Work Experience as an adult

How did you get that job? Is something I've heard since I entered the world of work. I started working in care in 1988 and always knew I wanted to be in this line of work. I like helping people and getting results. But care work had a shelf life for me when I was injured in the work place. It happened more than once and affected me emotionally as well as physically.

I started moving away from care towards working with children and young adults. by volunteering with a Scout Group through a friend. I then had relevant experience to apply for a job as a Youth Worker in 1994 and then moved into being a Teaching Assistant around 2000. In between I worked in supermarkets and a chip shop to boost my income, before doing a NVQ through a training scheme and finally obtaining my Cert Ed around 2007. I continued working with children and volunteering to run the local football club.

Whilst training I worked as a Lecturer at the local college and finally combined everything to work as a Child Welfare Officer for the local English Football Association.

Then in 2011 we moved to South Africa and my career came to an end. I continued teaching in a volunteering capacity and became involved with a couple of charities assisitng with education and general support in several townships, from art projects to new buildings, with fund raising and obtaining donations.

On moving to Dubai I taught FS1 for 18 months in a paid capacity, using my recent experience in South Africa to show a range of skills and diversity. I had to pack that in due to a family situation but I then started volunteering on the DP World Tour as a Marshall, which turned into being offered some occasional paid work when the Tour was in the UAE. I let the Production Team know I was now in the UK, but sadly due to the fact I returned to paid work as a Teaching Assistant in a local Secondary School, I've been unable to take time off to date other than the weekend of the 22nd-24th July at the Cazoo Classic in Southport.

All of this has been achieved by hard work, putting myself out there, networking, studying and hours trawling the internet looking for jobs and opportunities. I've also accumulated quite a variety of sports gear/uniform.

The first week in August I was volunteering at the Commonwealth Games in the Athletes Village in Birmingham. I had an interview back in September through my application and experience and I was initially turned down for a role. But I'm guessing lots of people drop out so I was asked if I wanted to work with Cleaning, Catering and Waste, front of house in the Olympic Village Restaurant meeting and greeting athletes and associated personal. 

It's another thing to put on my CV as I continue to search for opportunities wherever they take me. Pay isn't the issue, it's the opportunity to do something new, different and exciting.

My Sunday Photo - Week 115. F is for future.

A big part of who I am is what I do. Although it sounds dramatic my identity was taken from me the day we became expats, living in a country where I wasn't permitted to work. This wasn't something I was prepared for and we trusted the relocation company when they said that once we'd settled the children into school, found a house and our container arrived, that they would then assist with the job market. They hadn't checked the law on foreigners working other than organising the inter company transfer for Peter. I did eventually find volunteer work and as satisfying as it was, there was an assumption that I baked cakes and fund raised at the local golf club, or read to a primary school class once a week, when I said I volunteered in Education for charity.

So on moving to Dubai, just after 2 years ago, my focus after settling into our new home was to find work. It took 10 months before I started teaching in FS. In hindsight, I took the first (and only) job offered to me and as much as I loved the job, the environment wasn't for me, so I left 3 months ago.

My visa for the past 6 years has read 'housewife' I'm not even a SAHM, since the kids have left home, I'm just a SAH and I'm bored, lonely and at 45, life is now passing me by.

We're staying in Dubai another 2-3 years, at 60 this year, Peter is looking forward to retirement in a couple of years time and despite having our finances sorted, I will need to work as we want to continue living this life style of travel and having nice things, so the reality is I need to find a job that will enhance my opportunities when we return to the UK.

I've applied for 2 positions. 1 in Dubai and 1 in the UK. The Dubai job is teaching life skills to 15-18 year old in several school across the UAE. The UK job is with The Football Association and in Child Welfare. The UK job is probably out of my area of expertise these days, as things in Child Welfare have moved on so quickly. It will throw up huge problems as I will need to live in London and Peter will remain in Dubai.

The job in Dubai has offered me an interview, the beginning of May. I need the time to get my disclosure processed from the Disclosure and Barring Service, a police check for my time in both Dubai and South Africa and a variety of other documents that need collating. I also need to do a first aid course.

Both jobs leave me with several dilemmas:

I really want The FA job in London, but although I'd be closer to my family, the kids and be able to see them on weekends, I'd be using my 4 weeks annual leave for long weekends in Dubai to see Peter and he'd have to use his to make trips to see me. My salary would be spent on my cost of living and flights, but it may encourage Peter to make an earlier return to the UK as we could rent out both our UK properties and live off the rent as well as my salary.

If I take the job in Dubai, I'd earn far more money than I could ever dream of in the UK, although if I hadn't left the UK, I'm fairly positive my career would've developed to earning around the same amount now, but then Peter wouldn't have earn such a high salary staying in the UK as he does from working abroad. And I'd be back in a similar situation as to when I was working as a teacher here, bound by the school holidays, and restricted visits to see the family and adult kids in the UK.

At the end of the day, attending interviews won't do me any harm, I can always turn the job down, money isn't really a factor while we're living here, especially now we are free of boarding school fees.

But I do need to be doing something other than travelling back and forth to the UK, the months in-between drive me mad, I do the same things over and over and it's boring, my brain is turning to mush, although I do several study courses online to keep up to date with things. I'm 46 in a couple of months and in 2-3 years I'll be approaching 50, I'm not sure after 8-9 years of doing nothing I'll actually be that employable to do a job, have a career that I can excel in.

So watch this space, who knows I might not got offered either job and I'll be no worse off than I am now.

What's a CRB?

Well yes actually I know what a CRB is. I used to work for the local FA as a Welfare Officer, tasked with reaching 100's of 1'000s of people volunteering in Youth football without any police or club checks. 90% were parents giving up their spare time to support their son/daughter's club from coaching to making teas to sitting on the committee. Not all roles require a CRB for example running the line at a match...you're not left unsupervised and the ref has a CRB (assuming he's over 18) and the two team coaches have CRB's and maybe one or two other parents if they help out...anyway it's a complicated process, helped by volunteer Welfare Officers, one for each club, who provide a list of names of all coaches and adults involved in footall within their club and their CRB status is checked online...

So what happens here in South Africa?...

Well I can't find a link on the school web page or SAFA website, there are Mission Statements and Codes of Conduct, but nothing clearly labelled as 'Child Protection/Welfare'

I was able to host two children over night from a visiting school without so much as filling in a form, mind you the school knew I must've cleared a police check to get my visa in the first place.

I was reading a magazine www.people.co.za in the hairdressers when I came across the 'Find a Pen Friend' page....

I was shocked, I was alarmed, seriously..there was a 12 year old boy wanting a penfriend, he listed his interests, name and email address and the other was a 16 year old girl who left her mobile phone number as a contact...

Can you imagine the uproar in the UK, how the media would react to this or do you think possibly that the UK are overdoing it a bit? after all even with all these people out there and CRB's and Police Checks and Multi agency working, there are still horror stories everyday of paedophiles who slipped the net.