MAMÁ 6: AUTORA DE LA PRESENTE INVESTIGACIÓN

7.3.1 Career guidance

Figure 7.1 highlights the level of career guidance available in Youthreach centres and CTCs, with almost all centres providing guidance in the form of CV preparation and 85 per cent providing specialist group or one-to-one career guidance. During the case-study visits, some centres appeared to offer a programme of career guidance involving one-to-one meetings and outside speakers where each learner has an individual progression plan:

So [we] meet them individually and we go through their progression and where they want to go to. So, they - for example, we have - we do the college visits; we have colleges in to speak to us… And we talk to INTREO about work opportunities locally et cetera. Then, each young person will come up with a progression plan and where they want to go. (Bann, staff)

In another centre, the staff appreciated the role of the guidance advocate who, they felt, positively influenced the learners. They felt that she gave the young people advice on work experience but also offered another positive adult in their lives that they can talk to:

There’s someone who comes in and it’s brilliant, and I can even see with the students that they think it’s brilliant. They look forward to Mondays … when they’re going to see her… Well, you, you hear them, ‘Well, I’m going to do this’ and ‘We can talk to [name of guidance person] on Monday’, it’s like… It’s someone else who they have - they can go to see. (Erne, staff)

Across centres, the approach to guidance appears to vary depending on whether learners are taking Level 3 or Level 4 qualifications:

The career preparation is usually for the slightly younger, so it’s like what is work, what is a job, all this kind of stuff. Their ideal boss, their ideal employee. Some of the basic rights… We do kind of mock interviews. (Suir, staff)

Employed by the advocacy service, some advocates work directly with the young people around career progression and guidance. One guidance advocate worked in a CTC for three days a week and in a Youthreach centre the rest of her time. She described how the advocacy service operated within the ‘MAGIC formula’ which is based on the idea that some early school leavers will require a mixture of Mentoring, Advocacy, Guidance, Information and Counselling:

It was all around career path planning and it was based on the MAGIC formula of mentoring, advocacy, guidance, information and counselling, but not counselling per se from a therapeutic medical perspective. (Blackwater, staff)

The advocate felt that she had a different relationship with the learners compared to the staff:

And our goal is to… assess their needs, see what they need and then link in with them, whether it is around work experience or the very basic stuff cos they’ve to go back to personal hygiene…Whatever their needs, you know, counselling, interventions, whatever it is. (Blackwater, staff)

During the interviews, the learners acknowledged the role of guidance counsellors and advocates in helping them access work experience placements and preparing

them for further education or employment when they leave. One learner reported that his advocate helped him to apply for jobs after Youthreach:

She gives you a hand with everything.She was like, ‘Well if you’re not happy with that, we can always try this’. Like she would, like, direct you and like if you didn’t know where to get a job - or help to find a job, she’d tell you, ‘Right, there’s a job on this site; a job on that site. Apply for this’. (Blackwater, learner)

One learner spoke about how their advocate used group activities to explore what the learners wanted and follow-up with a ‘one-to-one with them’ (Shannon, staff). Another advocate, with a counselling background, felt he provided the learners with a bridge from the centre to further education or employment:

It involves one-to-one supports, mentoring, guidance. Counselling is my background, so I look at my role as like a parent, the support that they don’t get at home. So I am the bridge for them leaving here and going on somewhere else. (Suir, staff)

In one centre, one staff member described how learners have very low expectations regarding their future occupations:

I do career investigation… and it’s, like, ‘Oh, but sure I couldn’t be that, I couldn’t be that.’ And then you’re trying to tell them there are different routes and if it’s not route 1, you know, and that sometimes people – it takes them years to get where they want to be. (Boyne, staff)

Similarly, weekly access to a guidance counsellor in one centre has meant that learners who are due to leave Youthreach have made concrete plans for further education and employment:

[Name] that comes in on a Wednesday, she helped me get into FÁS so I’m going to be started FÁS straightaway after I leave here. (Suir, learner)

Some of the learners in another centre spoke about the type of career guidance available:

You’re doing the career prep so that will, kind of, tell you about different options you might have and I didn’t have career prep in school. (Bann, learner)

helped her figure out what she would like to do when she leaves:

She comes in and she was telling me about all the acting courses in there… She was saying it’s great and all like… But when I went down there for like, they had this open day they did. And they were doing this drama thing and I was like, I’d probably be able to do it. (Shannon, learner)

