I need to find some kind of career, I want to support my family, please help

[MrsSnape]

Ok with the current climate it is proving impossible to find work. I am having to rely on income support and my ex's maintanace to feed the kids and that leaves me constantly worrying that EX will quit his job and leave us up poo creak IYSWIM?

I want a job, a career...I want to support us properly. I can go back to college...I can do anything right now.

So, any ideas on what kind of career to go for? I have typing/word qualifications and a few GCSE's...that's it.

Anyone know of any training courses, qualifications, schemes etc?

I'm going to do a medical secretarial course next sep. LIke you, I've got a bit of secretarial experience, but it was years ago, and I've done other things since.

I just want to do this because legal secretarial and medical secretarial courses are only one year long (well less really 10 months) and yet they do lead to a reasonably well-paid job.

The woman at the Institue of Further Education where I'm doing the course (it's an Irish course) said that doctors and so on actually like to employ older girls as medical secretaries so that cheered me up, to think that for once, not being 23 (add 15!) would be an advantage not a disadvantage!!

That's my 'plan' for better or worse anyway.

join the civil service! good flexi time and family friendly policies. part time work or term time only - DWP will be recruiting a lot next year because of the economic climate. you can help other single parents get jobs or the benefits that they are entitled to.

I feel the same as MrsSnape atm. Would love to find work but would rather it be a career than just a random office/shop job.

However actually being 23 looks like it stands against me!

no no Xavielli, I assure you it won't. There are only a few fields where unqualified people are at an advantage being older. Employers either want older and wiser or younger and on the way up.

Mrs Snape, if you are in the enviable position of being able to do 'anything right now' I think you owe it to yourself to think about what you really want to do with the rest of your life in an ideal world. Sod the typing/word qualifications. What are you good at? What do you enjoy? What do you really want to do with your life? Have you thought about seeking careers advice?

I've read some of your other posts on here and you strike me very much as someone who is able to achieve something when they've set their mind to it. So go for it! Don't seek future employment as simply a way of being independent of your ex's maintenance, see it as a way of setting yourself free and being totally fulfilled, and setting an example to DC that life can be anything you want it to be if you are prepared to work for it.

You go girl!!!

What a lovely post OptimistS

Hi, Im going for a total career change and back at college studying social care.
I want to support adults with learning disabilities, but the course would let you go on and be a social worker if you wanted to go that far, it really leads on to several different careers in the care profession, so if thats up your street, then its worth having a look at.