Keith
Keith started our service after his employment in the hospitality industry came to an unexpected end. His goals were to rebuild his confidence and to enhance his cooking skills to enjoy better quality meals at home. He also wanted to improve his cooking skills and achieve his driver’s licence so he could have more choice in choosing a great job for him in hospitality.
Holistic Service Design
To achieve his goals, Keith undertook our cooking skills program to use his creativity and interest in cooking to develop his skills with his mentor who has nearly 4 decades of experience as a commercial baker. Over 15 months, his mentor used Keith’s passion and positive experiences with cooking to develop his skills to improve his mental health and openness to new work possibilities. Keith can now cook a suite of tasty and nutritionally varied recipes that he can use to plan his meals for the week as part of becoming ready for living independently.
Skill Development for a Career Pathway
In October 2024, Keith also achieved his driver’s licence through 13 months of focussed and consistent effort via our Drive Me program as a key milestone in his journey towards a career pathway. Having a driver’s licence empowers him with a more convenient and efficient way to travel in the community. Longer term this improves his eligibility for a greater variety of jobs that are higher paid typically require a driver’s licence. It is for this reason Youth Options offer’s our Drive Me program as part of our holistic and independence focussed capacity building service model..
A bright future ahead
Having completed our service and ready for his next role, Keith has achieved employment with a large defence company in Adelaide's north with support from DES provider Interact Australia. Keith is now feeling positive about his working future and we are very proud of him.
