A Day in the Life – Future Bright Career Progression Coach

A Day in the Life of a Future Bright Career Progression Coach

Simon Bayliss, Employment Support Team
Well it’s another early start as I settle into my now well established pattern of working from home. First things first, I pour the first fresh coffee of the morning. I open my diary and familiarise myself with my appointments for the day. Chloe, my first appointment, is a new participant to be inducted onto the Future Bright programme that will involve an initial explanation of the project and a evidence check for eligibility. This would have normally been done in a face to face meeting in a café but normal is not currently the word of the day so this will involve a number of e-mail exchanges and video calls.

Chloe is currently working but will be losing her job any day and this is an unfortunate consequence of the pandemic that I fear we could be seeing more and more of. We have a very positive hour long appointment. We will be working on a new CV, good old fashioned careers advice work, and researching available training related to working in the health care sector. We decide on priorities and I create the
action based around our agreed decisions. Chloe wants to return to work as soon as possible, preferably in care work, but has a long term goal to work within the early year’s sector. I know there are a number of online courses currently available or about to come online that we can consider. By the end of the day I will have e-mailed Chloe a range of resources: a CV tool kit; links to online health care courses, including available courses through our friends at Community Learning; and a link to an early years practitioner course being delivered by City of Bristol College from September. I feel that is plenty for her to work with before we have our follow call next week.

My next two appointments are self-employed, Ruth and Steve. I first met these participants last week and I signposted both to Outset to access support from their Covid-19 support programme for micro-business owners. Both are very complimentary about the advice and guidance they have received so far as they aim to get back on their feet. Ruth is a returnee to Future Bright under the new Covid-19 eligibility, extended to cover people made redundant, who’ve lost hours of work or are at risk of redundancy. She tells me that the
print course that she’d booked onto, that was fully booked, has been cancelled due to lockdown. We’re now looking at online training involving a funding contribution towards workshops that are being delivered through Instagram.

I will be spending the next few hours making calls with a number of participants who were put on temporary hold as the lockdown was first announced. A number are now feeling ready to move back towards looking at where they go next in their career as restrictions decrease, and long term goals now may well have been dramatically changed to short term goals with the potential of an economic downturn on its way. Either way, Future Bright will be here to offer as much support, advice and guidance as we can to ensure they receive the best careers help possible.

(Future Bright is a West of England programme, funded by WECA and delivered locally by Bristol’s Employment Support Team.

For more information, contact: kirstie.mallett@bristol.gov.uk) .