Success Story: Josh

Disability Employment Service

Josh came to Enable as he was very keen to get a job but had struggled to find sustainable employment. Josh is 24 years old and was referred to the team who support people with disabilities. The Enable team completed a vocational profile with Josh; this involved him chatting about his skills and interests – helping them to work out what sort of job Josh should be matched to.

Josh said: “They helped me with CV writing and we did role play to practice going to an interview – like bad situations and good situations. They helped me figure out what my skills are and what I was interested in and we wrote a list of things that I would like to do.”

Josh spent some time building his skills through a couple of part-time positions before Enable Employment Officer, Natalie, found Josh a cleaning job at Oldbury Wells School in Bridgnorth as part of the Superclean team. Julie, the manager at Superclean, had previously employed someone through Enable who is still working there now. This meant that she knew the process and she was aware of the level of support that would be available.

“When I first met Josh, I didn’t really have any concerns,” Julie said, “we have a massive turnover of staff, we have a lot of people who come for a week and then leave. I knew that I would have the support of Enable to help him settle in and step by step encourage him to do his daily duties.”

As an employer, Julie has seen many benefits of hiring someone through Enable, she said: “I would highly recommend using Enable to hire staff to other employers – it’s the way forward! They know that the applicants they are putting forward to you are suitable for the role, they’re not just going to give you anybody. I’ve had people who have come and said that they’ve done cleaning before and they have all of this experience and then they’re absolutely useless! You can find problems with anyone that you employ but Enable offers you the support to deal with those problems.”

Since beginning employment, people closest to Josh have seen a huge change in his self-confidence. Josh’s Dad said: “Enable have helped Josh to realise his full potential. He can proudly go into a pub, or meet his mates and say “I’ve got a five day a week job” which might not sound much, but really I think it’s immense, as a parent that makes me feel great, let alone how it makes Josh feel.”

After years of trying and meeting with people from various employment services, Josh’s parents have really seen something in Enable that stands out from the rest.

Josh’s Mum said: “It’s about having confidence in someone – so many times people have been here and they’ll say they will be in touch, they go away and then we don’t hear from them again. This time we know that Natalie is at the other end of the phone and she calls in and keeps in touch all the time. It’s such a help knowing that you’ve got somebody out there, just somebody, because you do feel quite alone with this sort of thing if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

Josh said: “My favourite parts about working are getting paid, meeting the nice teachers and meeting Julie my boss. I like having my own money and making my own decisions.”

Josh has recently bought himself a new mountain bike with his wages and is looking forward to continuing down the road of independence.

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