personalised support, including being encouraged to not limit herself and acknowledge her many strengths as well as the personalised CV review, contributed to her increased confidence. The opportunity to apply for and attend interviews helped build her self-assurance.
• Skill Development: Hasna She significantly enhanced her CV writing skills. She began to develop her IT skills through the TECHWELL course, was encouraged to further this learning, and as a result, planned further IT training. She developed her interview skills. She has also positively affected her health and well-being, realising that support is at hand for her upskilling and that she can thoroughly achieve her goals, one skills acquisition at a time.

• Real-life job interview preparation and Placement/Volunteering Exploration: Hasna’s application for a Family Services role at Image was successful and she got an interview, that she subsequently attended. The interview was also successful and she got offered the job, pending references.
• Training and Education: In the meantime, Hasna, understanding the importance of continual skills development in relationship with her goal, applied to a couple of courses to further develop her digital and her teaching assistant skills, demonstrating a proactive approach to skill development. She was accepted in both programmes, and successfully enrolled in and began a full-time Teaching Training course with the Ingeus Restart Programme. She also registered for an IT course at Manchester City Council’s Adult Learning Centre. These meant she could no longer proceed with the job she got.

Conclusion

While Hasna’s initial goal was a part-time role as a lunch-time organiser or retail assistant, she has broadened her focus to include education and training, which will ultimately enhance her long-term employability. She has exceeded the initial goal of just finding a job, by succeeding in getting one but also starting on a path of further education. Hasna considered the personalised CV support and the opportunity to explore various training and placement options as the most significant benefits. She reported increased confidence and a proactive approach to pursuing her career goals as well as improved mental health due to the support she has received.

Hasna’s case demonstrates the positive impact of personalised support, skills development, and access to training opportunities in empowering individuals to overcome barriers and achieve their career goals.