Made redundant - Just got job

natman

My wife worked for a Childrens charity in the North west of England. Her role is to - support teenagers that are exploited/ pregnant/are young parents within a deprived area. Very stressful job.

many of these very young females are extremely vulnerable to domestic abuse, drug and alcohol misuse, child protection concerns and many other very serious issues that young teenagers with babies have to contend with. Much of her work also looks at trying to prevent pregnancies in the future.

This role was funded through a local authority funding stream. that is renewed every year due to the child poverty and health inequalities of the teenagers she supports.
She was told at the start of the year this was an essential service and should not worry about any cuts to her role etc.

On the 1st March 2011, she was called into the office and given 30 days notice as the local government was no longer willing to fund this service.

She finished on 1st April 2011 and signed on JSA. This was a really miserable time for us. Risk of losing the house, lifestyle, cars etc was a real possibility

She had worked really hard looking for a job and found one. She applied and was interviewed on
22nd April 2011. She was told at the end she was sucessful and was offered the job.
The job is working for vulnerble children that have caring responsibilities to parents / siblings etc

She started at the start of MAY 2011. She is soo happy.

Some positives - her hard work paid off, she was applying for several jobs a day.
Going to the job centre actually inspired her to move even quicker due to the lack of motivation the job centre had in supporting her needs.

Negatives - this job is around £5000 less a year, but is better than JSA.
The job centre have been so poor, she has been unemployed for 4 weeks and she has only received 1 payment of £30, due to errors. She is meant to have received 4 weeks JSA. It still hasnt come through.

She has started her job and her boss has been amazed and started to discuss increasing her salary.

I just wanted to highlight that for all those who have been made redundant or are unemployed try and keep your chin up, work hard and apply apply apply. Your break will come!

Good luck everyone!:D

SevenOfNine

Similar story for me, admin job lost through LA cutting funding to charity for young people. Took 5 months but landed something else in admin field - less money but not really bothered....A job is a job and others in far worse position no doubt.

TBH, my Job Centre was OK, staff were usually polite and no probs with payments even when I signed off for 3 days to do some temp work, followed by emergency 'sign on' again. Didn't really miss a beat so can't complain about them. I do think people approach them as if THEY will help find you a job, but the onus is always going to be with you to be hugely proactive yourself, too few staff there and too many unemployed!

I'd always advise people to get their CV/covering letter or application form 'style/content' critiqued. I also got as much interview training as I could get (all of this free) - NextStep and AGE UK were particularly helpful in my area (AGE UK ran a fortnightly job search workshop for the over 50's but younger could also come along). We also have Women and Work here, didn't get much help from them but I know others who have.

Without all that, and an element of luck, I'm sure I'd still be unemployed.

Congratulations to her, but it can be a hard, worrying, demotivating experience. Thank goodness she (and I) have been fortunate.