“The Community Employment scheme is the best opportunity,” enthuses Saira Asif. “They give you the full training accordingly and on top of that is the work experience, so once you leave the scheme, everybody wants to hire you.”
One of the dedicated staff members who run the busy childcare facilities operated by Laois Partnership Company in Portlaoise, Saira’s journey to fulltime employment began with a work placement through the Community Employment (CE) scheme. This scheme is designed to help people who are long-term unemployed to get back to work by offering part-time and temporary placements in jobs based within local communities. After arriving in Ireland in 2007 from Pakistan, Saira dedicated herself to raising her young family, but as her children started to get older, she realised it was time to refocus her efforts on her career opportunities.
“I didn’t have any work experience, because when I came to Ireland, the kids were small, but when they started going to school, I felt that I had to go back into the workforce,” she says.
Although determined in her goal, as Saira was “so long out of touch with the work”, she was unable to secure employment, despite having completed a master’s in psychology in her native country. So, after applying for the Community Employment Childcare Training and Development Programme, Saira secured a work placement in the O’Moore Place Childcare facility, before later working in Birchgrove Afterschool, both of which operate under the aegis of Laois Partnership Company. These local childcare facilities suited her well as the hours matched schooltime, meaning she was able to pick up and drop off her children.
Besides the benefit of a top-up to her Social Welfare payment, her work placement on the CE scheme also afforded Saira the chance to upskill by providing supports that enabled her to return to education.
“My supervisors said that as I have a qualification, I could do a HDip. They helped me to do my application to Carlow College, so I started back to education at that time,” she says, explaining that she finished the HDip in 2016 before applying for fulltime work.
“The staff were very cooperative. The coordinators were excellent in helping out and managing things with me, especially the assignments. They all helped a lot while I was doing that,” says Saira.
After first securing a job in Carlow as a preschool teacher upon completing the HDip, Saira began her employment with Laois Partnership Company in 2017, working in O’Moore Place in the mornings and Birchgrove in the afternoons. For someone interested in psychology who previously worked in social care, her role in childcare taps into Saira’s innate capacity for helping others.
“You are working with the children, so you have motherly feelings. It’s our job to keep them safe and give them a safe environment. When they go home in the evening, I know that the homework has been done and they have been fed,” says Saira.
A keen advocate of the CE scheme, Saira encourages anyone currently unemployed to consider work placement opportunities in their community. Besides the Community Employment Childcare Training and Development Programme, Laois Partnership Company also facilitates placements through the Tús Scheme and the Rural Social Scheme, the latter providing part-time farmers or their family members with an opportunity to earn a supplementary income.
If you are in receipt of a Social Welfare payment and interested in exploring a work placement, drop into your local Social Welfare office to discuss your options. For more information on any of the work placement schemes run through Laois Partnership Company, contact 05786 61900 or email [email protected].