Kyle's supported employment journey

After finishing school in Year 11, Kyle was unsure as to what his future was going to be like. However after meetings with SENCO and with support from the Kent Supported Employment Service, he stayed on in sixth form and was able to move forward with two supported internships.

As his skills and confidence built, he was able to take on work experience at a local school supporting students in their classes.

Watch Kyle's video to find out more about his journey to employment.

Kyle's video transcript

[Music]

Hi I'm Kyle and I'm going to love telling you my story of how my journey went from Year 11 to where I am now.

[TITLE: What were you doing before KSE?]

At the beginning of my journey I was finishing Year 11 and I was really scared of what I would be doing in the future.

So I was going to my meetings with the SENCO, she went to the headteacher and then came back and said "OK Kyle, we will put you in sixth form and we'll be doing the supported internship with my adviser, Gary.

[TITLE: How did KSE support you?]

The support Gary gave me was two job placements, one at Hobbycraft and one at Avenues. So I had two jobs where one I would be doing, working on a floor putting stock on a shelf and at Avenues I was doing recruitment with the Recruitment Team. Picking candidates for keyworkers.

[TITLE: Where are you now?]

I am at Oakfield Primary Academy doing an apprenticeship for 18 months and how I came across working at the school where I'm at, I was supporting students at my secondary school, going into classes, things like that… I was doing in class and I liked how I was helping because I have ADHD and I'm dyslexic as well, so I struggled at school.

So me helping a few students gave me confidence and it's a good balance between working in a team as a school and working on a store front really gave me that confidence in talking to parents as well as speaking to the headteacher.

Through having a few disabilities, I didn't have a lot of confidence, I was very shy and through this supported internship it made me grow up. It gave me so much confidence in myself so that I'm here today to speak to everyone and if anyone's listening to this, or seeing this, my one word of advice is this is really helpful in getting your first footsteps into a job and getting those valuable key experiences in life and with my adviser's help and all the support that I got given during this time, I can look back at it and it makes me happy thinking about all those, where I've come from to where I am now and I feel like through this supported internship I am a better person.

So I know you'll be scared in signing up but give it a go because they are here to support you.