Placement

I have been on placement for the last week in the Parkhead office with Careers Scotland.
If I am honest, I wasn’t looking forward to gong back onto another placement with Careers Scotland as I had already been on one previously and thought it may be repeating what I had already experienced.
However, so far I have been really enjoying myself, and have been finding out things on this placement which I hadn’t previously known, even after my previous placement in Hamilton earlier this year. I have so far been out in schools, where I have seen how different schools use their career advisers very differently. It seems that the schools in the east of Scotland want a lot out of their career adviser and they are expected to be fully integrated into their system- however, this is a constant struggle I have seen for the career advisers as many are spread over as much as 3 schools and feel that their resources and themselves are being spread very thinly.

I have been a lot more comfortable on this placement and have been enjoying it and I feel that his has something to do with the area which I am working in- I know it well and feel comfortable working with the individuals from this area as I fell that I am more in tune with them, their environment and needs.

I have seen the work that careers advisers to within Additional Support Needs (ASN) schools and I have been really taken aback by how much effort and commitment goes into this work, the work which they do with the school is tremendous and the benefits that the individuals are getting out of it seems to be really worth it. Young people with ASN are being placed into long-term work placements where the employer gets to know the individual, what their attributes are and how to work with the individual in the working environment to make it a possible transition into the workplace after school rather than into college. The careers adviser was telling me that the success stories within an ASN school are what makes it all worth while, she had one boy with Aspergers syndrome which went to work for a local restraunt chain and through mentoring, support from Careers Scotland, and the employer, he has now been there for 4 years and is a full-time supervisor.

With regards to my previous blogs about community and possibly not needing to know the community which you were working within I now do see the benefits of being able to integrate into a community quickly, as knowing the area and about the local areas needs and requirements when it comes to career decisions, employment opportunities, I now see how much more useful I would be to a client in being part of their community or living in the surrounding area.