Story 2: Supporting people living with brain injury in their employment journey

The Employ Me Project

In our latest Hear My Voice campaign feature, learn about some of the Employ Me Project’s success stories so far as we track the journeys of participants through the program.

Employ Me takes a unique methodology and engaging personal development tools to build confidence and capacity to set goals and build confidence.

The Project is dedicated to supporting individuals with brain injuries in their employment journey; utilising a unique 10-step methodology on support participants to develop the confidence and capacity needed to gain employment, engage in volunteering, or pursue further educational opportunities.

Here we’ll consider the experiences of a participant, Dane, along the Employ Me program.

What’s Involved in doing the program?

Getting Started

You may learn about Employ Me through any number of channels: your Disability Employment Service provider, your occupational therapist or other Allied Health Professional, or perhaps by contacting the Employ Me team directly. Dane commenced his Employ Me journey after learning about the program at a Brain Injury Association of Tasmania Peer Support meeting.

Dane contacted the Employ Me team directly and asked to participate. Interestingly, Dane already had plenty of experience producing his own video features around a wide range of topics.

The initial step involves introductions and a detailed discussion about the commitment required and the benefits that come from completing the program. Participants are given time to consider their involvement before committing to the program. Dane completed step one through a few phone calls, emails and a Zoom meeting. Following on from introductions, we discussed how we utilise a ‘hybrid model’ to work with participants around Tasmania where this is appropriate.

Dane also had plenty of prior experience with video conferencing and was comfortable working through most of steps along the Employ Me methodology remotely. The team then provides reminder messages or calls on the morning of the meetings to help keep them front of mind. For Dane, the first six steps of the journey were all facilitated remotely:

Steps 1 and 2: Entry and introductions - Dane reached out to us and we scheduled the first online meeting for introductions and to talk through what’s involved

Step 3: Agreement – a simple, plain English agreement to participate in the program

Step 4: Questionnaire – a short survey so we know where you are at before you start, and

Step 5: A set of three workbooks – each of these completed in separate sessions:

Workbook one, A bit about me

Workbook two, Discovering my strengths

Workbook three, My employment journey

Stop 6: Personal Profile, which becomes the script for your About Me video

This process can take a couple of months and in Dane’s case, being pretty much the opposite end of Tasmania from the Employ Me office, we made sure to do some trial runs over Zoom for Dane to practice his responses prior to us travelling to him to record his About Me video.

About Me Videos

The next step involves recording the footage for an ‘About Me’ video. These videos are dynamic and personal representations of a participant, going far beyond a “normal” resumé. They can be used in job applications and shared with employers, family, friends, support workers, or even kept to yourself for personal reflection and  tracking your progress and growth over time.

The video offers a versatile tool that can help communicate your needs and can let an employer know how best to support your.

In addition to filming you, in a quiet place, answering each of the About Me questions, we also find somewhere or something important to you to film the  ‘B roll’ - this is background footage to enrich the video. For Dane, we travelled to a historic homestead close to where he grew up, to record footage of Dane walking through formal gardens, around the porch and in the grand rooms of the homestead.

‍

Dane’s About Me video is also available at youtu.be/5a_gS6hiiqI 

Where to from here?

When the video editing is complete, any final adjustments are made and you receive a copy of it to keep, we’re not quite finished. There are further steps including:

1. Plan implementation - discussions around what you want to do with the video, whether you would like help connecting to a DES provider, a regional jobs hub, training providers or other supports
2. Post-participation questionnaire - this helps us know if the program is having a positive impact and how we can improve 

Dane’s plan implementation involved meeting with his DES Provider job consultant, and listing out a series of discrete steps he can now take towards his short, medium and long term employment goals.

We’d like to genuinely thank Dane for his generosity in sharing his story and for all his contributions to the Employ Me Project.

--

The Employ Me Project  is funded by The Australian Government Department of Social Services.

To learn more about the program, visit www.employmeplus.com.au or email enquiries@employmeplus.com.au