Birmingham Disability Resource Centre

Job mentoring empowers students to increase their employability

Aiden chats to Hayley about his

Employment aspirations

Students from the East Birmingham Campus of the City College in Garretts Green are increasing their employment prospects thanks to weekly support and advice from employment workers from the Birmingham Disability Resource Centre in Yardley.

The students, who are all disabled people, attend courses at the college which help them to increase their independent living and work skills. The extra support from the employment mentors provides the students with focussed one-to-one interviews in which they can discuss their ambitions and job prospects.

Hayley Ridewood, one of the employment workers from the Birmingham Disability Resource Centre said:

“This is a fantastic collaborative opportunity to support the students. We work very closely with City College staff member  Martin Blamire, who is the group’s Adult Supported Learning tutor. Every week we join the group of students for the morning and chat with them about their personal plans and goals. We call the one-to-one meetings ‘interviews’ to get students used to the job marketplace but we also keep it very friendly and supportive”

“During the interviews we identify what skills the students have been gaining in their college work and then we try to match them up with new opportunities in the wider community, such as voluntary work, work experience or paid employment”

The Birmingham Disability Resource Centre runs a job club every Thursday from 12 o clock at Bierton Road as well as a number of schemes which support disabled people to access employment related opportunities, such as work experience and voluntary work. The Centre recently published a research report called Barriers and Perceptions which recommends greater accessibility and flexibility amongst employers, more holistic support to disabled job seekers and more opportunities for disabled people to increase their employability without losing benefits. 

The new partnership between the College and the Disability Resource Centre is already delivering success stories. This week student Aiden Dowds has started a work placement at Community Transport in Bordesley after the employment staff supported him in arranging the placement.

“We contacted Community Transport on behalf of Aiden and helped to prepare him for his interview” said Hayley. “It’s a very supportive organisation and when we visited them with Aiden we observed peer to peer mentoring in the workplace, so Aiden feels very excited about working there for one day a week. My colleague John Ellis has given Aiden additional support in terms of going with him on the bus journey he will be doing from his home to Community Transport”

Find out more about the work of the Birmingham Disability Resource Centre and download the research report at their website www.disability.co.uk or contact us on 0121 789 7365

For information about courses at the City College, please visit the website at www.citycol.ac.uk or telephone the general enquiry line on 0121 204 0000

Note to editors:

The Birmingham Disability Resource Centre (BDRC) is an organisation based in Yardley, Birmingham providing a range of independent support services to disabled people, their families and carers in Birmingham. The BDRC also provides a range of services to support voluntary & community sector organisations, employers and businesses.

Research published by the Birmingham Disability Resource Centre has found that many disabled people want to find employment but face barriers which make getting and sustaining work difficult. The 18 month research project has made 5 key recommendations which address the barriers that still prevent large numbers of disabled people from accessing permanent and sustainable employment and other types of social economic activity.