Employment and Skills - Update from BESS

The Bedfordshire Employment and Skills Service (BESS) provides opportunities for adults to get involved in learning within the community. In particular, we aim to work with people who have not achieved a level 2 (or equivalent) qualification and/or are unemployed.

The BESS adult learning programme can help you:

get back into learning
gain skills and qualifications to help you into work
gain skills and qualifications to help you progress at work

Here are a few of our recent successes:

‘B’ told us: “I just wanted to let you know that thanks to your training I have just been offered a new job working as a teaching assistant in specialist Autistic Spectrum Disorder and ADHD provision. Your training has given me the confidence to try something different, so I just wanted to say thank you.”

‘P’ lost his sales role due to a company-wide redundancy programme caused by the first COVID-19 lockdown. He sought help in finding a new focus for the future and was interested in our online module designed to review skills and career progression.

Supported by one of our tutors who discussed P’s results with him during a 1:1 phone tutorial, he has now enrolled on a teaching course with a local training provider, a career that matches both his ambition and skills set.

‘J’ told us how the National Careers Service Advisor helped her with her CV. They discussed what she’d enjoyed in her previous role (providing information and advice to people relocating as part of their job at a bank) and her advisor told her of some careers Information, advice and guidance roles coming up at the council.

On reviewing the person specification J realised that she had the transferrable skills required. With the advisor’s support, she successfully applied for the role and enrolled on an Level 2 Information and Advice qualification.

“My previous concerns had been my age (mid 50s) and this had been a barrier to me as I thought it would go against me but that was not correct. I would encourage anyone looking for work to make contact with one of our National Careers Service Advisors.”

A number of the learners who attended one of sector-assessed work academies, this one run in partnership with DWP, have been successful in gaining a job as one of their work coaches. For example, one had been employed as a purchasing manager before being made redundant. Following completion of the Work Coach Academy programme he was successful in gaining employment at the DWP as a job coach.