Hi My name is Diana Launt, and I'm all for supporting people, particularly mum's and lone parents, into self improvement and giving them the confidence to find work. I have worked in many areas where people in the community have not left their area, even caught a bus by public transport into the nearest towns. People born on these estates, lived and died on these estates without even going out of them. The parents, grandparents, and children are on benefits and it is a way of life, they don't expect any different. My jobs have been to work with the communities and empower and coach them to believe in themselves and give them the skills and know-how to get out there and get their dream job. It's all about giving them the positive mind-set to succeed in whatever they desire in life.
They would not leave their houses to come to the training sessions so we had to take the training to them. We had development workers going out in the community, health workers to teach them healthy living, organised health walks, and chairobics for the elderly and disabled, and a community newsletter to keep them updated on all the free training and health initiatives, and I like to think we 'made a difference' in a lot of lives, as well as the community.
My career background is secretarial, management, recruitment and training.
I started my career as a sales office typist and worked my way up through the company and when I was 21 promoted to Secretary/PA to the Chairman and Chief Executive. Then I went on into transport where I became the transport officer of a Research and Development project, which again involved community consultation and working with communities. I was promoted and worked on a 4.3 Million Rural Transport project, multi projects running in parallel as well as a Community Transport project.
Then I moved into the Voluntary Sector where I project managed a Capacity Building Project working with deprived communities.
After the 3 year project I decided to go into the Health and Social Care Sectors working with Children and Families, Looked After Children, and Children with Disabilities as well as Older People. I recruited Social Workers and Contact Workers, as well as other social work specialists. Here I trained as a Moving and Handling Trainer, Health and Safety Manager, Food Safety Management, and trained the staff so they were certified to do their jobs efficiently. I also trained as a qualified Manager and trainer by the Institute of Leadership and Management.
I have many skills that can be passed on, I want to see the 'want to be secretaries' out there become top secretaries. I have helped many women achieve their dreams. Many of them walked into my office with an idea, those ideas make dreams, you just need to want it enough.
I had a group of women that wanted to set up a 'Craft' group and did not know where to start. They sat around the table quiet and not knowing what to say to me. I told them all to write down what they thought they were good at. One said before she left work to have her family she was a clerk/typist, one said they were good at accounts, one said she was good at cooking and mashing teas. There they had everything they needed but didn't know it.
Within 2 hours I had got them so motivated, we had a typist amongst the group that had a laptop, she didn't know what Publisher was, by the end of the afternoon, she was publishing flyers. I rang the local church and they offered a room for free, once a week. I sent two of the girls to the local shops to see whether they could get any freebies for the group. We got old rolls of wallpaper that they could make flower ornaments with, we got balls of wool and cotton, card from the newspaper shops to make cards to sell and we were rolling because the donations kept coming in. It's all about a push in the right direction.
I believe that you are never too old to learn new things, and still at 57 years old I like to keep learning.
Free e-books on my web site http://www.train-me-secretarial.com/blog