How Teagan’s work inspired the next step in her career

Sometimes you have to achieve the little goals to make room for the bigger goals. Finding work was only the first step for Teagan in starting the path to a career she is passionate about. 

Dedicated mum Teagan met the Bamara team through the ParentsNext program in 2019. The main goal behind connecting with ParentsNext was to work towards studying in the hopes of getting a job. 

When Teagan first met her Support Mentor, Rachel, she was trying to balance several personal struggles at once, making it difficult to commit to the program as much as she would like to. 

Rachel went straight into action, working with Teagan to find the best strategy for reaching her goals. This started with taking some of the weight off her shoulders by linking Teagan with Bamara’s counselling services, giving her access to mental health and social support on an ongoing basis. 

“Together they made active and continuous steps to slowly better her health and gain the skills necessary to take action towards her future goals,” said Maddison, Bamara Support Mentor.

Through regular meetings, Teagan and Rachel discussed the career paths Teagan was considering. Teagan wanted to boost her technology knowledge in the hopes of finding work. To build towards this goal, Bamara provided Teagan with a laptop and enrolled her into a laptop literacy course. 

Once she was comfortable with her new computer skills, Teagan continued her studies with Bamara Education and Training by completing a Certificate II in Food Safety. The focus of this course was to help Teagan gain the experience needed to find work in the food industry. 

After plenty of training, Teagan was ready to start work. She attended an employment open day at a local college, where she spoke to industry professionals and gained insight into exactly what skills would be needed to get a job with the organisation. Since she was already Food Safety qualified, Teagan realigned her goals to tick everything else off the list. Bamara assisted her with securing an NDIS Worker’s Clearance Check, the final step in becoming work-ready. 

Through her determination and teamwork with Rachel and Bamara, Teagan landed a job as a kitchen hand at the organisation’s Community Care Centre. Starting in May, she has been working for several months now and is thriving in her role. 

“I am tremendously proud of the heart-warming and self-fulfilling journey made by Teagan,” said Maddison.

With a stable job behind her, Teagan was inspired by her work environment and has chosen to pursue study in the Community Services industry while continuing her current position. 

“It brings me such joy to work with an incredibly strong, independent and inspirational woman,” said Maddison.“

I look forward to seeing what the future has in store for Teagan.”

The ParentsNext team loves to see our participants thrive on their journey to employment. Teagan’s immediate goal of securing work has now been reached, leaving her room to grow into new plans and focus on her family.