“Ingeus has been excellent; they focused on giving me the help that I needed, and now I am in a great job."
Maria, 39, joined Ingeus’ Pathways to Work programme after hearing about the programme during a visit to Highgate Jobcentre Plus. Maria had been unable to work for over a year, and suffered from a number of health conditions including diabetes and a painful foot condition that required physiotherapy. When she met her Ingeus advisor, Kathryn, Maria told her that she wanted make use of the pre-primary level teaching certificate she had gained when she lived in Italy, and was interested in working in day-care.
Maria began attending weekly meetings with Kathryn at Ingeus’ King’s Cross office, at which they revised Maria’s CV so it focused on her experience and qualifications in childcare. Maria also researched local childcare centres and started sending out speculative letters to promote her availability, as well as cold-calling centres to see if they had any vacancies.
Maria received a number of offers to attend interviews, and she prepared for these by practising her answers to common interview questions with Kathryn. Kathryn also recommended that Maria attend Ingeus’ ‘Coping with pain’ workshop and Pilates sessions, as well as meet with the company’s in-house physiotherapist to discuss how she could manage her manage her health once she started work.
As a result of her efforts, Maria received an offer of a childcare position working 25 hours a week. Kathryn calculated that the job would leave Maria more than £60 a week better off than she had been on benefits. To make sure she had no financial concerns during the move from benefits into work, Kathryn arranged funding to cover Maria’s travel expenses for the first two weeks of work and helped her to apply for Housing and Council Tax benefits as well as Return to Work Credits and Working Tax Credits. Maria is now settled into her new role, and her new employer is paying for her to undertake an NVQ Level 3 in childcare so she can gain further qualifications and continue to build her career.
Maria says, “Ingeus has been excellent; they focused on giving me the help that I needed, and now I am in a great job working for a big company that offers lots of opportunity.”