To give my 18 year old DD 3 months to find a job in her chosen career and if she cant then to apply for anything,

[ShakeTastic]

Hello, My DD thinks iabvu but I do not.

She finished school (after 2 years in sixth form) in may, She worked very hard and came away with 3 A levels, 2 A's and a C, the 2 A's were in health and social care specializing in The early years, apparently this means she has a level 3 in childcare,

Since she finished school she has been looking for a job working in a nursery, She has had no luck even though she has applied for many as although she has the qualifications, she has no experience,

It has now came to the point that as I am on a low income myself and get no money for her anymore she has had to claim jobseekers this week, I do not want her on this any longer than nessasary but she had to as we have had to inform the housing of what she is doing as I get housing benefit,

I have told her that she has 3 months to find a job either within a nursery or similar and if she cant then she will have to apply for whatever is available (shop work, call centres etc) she is not happy,

Obviously I want her to be in job that she has trained to be in and wants to be in but the way things are none of us can be choosey and have to take what we can get,

Aibu?

fabbychick my Dad said the same to me.... (I had go to uni (funded by him) or move out, & had nowhere to go)

I went to Uni, got my degree and became a nanny anyway!

Saying that my degree gave me the pick of all the nanny jobs, so perhaps he was right?

Having been dictated too like that i wont be making my children go to Uni though....

It took my DH 10 years to find his 'dream job' and now he's got it, the pay is shite!
Yanbu, and in the meantime I would start collecting/printing off job adverts of other opportunities you know she could do.
The more time spent out of work can lead to it being harder and harder mentally to get work.
Ask to see what she shows at the JC, that way she knows everyone is on her case (but for the best possible reasons)

mycatoscar is right; my sister has worked in childcare since she did her NNEB aged 18, she now manages a chain and got her degree last onth studying aprt time, she got a first.

Can be ahrd to get voluntary work in schools, all depends opn where you live; locally there are more than enough parents willing, but I now for a fact that sis snaps people up who are bright and free, and YY to weekend / evening childcare. Also worth contacting people like SureStart, we used to use loads of volunteers at the one I was based at and you get a wide range of experience, or if she would be willing to expand her area of expertise I know that the NAS (National Autistic Society) is always seeking out people to act as befrienders to autistic chidlren, the one we had was off to do her BEd. There's a lady I know doing an MA in ASD as a Nanny to asd children; if she has the aptitude it's a shortage area.

OP i think you are NBU and fair. I think as your mother you are supportive of her looking for a job in what she is trained in and very fair to expect her to contribute to household (good life lesson).

however i fear a gap in her cv will not look good to future employees and will read more responsible and hard working if she were to get ANY job straight away and apply for what she wanted to do in the evenings and weekends.

i dont know anything about the english education system so cant comment but i think you come across as a brilliant supportive mum. imo i would cut the 3months down to 2 weeks to give her some head space, chance to do up cv and get job applications.

*her mother, not your. god damn 3 hours sleep!

I would do everything I could to not have my child walk into the benefit office - surely she can get some sort of work. Nursery work is terribly poorly paid and perhaps she should look at being a bit more ambitious but if her first experience of the life after school is signing on then personally i don't think that looks good on a CV.

Just make her get a job, I cannot understand why she has the luxury of waiting. There is no way in the world I would allow my dd to sign on - she has had the couple of months before leaving school and the Summer holidays to find something.

pinky isn;t it the case that 20%+ of young people atm are unemployed? so sdly getting any work is not a guarantee straight away (stats may be a bit our but not by much)

A benefit to signing on is that certain employers will guarantee an interview if you are registered unemployed. I'm a carer but when I am able to go back i will be signing on even though I won't get a penny, just for that extra chance to get an interview to impress with.

If I could afford it then i'd be as happy for my boys to work in a voluntary role as a paid one (mind I used to manage vollunteers so...), the only thing I could not abide would be idleness.

www.csv.org.uk/volunteering

How about this? 6 months away from home volunteering, she'll be paid an allowance, she'll be able to work with children and young people so she'll gain experience. I was in exactly the same situation when I left school (except I was waiting to be old enough for my chosen college course), I did 8months working in a residential school then 3 months working in a nursery attached to a women's refuge. I can honestly say it's the best thing I ever did, I became independent, had some amazing times and if I'd then wanted to go into that area as a chosen profession I would have had a year's solid experience.

I do not believe for a second that some work cannot be found! Whatever this young girl does it will be on minimum wage so it matters now what she does. I live i the South - no matter what anyone says, for minimum wage there are lot sof jobs (it well paid ones which are hard to find) and she should be working and not signing on I think it sets a dangerous precedent

Ah you see I live in S E Wales, in the south there are absolutely jobs, it's very much a geographic thing. As ever.

but huge numbers unemployed are exceeding the job vancancies available even by Government estimates; OPs daughter ahs a good chance as she is well qualified but it's a fact of life for many at the moment.

I think personally if signing on gets you extra help in a job search tehn so be it; for myself I am extremely well qualified buty have been away from the market for years, if it helps me get an interview and the chance to shine then absolutely I shall grab that. It's the opposite of setting a dangerous precedent, it's about finding ways to get back up faster.

