In search of a more rewarding career

CHARDONNAY_3

I am currently signed off on the sick from my job at NHS Direct due to depression and anxiety. Although my job is not the sole cause of my problems, it certainly adds to them greatly. So I am hoping to use this time off to consider a career change.

I am 26 & left school 10 years ago with 8 GCSE passes. I have gone through a serious of dead end jobs in retail & call centres, but now I want to do something more rewarding.

I have taken a course in counselling skills and regularly babysit for my nephews so I'm considering working with children or people with mental health issues.

Just wondering if anyone works in health/social/care sectors & could suggest any suitable job roles, courses worth studying etc.

Thanks

Charlotte

mrcow

I think it will depend a lot on how you propose to study whilst working with a full time job?

If you are not coping now, will adding extra study hours just compound the situation? Have you considered working part time perhaps? Would that be workable financially?

CHARDONNAY_3

I am not able to drop hours in my current job due to business needs (we have been busier than ever with swine flu) as I have already asked to go part time.

In an ideal world I would love to leave this job & find a part time position elsewhere.

Financially I could cope with working part time as I moved back in with my mum a few months ago after splitting with my fiance. I do have a little bit in savings too as we had planned to my fiance & I had been saving to buy a house.

CHARDONNAY_3

Sorry to bump this, but does anyone have any suggestions / advice?

I have been in touch with nextstep, spoke to a girl on reception who took my details and said someone would be in touch in 3/4 days to arrange an appointment. I would just like to have some ideas when I do actually attend a careers interview.

venus_in_furs

Well you should look into courses you can study. I know a lot of universities do courses part time for mature students, ones where you can get in without having all the required qualifications such as A levels etc as you do a foundation year first. You should go on line and look at your local uni or collages and see if they do a course you are interested in. Open university are also good for part time studying, i have heard a lot of people saying how much they enjoyed it also.

Oldernotwiser

One of the main things you need to think about is whether you're looking for a career, like Social Work or Nursing, which is going to mean attending university.

Alternately you may want to do something more "hands on" like working in social care, for which NVQs are probably the most appropriate route.

In the field of MH you could be helping people with their daily living, assessing and arranging services for them or enabling them to live independently in the community.

If you Google "Mental Health Careers" you'll find lots of things to read and think about.

mark1234567890

CHARDONNAY wrote: »

I am currently signed off on the sick from my job at NHS Direct due to depression and anxiety. Although my job is not the sole cause of my problems, it certainly adds to them greatly. So I am hoping to use this time off to consider a career change.

Sorry I can't really offer any advice as I am not experienced enough. However just out of curiosity what is wrong with working at the NHS direct?

I have a friend at uni who works there part time and he says that he gets £10per hour - I am so envious and would love to work there

flutterbyuk25

I could have written your opening post 2 years ago. I was working in a civil service call centre and hated it. I did go to uni, but my degree wasn't in a subject that I was then interested in pursuing.

I was lucky in that in my department they offered secondments to a national charity. I did a 4mth secondment working with young adults and loved every minute. I knew then that was the career path I wanted to go into.

When I returned to civil service I asked for 4mth career break (unpaid) to go work at summer camp for disadvantaged kids in America (camp america). Again, loved that, it really cemented what I wanted to do.

When i returned I threw myself into volunteer work as well as working full time in civil service. I was then lucky enough to get offered a job in the original charity I did my secondment at. Been there 6months now and i adore my job

So my advice is, do as much volunteer work as possible. this will build your experience, confidence, sometimes you get training for free (e.g. drug&alcohol awareness, first aid) and most importantly it builds networks. This is how you find out about jobs and training courses before they are advertised.

So contact every charity you would think of working with, contact local council, scouts, guides etc.

Good luck, and PM if you want more info

x

CHARDONNAY_3

Thank you for your replies, in response to mark, my FT salary is a little over 16,000 so not exactly 10 pound an hour, but my unhappiness has nothing to do with finances & I would happily work for less if I enjoyed the job.

The issue is the awful call cente environment, the tedious same old routine, the lack of staff to cover a 24hr rota & the downright nastiness of some members of the public, when you are just trying to help them.

Having experience of working in a 24hr setting has made me think I wouldn't want to pursue a career that involved doing having to do that again, so I've ruled out nursing and care work.

I have been doing alot of research and think I would quite like to focus on working with children. Perhaps going into teaching? I have called my local primary school & they advised I would be invited in for an interview once I was in posession of a CRB check. How do I go about getting one of those?

Not sure what my next step should be - should I look into college courses to go alongside volunteering, if so, which would be best?

flutterbyuk25

CHARDONNAY wrote: »

Thank you for your replies, in response to mark, my FT salary is a little over 16,000 so not exactly 10 pound an hour, but my unhappiness has nothing to do with finances & I would happily work for less if I enjoyed the job.

The issue is the awful call cente environment, the tedious same old routine, the lack of staff to cover a 24hr rota & the downright nastiness of some members of the public, when you are just trying to help them.

Having experience of working in a 24hr setting has made me think I wouldn't want to pursue a career that involved doing having to do that again, so I've ruled out nursing and care work.

I have been doing alot of research and think I would quite like to focus on working with children. Perhaps going into teaching? I have called my local primary school & they advised I would be invited in for an interview once I was in posession of a CRB check. How do I go about getting one of those?

Not sure what my next step should be - should I look into college courses to go alongside volunteering, if so, which would be best?

I was feeling exactly the same about my call centre job - hated it!

Personally I wouldn't advise you do a college course until you know exactly what you want to do, as it may be a waste of time and money, and if you get a job or volunteer role in what you want to do they may pay for training.

For example, in my job now I've been trained to drive a minibus (£1+k worth of training), they are giving me proper 1st aid training (5 day course), full health and safety training (3day course), I have just enrolled on an NVQ Level 4 in Advice & Guidance (which work are paying for) and they are also paying for me to refresh my Welsh language skills as I work in very Welsh speaking area of Wales (£60 cost).

Also through my volunteer work with a local council's youth offending team I have done many recognised 1 day training courses, eg alcohol and drugs awareness.

HTH

x

Oldernotwiser

CHARDONNAY wrote: »

to help them.

Having experience of working in a 24hr setting has made me think I wouldn't want to pursue a career that involved doing having to do that again, so I've ruled out nursing and care work.

That's a quick change from yesterday when you wanted to work in these areas!

If you want to go into teaching you'll need to do a degree; either one that includes a teaching qualification or doing one separately after your degree. You could do your degree with the OU whilst you're working, particularly as you can start this without an A level equivalent qualification.

If you decide to go to a traditional university then you'll need to an Access course, A levels or similar first.