Beverley was working for Parlex Europe Limited for nineteen and a half years, until in November 2009 she was entered into a period of consultation with 15 other members of staff. She had worked her way up from an Inspector of Graphic Design, through to a Quality Assurance Inspector and finally to a Team Leader, responsible for all aspects of stores, assembly and packing. Because of the consultation period, Beverley became eligible for the Response to Redundancy funding.

Beverley had been out of the job market for so long she needed help with various aspects of the job hunting process including producing a CV, searching for employment, interview skills, writing a covering letter and completing application forms. Beverley also wanted to attend our Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) session to help her deal with what had happened.

Beverley has always had problems with Dyslexia and needed help completing forms and paperwork. She had the idea of becoming a self-employed child minder and wanted as much information about this as possible. We identified Health and Safety, First Aid and Food Hygiene as three courses that she would need to complete to help her to achieve this.

The first obstacle to overcome was to deal with the understandable slight negativity Beverley was feeling towards the situation she found herself in. Beverley found the NLP course to be very useful in helping her cope with this and see things in a different light. Completion of her CV was next as well as arranging a meeting with the Isle of Wight Council to discuss the pros and cons of working in this field. Beverley found that the Interview Skills session on day one of the Parlex course proved very useful when attending these meetings and she knew what kind of questions to ask and also what might be asked of her.

Beverley has since completed 18 policies and procedural checks, risk assessments, and a mass of paperwork, as well as having an Environmental Health inspection, Fire check and an Ofsted inspection. As a result of this, Beverley’s spelling has improved as well as her skills in form completion. Beverley attended the Level 3 Health and Safety Course hosted by VT Careers Enterprise and has successfully passed this. She has since attended and passed her First Aid and Food Hygiene courses.

Beverley says, “The 45 hour course has opened my eyes to lots of things. There is a whole wide world outside the factory walls and the course has helped me get up to date knowledge of the work environment as well as finding time for myself and pursuing my chosen career”.

Beverley wishes to pursue her career as a Child Minder and following a visit by an Ofsted inspector in February, she has been given her the final approval to operate as a Registered Child Minder. VT Enterprise wish her all the best in the future.