Coming back to Mambourin has been hard after being in another long lockdown, I have felt anxious and scared. I felt all these different emotions when I came back, it is hard to put into words how I felt walking into the classroom after months of online learning.

I have been doing a lot more work experience at reception as I missed out on my practical part of SLES, and it has been good for me. During lockdown I focused on my learners and last week I passed my test. I have being applying for childcare traineeships with the help of Brittany and also applying for jobs for next year. I have been really focusing in participating in work skills workshops facilitated by Brittany as I found it hard to participate online. It has been really great seeing my friends face-to-face and being able to go down to the café together.

I am looking forward to getting a job and keeping it, it will be a big change for me. I am also looking forward to the SLES trip to an environmental park in Brunswick to learn about jobs that focus on sustainability and also looking forward to learning more about farming, garden and café work. This year we haven’t been able to go out in the community much due to lockdowns, so this is going to be really good for us.

I want to share a funny story that happened during online learning. One day we were about to make muffins online with Brittany. We were all talking and then I heard something rattling, then I heard Brittany saying is everyone okay? Bam! We had an earthquake during our online session, who would have thought that would happen. The rest of the day was a bit off, people’s internet connections were playing up and some had no electricity. I learnt that day that working from home is unpredictable and if something like this happens, you’ve just got to relax, stay calm and just wait for things to go back to normal. The technical issues were out of our control and we could have made it affect us or we could get on with it.

We had created a business proposal that we did during one of our workshops, we then put it forward to Brad and he accepted it. It was for a SLES bake sale that was meant to happen at the end of July but lockdown decided to ruin it. In this bake sale we were going to sell cookies from a company that hires people with disabilities. We were going to hold the bake sale for anyone working here at the Derrimut site. The money raised was going to be for a charity of our choice. We created a business plan and proposal after many lessons on small businesses and after a visit to the market where we asked shop keepers about their businesses. We had created a list of reasons why we wanted to have a bake sale, we had reasons about what we would learn and we even did lots of research. I am sad we couldn’t hold the sale, but I still gained a lot from creating the proposal.

I am looking forward to starting my new adventure next year, I hope it is a better year as well. I am also looking forward to the Christmas break, I think we all need a little time off to chill out and not think about work for a while.

Catch ya on the flip side.

Caitlin

To find out more about our SLES program visit our School Leaver Employment Support page.

Want to know if SLES is right for you? Contact one of our friendly team members on 9731 9200 or email us at hello@mambourin.org