Ok, really really need you to decide our future for us!

[Rhubarb]

Well, dh does and I may hand this thread over to him later on.

Briefly, he has 1 A Level in Psychology and around 10 GCE's, he did a year at Uni studying BSE Earth Life Studies, this was in 1988/89. He left after a year because he had a mental breakdown.

Since then he's been working in the agricultural industry and most recently he's been a qualified digger driver. Up here in Carlisle he is struggling to find work so we've been thinking of a change of career for him. He's doing voluntary work with the Red Cross to improve his IT skills and hopefully get a bit of First Aid training. He would like to get into Mental Health, but we've just been enquiring about such courses at our local Uni.

All the Diplomas in Nursing are 3 years. To get onto a course he would first have to do a Foundation Year, which takes us to 4 years, by which time he'd be 45. I'd also have to work full time to support him.

4 years is just too long. Especially for me as I don't want to work full time, I want to be with my kids whilst they are still young. I'd be working in a crappy office job and I'd be unhappy. 4 years is also too long for dh.

Where can he get good careers advice? Does anyone have any good suggestions for us? Every time we come up with a good idea there seems to be a catch. For instance I thought about Environmental Work, Forestry and stuff, but you need to study for that too, there are no bursaries for that and it is notoriously badly paid.

Please help us decide our future!

What about working with thw elderly?

The counsellor suggestion sounds good Rhubarb - as does gaining some initial experience by volunteering at the Samaritans or similar.

How about :
Residential Social Work (with childen, young people, young offenders)

Youth Work (could do some voluntarily whilst studying/doing evening classes in basic youth work qualifications)

Or, and this might be ideal, not sure what their job title is but working for a Youth Offending/Criminal Justice Team overseeing and supervising offenders who are doing practical community service. this would combine his practical hands-on skills with the people skills.

If he worked as an RSW for the county council they give you the opportunity to do the social work course and be paid (have to work for them for 3? years after qualifying)

Teaching assistant? Big special school up there but they have different structure of TAs to my school.

How about setting up as a self employed gardener? As a one man band he could grass cut etc and you don't need to be qualified for that. Are there lots of retired people around you who can't cope with their gardens?

He wouldn't have any grief from other workers, and if he is calm then the old ladies would love him!

Also, what about cleaning fishponds - DH does this - no-one really wants to stand knee deep in fish poo, so most are quite keen to get someone in!!

But it would mean being brave enough to go it alone, and the winter months can be a bit thin.

Rhubarb, old friend of mine wanted to get into nursing as a mature student (he was a farmer but had to give up as small farms are f*cked, basically). Like your dh, he couldn't manage four years' training and has ended up working as an undertaker. Which may seem an odd development, but he loves it! Takes real pride in comforting vulnerable people (so your dh's leaning towards counselling could be useful here). Obviously as a farmer he doesn't have the 'yuck' factor that many people would have with dead bodies but I assume if your dh is interested in nursing that may be something he's already thought about. My friend got taken on by a local firm and trained up - started by doing work experience for a few weeks to make sure he knew what the job involved. Worth a thought?

And he'd never be out of work...

What about Ambulance Service? Not sure how you train, but I don't think it's as long as nursing? Think you get paid a salary whilst you train?

I would recommend he does some care work before commiting to a 4 year course, nursing is becoming more managerial and less care based, if your husband is how you describe him he may hate it.

I'm a nurse and have found in recent years i spend the majority of my time sorting staffing and bed shortages rather than dealing with patients.the care assistants are the ones who have the most patient contact!

However i worked in medicine not mental health so it may be different.

Also a friend is currently doing her nurse training and gets more bursary for having children and also applied to her college hardship fund and got £2k to help with childcare costs! hth