Work experience introduces young people to the world of work and is a valuable and essential part of their education.  Over the years we have placed a number of our clients in various placements as well as offering work experience training at our offices to special needs students working in partnership with the Brent & Harrow Education Business Service Work Experience Programme (BHEBS). Link Up sees it as an excellent opportunity to provide service users with a good grounding in working in an office environment, increase their confidence and develop social skills.

Emily has Down Syndrome and since leaving statutory education, she spent most of her time indoors.  She started to lose her confidence and became more and more dependent on her family.  Together we focused on the issues she faced and put together a Personal Development Plan taking into consideration all her hopes and dreams.   One of Emily’s aspirations was to have a job.   We offered her a work placement at our offices working as a volunteer office assistant which she started in 2004.   Through our one to one training programme, Emily developed a number of office based skills, as well as developing socially .  Her confidence increased  and after  3 years training we felt she was ready for the real world of work.  We are now very proud to say that she has managed to secure a paid job at Starbucks Coffee in Pinner.   She started her job in November 2007 and her manager and colleagues are very pleased with her performance.  She’s always telling us how happy she is working there. 

Maria D'Cruz

Maria has a mild learning disability and loves working on jobs such as large mailshots, shredding and photocopying. She recently did a job for The North West London Chamber where she had to prepare a mailshot of 2000 newsletters!  Are you a local business which can offer similar opportunities for our clients? We can work with you to identify possible roles  and provide ongoing support to you as an employer.  Even if it's once a week, you'll be helping to raise their confidence.

Kamini Shah

Since December 2007, Kamini has been working at our Link Up offices on Mondays as a volunteer office assistant.  Kamini also enjoys doing jobs such as shredding, photocopying and basic word processing.  She also helps with running errands and keeping the office tidy.  She's very punctual and very hard working.  Once Kamini has built up her office experience we will work on finding her paid employment.

Rizwan Khan

In July 2007, BHEBS arranged a placement for 16 year old Rizwan Khan from Whitmore High School. "When I received the news that I was going to Link Up for my work experience placement, I was really excited!"  Rizwan was a great help around the office. He was very good at following instructions and picked up a number of new skills. We would like to thank Rizwan for all his efforts and wish him good luck for the future.