News | DIRECTIONS TO WORK
This is by using sport as an example to promote and show skills that people didn’t realise they have, and to move them onto further courses such as coaching badges and community sports leader awards.
Dean Cartwright, Directions 2 Work co-ordinator, said: “We run a series of educational courses through SUNEE Street League, basically the aims of today is to try and find out what the lads want to do, do they need help with CV’s, do they need help going into work, or they could do coaching qualifications, just anything they feel is going to benefit them.
He commented: “We look to feed them on from this to other courses that we run. A lot of them will go in places like the job centre and tell them things that they think they want to hear, like factory work or retail work, what we are trying to do here is open the world up for them.
He added: “We always use sport as the common language, so everything we do will be designed around sports. A lot of people we deal with have been in the same cycles for quite a long time, sometimes they just need a little push in the right direction just to get them going, I am not suggesting we are going to change the world for them, it is really down to themselves, but we need to get them to realise that there is assistance there through SUNEE Street League and they can progress into something else.”
Thursday 21st January saw the first education course ran at Teesside University which was attended by thirteen clients who have been accessing the Hartlepool football sessions and the Middlesbrough multi sport sessions. The goal setting course, included clients participating in both class room based activities and a practical sport session. Also, present on the day was the support of Mark Hanson, a Teesside University student volunteer to help support clients, particularly in the classroom based session which some clients may find challenging, he said: “I really enjoyed helping, it was great to actually be involved in something that uses sport to improve people’s job prospects and I have always been involved in the coaching side of things so it was something completely different and it gave me a whole new experience”
The interest in football that the clients have helps engage them in developing their skills and knowledge through nationally recognised coaching qualifications while giving them something to do like Glenn Meggison, from Hartlepool, said: “I hoping to get a Level one coaching badge, all I would be doing otherwise would be sat around doing nothing”
It also seems that the attendance at the football training session gives them the confidence to do a educational course that they probably wouldn’t have considered before, like Wayne Coxon, from Hartlepool, said: “I really enjoy myself going to SUNEE Street League on a Tuesday morning, so when I heard about this I thought, yeah this gives me a chance to get some qualifications and get my levels better, so I jumped at the chance!”
This is the first step in the clients’ individual pathway to reaching their personal goal, hopefully their engagement in the project will be sustained and with the support and help from SUNEE Street League and other partner organisation’s we can help them achieve their goal.
Article written by Sam Holdsworth, SUNEE Journalism scholar
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