Brigette didn’t have a career plan or anything similar. But life had its own plan.

She is a full-time carer for her 12-year-old son with autism. She started looking for work at the beginning of the year and despite her efforts, she couldn’t get her foot in the door.

Last March, after learning about Your Caring Way from a social media post on her local MP Facebook page, she decided to join.

“I stopped working when I had children. I’ve been out of the workforce for 12 years now.”

“I started my vocational coaching with Dennis. The coaching was very nice. He mentioned the training and I found it interesting.”

“Then I did the Skills for Success course for two days. This encouraged me to make a lot of changes to my resume, and then found a job shortly after.”

Brigette started working part-time at a private school in Adelaide in May.

“My job involves HR and Payroll, helping out with data entry, 10 hours over two days a week.”

“It is absolutely ideal because I have three children. I love it, it’s really good.”

“I was very happy to be a home mum. I wasn’t heavily seeking work, and this came up.”

“I just wanted something that would fit in with the family and then they were offering school days, school hours for a couple of days a week. Then when I got there, the ladies were just lovely.”

All of a sudden, Brigette’s schedule was busier than usual.

“On the same week I got the job, I agreed to do a Certificate IV in Community Services full-time, so I had to change my course to part-time.”

“I now study online on a Monday. I work on Tuesday and Thursday; and Wednesday and Friday I do my course homework, home duties, and appointments with my son. I will be finishing my studies early next year.”

However, she is very grateful for everything she has achieved so far. Finding a job has changed her life outlook and helped her discover how passionate she is about helping others.

“I didn’t know that I had been missing helping other people; that I could be helpful. I help my family, but that’s a given. It’s a really good feeling that I didn’t know I was missing.”

“I didn’t realise that I didn’t have that in my life and didn’t know I could be so useful. It’s nice to help other people.”

“I’d like to gain another contract. Then I will have to do my student placement, so I could only still do part-time work and I would like to stay in a school system.”

“The position I’m doing now was advertised on Seek. I applied for the job myself, but the Skills for Success course helped me to get my resume seen. I got the job because of the tips that I learned at the course.”

“It taught me what they were looking for, which words I needed to use and how to structure my resume. It also gave me tips on what to say when you get an interview – that was really helpful. “

“I had applied for a few jobs before the course but never heard back from anyone. Then I figured out my resume was being filtered and never went to employers.”