Some of the centres sought to remove the fears of learners around progression by organising course shadowing and work experience placements in local colleges:

We organise course shadowing so they can go in and spend one day or two days in the course of their choice. It just takes the fear out of going into the school or the college and when they get on they say, ‘Sure that’s Mary from across the road.’ And you say, ‘Yeah, they’re all the same as you. They’re the exact same as you.’ And then with the boys, we try to get them work experience in the colleges in the summer time, working with the caretakers so they know the college and all the fear is taken out of the next step. (Suir, staff)

7.3.2 Work experience placements

Work experience placements form a part of the Level 4 QQI qualification. Level 3 learners also do ‘work placements’ (presumably work shadowing). The survey data show that six-in-ten centres reported that all learners took part in work experience, a third mentioned that most learners took part while 6 per cent indicated that only a few participated. There were few marked differences in responses across different types of centre. However, SENI centres were more likely to indicate that most rather than all learners took part in work experience (42 per cent compared with 32 per cent of non-SENI centres). Not surprisingly, the pattern varies markedly by the type of qualification(s) offered in the centre. In the small number of centres offering the Junior Certificate or Leaving Certificate Established, fewer learners take part in work experience placements. Similarly, rates of involvement are lower in centres offering QQI Levels 2 and 3 qualifications compared with those offering Level 4.

The length of work experience placement is found to vary across centres; in 41 per of cases, learners have a placement of ten days or less, in a third of centres the duration is 11 to 20 days while over a quarter (26 per cent) of centres have placements of longer than 20 days’ duration. Somewhat surprisingly, given earlier analyses of the difference between CTCs and Youthreach centres in orientation to the labour market (see Chapter 3), placement duration tends to be shorter on average in CTCs. Thus, 57 per cent of placements in CTCs are ten days or less compared with 35 per cent in Youthreach centres. Duration does not vary by centre size (once type of centre is taken into account). In contrast, duration tends to be

longer in centres catering for a greater complexity of need. Only 21 per cent of the latter centres have short (less than 10 days) placements compared with 41-50 per cent of the low and medium need centres. Duration is somewhat longer in centres offering LCA and shorter in the small number of centres offering LCE.

The survey data also show that work placements were more likely to be organised on a block rather than a day release basis; over the past year, an average of 59 per cent of learners had taken part in a block placement compared with 14 per cent doing day release. The relative reliance on block placements as opposed to day release was much greater in Youthreach centres than in CTCs. Centres with a greater concentration of need are slightly more likely than other centres to use day release, at least for some learners, but do not differ in the proportion using block placements. Longer duration placements tend to involve at least some day release components.

Some of the case-study centres reported that sending learners out on long blocks of work experience can be difficult:

We had been putting some of them out in like the two week blocks and you know it doesn’t work for some for them. It’s too much. So, we’re probably going to go back and look at maybe one day a week or two days a week. (Moy, staff)

Some learners are not suited to the block, so they would prefer once a week. You know, so there’d be more support there for them if they do it once a week, so they’re only out once and they’ll be back in the centre then. (Moy, Co-ordinator/manager)

In another centre, QQI Level 4 learners took part in a work experience placement of ten days’ duration (five individual days and then a block of five days). At the time of interview, the staff were reviewing whether this is the best approach as there is a trade-off between learners getting immersed in the placement and the long duration for those with anxiety issues.

In one CTC, the staff placed a strong emphasis on work placements and employment for learners. One staff member carefully selected work placements for the young people depending on their personality, attitude to work and overall work ethic. He felt that leaving the work experience until later in their time at the centre was better for the learner as they had built up confidence and gained more skills:

I mean, sometimes you’d imagine putting them in early would be a good thing because they might learn what it’s like to work …But I think that has always been a disadvantage for our learners because they usually - can shy away very quickly from that, ‘I’m not going back there ever again’, do you know what I mean? … So, towards the end, the idea is that they have the skills and the confidence. (Liffey, staff)

The staff member argued that there were huge gains for an employer in taking someone from the centre as they got free labour for the six weeks of work experience and had plenty of time to decide if they would like to take them on after that:

So, the employer has six weeks to see if this person is actually suitable for the job or not. Now, you - he could have a stack of CVs from people with Leaving Certs coming in, right. And each one of those CVs is going to cost him three weeks wages in some shape or form to decide whether that person is going to be of any value to him or not. But if I go in and say, ‘Here’s this young lad. I’m telling you, you know, quite honestly -’ I’m not going to, you know, try and oversell somebody, that, ‘This is what they can do but the fact is you can have them for six weeks and it will cost you nothing’. So, usually, our guy goes straight in. Whereas he will decide, you know, ‘These - all these people - all these CVs are going to cost me money, this guy isn’t. It’s worth a try’. (Liffey, staff)

The survey asked who was involved in organising the work experience placement. In the majority (65 per cent) of centres, staff other than the co-ordinator/ manager were involved; where specified, these included a range of different roles such as the advocate, a designated resource staff member and a work experience team. The co-ordinator/manager was involved in 21 per cent of centres while the learner was (mainly) involved in 42 per cent of cases. Respondents could indicate that a number of different people were involved so the answers total to more than 100 per cent. In small centres, the co-ordinator played a more prominent role, and the learner a less active one, in organising placements. Somewhat surprisingly, learners played a more active role in centres with a greater concentration of need. This may reflect a conscious strategy on the part of staff to use sourcing a placement as skill development in these settings. Contrary to this pattern, non-co- ordinator staff in SENI centres tended to be most actively involved in organising work experience with learners less involved. Learners played a more active role in organising longer placements (11 days or more) compared to short duration placements.

for work placements for learners. In one centre, the advocate worked closely with other staff to ensure learners in QQI Level 3 and 4 gain access to a suitable work placement or progress to employment or further education:

I would start working with [name of staff] here, because he does work experience, and I kick in then and then the two of us will work together and we try and help them. We would do an awful lot of work getting them help and getting them work experience… And then the second year I organise course shadowing for them. You know, if there is a course that they might be interested in I have the books made, go on the computer and we do career inventories and stuff like that (Suir, staff)

Some staff felt it was important to hold off on work experience placements until the learners have developed a work ethic:

I mean they have to show that they can come in and they can come in on time and stay a full day in here because that’s hard to put them on a work experience if they haven’t showed that. (Blackwater, staff)

The connections built up with local employers are seen as crucial in facilitating work experience placements:

Having the support of an advocate is good because they have connections, the foot in the door… They know that when they come with us they’re fully supported, they’re fully insured. They’ll be of a good standard and we’re not going to put somebody in something that they wouldn’t, do you know that they were going to crash and burn. (Suir, staff)

Staff in one centre were very active in following up with work experience employers:

I ring them every day. Did they turn up? How was everything? Is everything okay? Because it’s like you’re only as good as your last. If they’re going to take them you want to keep a good and I also get a little report. I put in a questionnaire with their packs. (Suir, staff)

In other centres, learners are encouraged to obtain their own placements as this is seen as enhancing their skills but the staff member in charge of work experience has contacts with local employers which can be used if necessary:

What happens usually is we prepare in class and talk about work and work skills and work - requirements for work. Then they get the opportunity to, kind of, think about what kind of work experience they

want to do. The - I then encourage them to look for their own work experience, with support. (Bann, staff)

I don’t get work experience for them because I think it works better when they get it themselves. (Suir, staff)

In a third of cases, co-ordinators/managers reported that it was ‘very easy’ or ‘easy’ to obtain placements while in 59 per cent of cases it was ‘quite difficult’, being ‘very difficult’ in 6 per cent of centres. Perceived difficulty did not vary by centre characteristics or the profile of learners. It might be expected that learners living in jobless households might have greater difficulty because of lack of employment opportunities in the local area and/or fewer social networks to access employment. However, this pattern was not evident from the survey data. Surprisingly too, it was not seen as more difficult to organise longer duration placements. In almost all cases, employers were asked for feedback on the learner and learners were assessed on the basis of all placements in the vast majority (85 per cent) of cases.

The issue of work experience is, however, seen as challenging for young people with mental health difficulties. Some centres had sought to overcome these issues by offering more sheltered work placements. One advocate reported that they try to support learners to move out of their comfort zones in doing work experience:

We always try to get them very nice safe near work experiences the first time and then we try to push them out and push them out. (Suir, staff)

Another staff member described how those who they expect to have difficulties (e.g. anxiety) are often given a more sheltered placement:

I did find that even setting up the work experience this year, they - you know, young people want to do the work experience and yet you’re so worried about their mental health when they’re on work experience because they present so vulnerably here. Having panic attacks, et cetera, et cetera. (Bann, staff)