Work Placement Programme Presentation

On October 21st Step Up held a roundtable discussion for prospective employers interested in hiring orphanage graduates. We invited representatives from medium and large companies to discuss the influence of work placements on young people’s personal development and the role companies can play in the life of orphanage graduates. Step Up is looking not only to help young people find a job, adapt to a new environment, and be ready to face the new challenges, but is also ready to help employers. Step Up’s work placement programme consultants, Ekaterina Belyakova and Aleksei Kurbatov, told participants about the assistance we are ready to offer: — Motivational seminars for employees; — Coaching sessions for managers (face-to-face or via Skype); — Urgent advice (in case of conflict situations). Two of our students — Mikhail Sokolovsky and Andrei Zhiganov — also took part. They told participants about their journey from Year Nine of correctional school to university, and then how they found the jobs they love. As a part of the work placement programme, Step Up has started a communication skills course that is aimed at solving the speech problems that many young people have – and that often become a reason for unsuccessful work placements. Many thanks to Merrill Lynch for supporting the work placement programme and helping us organise the roundtable. We are also grateful to the company representatives who took part in the event.