Month: August 2024

We are thrilled for Hamish who has started his employment journey with Show Support in the event hire industry and we look forward to him furthering his skills and experience. Over the past 3 years, Hamish’s service has evolved as his confidence, skills and interests have grown.

Pathway Exploration

Hamish started with an interest in woodworking and developed his technical skills through individualised woodwork projects based on his interests. Since then he also developed an interest in welding and later added this to his learning program. Through these twice weekly workshop sessions he has also developed his employability skills as he has learnt to work with others in the very small group format in our workshop.

A Responsive Service Design

Hamish realised that to succeed in the world of work, he needed to build his social confidence and his communication skills. Through our Dungeon’s and Dragon’s social skills capacity building program, not only has his social confidence increased tremendously, he has learnt how to adapt his communication in different situations for different purposes.

Later he recognised he also needed to improve his adaptability as he found it challenging to respond productively to unexpected changes in situations. We also empowered him to see that he needed to work on his numeracy in order to move close towards an employment pathway. Through our resilience program, he has learnt how to improve his motivation and perform tasks he finds challenging, independently. Not only has he been able to better respond to unexpected changes in his simulated employment environment in the workshop, but in his own time at home he now regularly practices his maths skills via an online learning platform.

A Case Management Approach

An important part of empowering Hamish with his learning was consistency of approach across his team of mentors. Through our case management approach, his resilience mentor also empowered his workshop mentors to consistently support him to build his resilience across his multiple workshop sessions a week. This repetition and consistency was key for his learning success.

Longer term, Hamish has a goal to work in set production. He currently receives guidance, insight and inspiration from his woodworking mentor who produced stunt props for the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie filmed in South Australia. He also has plans to complete a certificate in set production and metal fabrication.

His capacity building journey has evolved over 4 years with Youth Options with the current highlight being his employment in a welding role with Southern Cross Repairs. When Scott first started in our service, he was experiencing challenges with his mental health having experienced bullying during high school. This left him with little confidence in his ability to learn or for his future. He wanted a job and to eventually move out of home but couldn’t see a pathway forwards.

Pathway Exploration

Scott was now ready to explore what a job that was a great fit for him might look like. He tried our Garden Squad program and further built his confidence and employability skills in a small social group setting. He then explored woodworking in our workshop before re-discovering his interest in welding. Over 17 months Scott then focussed on building his technical and employability skills through a combination of standardised and individualised welding projects.

A Responsive Service Design

Scott still felt he needed to work on his social confidence with a particular focus on small talk. He blossomed in confidence from a combination of our resilience program and our Dungeons and Dragons social skills program. In resilience he learnt how to re-train some of his doubts and fears about his ability and some techniques for small talk, and importantly he practiced these skills in the social setting provided by Dungeons and Dragon’s.

A Case Management Approach

An important part of empowering Scott with his learning was consistency of approach across his team of mentors. Through our case management approach, his resilience mentor also empowered his welding mentors to consistently support Scott to build his resilience in a welding setting across multiple welding sessions a week. This repetition and consistency was key for Scott’s learning success.

Working Collaboratively with our DES partnership

When Scott was ready to transition into paid open employment, we invited our DES partner Multiple Solutions to work with our career development service. Through our individualised partnership with Multiple Solutions, we were able to convey our deep understanding of what a great job for him would look like and how he could be set up for success in that role.

Multiple Solutions Business Development Manager was able to identify a welding opportunity with one of her amazing employers in the Heavy Transport Sector that was a great fit for Scott. The result of this partnership is that Scott feels at home in his new welding role and he and his family are excited about his working future. These collaborative approaches to supporting young people back into employment are vital. This model allows for each service to bring their unique skills set for the same client focussed end result.