Vibrance helping the next generation to gain valuable ‘real life’ work experience
A leading social care charity is working with top organisations to offer young adults the opportunity to gain valuable work experience in the social care sector.
Ilford based charity, Vibrance, has been working closely with Skills for Care since 2006, and has recently got involved in the graduate scheme.
Skills for Care provides practical tools and support to help adult social care organisations in England recruit, develop and lead their workforce. The graduate scheme, which involves a 12 month placement, aims to bring people with the right core values, and a passion for taking care of others, into the social care sector. Skills for Care matches those who apply to the scheme to a social organisation where they feel the individual can make a real difference.
Skills for Care recently got in touch with Vibrance who felt that the organisation would be able to offer one of the graduate trainees a valuable and challenging placement.
Nazia Khanum, who graduated from Queen Mary University of London last year, joined Vibrance two months ago, as part of the operations team.
Speaking of her graduate placement with Skills for Care and her time with Vibrance, Nazia said: “Once I graduated from university I knew that I wanted to go into the health and social care sector, and the Skills for Care graduate scheme was a perfect opportunity to gain management experience.
“Working at Vibrance has been absolutely brilliant, and all of the staff are amazing and truly embody the organisations values. I’ve heard so many positive stories from service users, parents and staff, which is great to hear.
“I’ve had the opportunity to gain one-to-one experience with service users, which is what I wanted from the placement. I’ve visited a number of services and have seen first-hand the positive impact the service and organisation has on the people that it supports.
“I’m thoroughly enjoying my time in the operations team at Vibrance, and have gained a breadth of experience. Once my placement comes to an end in the New Year, I will be applying to work for Vibrance as a relief support worker, whilst working towards my long-term goal of becoming a social worker.”
In addition to working with Skills for Care, Vibrance also has strong links with the Essex Interns team and has welcomed a number of interns from Essex University. The social care charity has offered graduates from the University of Essex a variety of internships from HR to Finance and Marketing, lasting from six weeks to six months. Vibrance recently welcomed its latest intern, Cherrelle Sandiford, who will be completing a 12 weeks in the HR department.
The organisation employs around 400 people and was named in The Sunday Times ‘100 Best Companies To Work For’ in 2010 and 2012.