A very long shot here, but which area are you OP? I work for a nursery group and we're opening a new nursery in a few weeks in Manchester. We're recruiting now for that nursery or may have other opportunities in other nurseries. They're mainly in the NW and Scotland though. We have a Modern Apprentice scheme as well. If it's any use please let me know and I can send more details.

The reason she is not getting a job in childcare is possibly because she needs a qualification in childcare, not just A levels which are the equivilant of a level 3. Does she have a certificate that actually states that she has a level 3 qualification in childcare?
If she wants to work in a nursery she might have to start at the bottom and do a childcare qualification as an apprentice.

The Job Centre will be telling her the same thing - she will need to apply for a wider range of jobs after the 3 month point, and more or less anything after about 6 months. What you are saying is completely reasonable.

Depending on where you are, you might want to steer her towards something like bar work or waitressing - there is still the problem of securing the first post when you have no experience. But it's the sort of thing which you can look for for your "proper" job whilst doing (think "resting" actors), and can fill in between any changes of jobs in later life.

She really needs to go out there, get some work experience/shadowing experience whilst she is looking for a job. If she can stop as soon as a suitable job comes along it shouldn't affect her benefits. However there are lots of child care jobs out there, they don't pay well, but they are there.

HoneyPablo has a very good point.

3 A Levels is NOT a cache / nvq 3 / or a recongnised childcare qualification.

I had 4 A Levels and BSc.(hons) Psycology, but to be qualified in childcare i needed to do my NVQ3 (the course name has changed since i completed it)

Hi their work with children myself

1- nannying jobs plenty she can also live in

2-au pair job plenty

she can ever join and agency or look on gumtree ect

3- she could set up as a childminder with in your home if you would allow it
as she is 18 and has no children her self could do hours other childminders wont do

4- her local family link service they help support children who are disabled and are always desperate for people.

i would say to her you need to get any job now and then look for her dream job

maybe something at night so she has the day to attended interviews or something pt time

sadly i think this is the view of many young purple now not understand why they cant cost on benefits until they can find what they want to do not understanding in the mean time bill have to be paid

I've never understood this 'it's easier to get a job if you already have one' mentality. For my current job, they phoned me and said 'can you come in tomorrow for an interview'. Now I have a job, I wouldn't be able to do that because I have to give one week's notice if I need any time off. They called again two weeks later to ask if I could come for a second interview that day. If I already had a job, I wouldn't be able to ask for time off so soon after the last time.

Then a few weeks later they said 'we need you to start tomorrow'. I wouldn't have been able to start if I had to give two weeks/a month's notice.

And what if she gets a job in a shop now, then finds her dream job in a month? leaving a job after a month is hardly going to look great on her CV is it?

And yes I've been told the same crap things about any job giving you transferable skills blah blah, but actually unless you've done the exact same job for 10 years before most employers couldn't care less.

pinky: Over the past three years I have been in a situation three times where I've spent months looking for work trying to get out of seasonal jobs. I applied to any and all places offering jobs and barely even got offered an interview. I ended up having to go back into seasonal work because it was impossible for people to find work where I was from (Essex). It's not really that hard to believe that people can't find work, for some it's certainly not thrugh lack of trying!

I didn't read the bit about her A Levels either. As others have said, nurseries will want a childcare specific level three, not an equivalent. You can work on qualies whilst working (I started an NVQ 3 when mother's helping and am now doing the new level 3 as a nanny) but the qual she can work towards depends on the job she gets. Working in a nursery will only allow her to work towards her NVQ 2 unless she is given a 'position of trust' so to speak (that's the impression I got when I started the NVQ anyway).

If she really wants to work with kids, I'd say MH and APing and working towards a level 3 whilst doing that is her best bet. But do look into other types of seasonal work too as there are so many of those jobs about and it amazes me how few young people know about seasonal jobs and when they do know they don't want to leave home My Job Centre pushed me to them when I was trying to settle in Essex.

I think yabr. I would expect the same.

It's a luxury to be able to wait for your dream job. One a lot of people don't have. They have bills to pay. My parents moved abroad when I was about 21. I had to pay my own way. Although I had some jobs I really didn't like at times, I was never out of work for more than a month.

Most employers will wait a month for somebody to work their notice. I think you get some kind of good experience out of every job you do. I would be more inclined to employ someone who's had some sort of work experience, rather than none at all.

'And what if she gets a job in a shop now, then finds her dream job in a month? leaving a job after a month is hardly going to look great on her CV is it?'

She'd still be on probation and therefore not required to work out a notice period.

Just don't put that time on the CV at all.

The OP cannot afford to keep her as she is no longer receiving CB or CTC for her, and she is on min wage herself.

So she needs to pay board and/or get a job.

A1980 Where did I say that I am reliant on benefits?

You get housing benefit as I presume you can't afford your rent otherwise? Therefore you are reliant on benefits.

It took me 7 months of unemployment to get my dream job, and I put the fact that I got it down to the voluntary experience I got in that time. My interviewers were impressed by me taking the initiative to volunteer. The initiative it had taken to apply for hundreds of jobs doesn't make it onto a CV unfortunately!

When a teacher I know was faced with redundancy she looked to America - I think there are a lot of 6 month or year-long nanny/childcare jobs over there. Is this something she could think about?