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I'm Sarah and I work for the Supported
Employment team at HFT Flintshire
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and I'm a Job Coach.
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I work with adults with learning
disabilities, I find them work
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within our local area.
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That can be sort of volunteering roles
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but what we ideally want is for people
to be able to hold down a paid job,
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so have meaningful employment.
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So I will go into the company,
find out what they want,
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look at my person's skills, put them together
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and then train the individual to
the standards of the host company.
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I suppose the challenging part of our role is
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engaging with companies and businesses,
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for them to sort of buy into us as a service
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and for them to see and realise
the potential that our guys have.
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And what they can bring to their business.
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But this job is something that
I've always been interested in,
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and I always wanted to be part of.
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My sister, Judith, she has Down's Syndrome
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and she was actually supported by
the team that I currently work for
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for many years, so I'd seen what job coaches did
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and I wanted to be part of that.
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So.. Here I am!
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When I left school, finished my A Levels,
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I went straight into a job as a Travel Agent.
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After working at the Travel Agents
I went to work for Marks and Spencer
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for the customer support team.
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which is extremely different to what I do now
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but it was a lot of talking to people
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and engaging with people and obviously
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that is a transferrable skill that I've had.
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I really enjoy my job.
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Every day is different
with different challenges
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and I love seeing the progression of the people
thinking that they can't have a job
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and they won't be able to hold down a job
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to working, you know, more or less
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full-time, independently with
a great support network.
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Being invited to the Christmas parties,
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and all of the things that
come along with having a job,
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of being really integrated into the team
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is fantastic and I love to see that!
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There isn't a day that goes by
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where I do not smile or laugh at some point!