Psychologists will share the success of their ground-breaking back-to-work programme for the long term unemployed, Skills4Success, today, 13th January 2010, at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference in Brighton
Chartered Psychologist Nancy Doyle will present the results and techniques used in the Skills4Success programme, which uses the latest psychological techniques to help its unemployed participants take control of their careers and acquire gainful employment..
So far the short-term programme has helped almost 400 people, and 70 per cent of the course’s graduates have found sustainable employment.
The Skills4Success programme teaches participants to work collaboratively in small groups, where they can share their experiences in areas such as goal setting, CV writing techniques, job searching, presenting for interviews.
Chartered Psychologist Nancy Doyle said: “The design of course was influenced by the theory that long term unemployed people feel like victims of the system and therefore become unable to act for themselves or motivate themselves. Our Skills4Success facilitators use a process called Clean Language’ to help prevent our participants from falling into the role of victim.
Nancy Doyle, and her business partner Caitlin Walker of Training Attention Ltd, have also developed the Calmer Triangle which gives people an alternative to the victim role. “Essentially, we help people to empower themselves, or to have agency. People who are empowered will look for work which interests them, they self-motivate to present better at interviews to employers, and ultimately they make better employees.”
Frances Forteau, a past participant who subsequently trained as a course facilitator, said: “It gave me so much confidence. Friends who saw me after the course asked what I’d done to become more confident. I even started inspiring them to go and improve things for themselves”.
Source:The British Psychological Association
