Good things come to those who wait

Two good things have happened this week. First, my brother is now officially a clinical psychologist – WELL DONE PAUL!!!!! Most people probably have no idea how much hard work that takes (and I’ve only seen it from one step removed) but believe me, it’s been a huge effort and I am so proud of the new Dr in the family!! For a great insight into the work that he’s been doing as part of his thesis, have a look at www.sowhatispsychosisanyway.blogspot.com, which I think is fascinating (no bias here of course).

Secondly, and hopefully I’m not jinxing anything here, I have success to report on the job-hunting front. Nothing is 100% confirmed yet, but barring major incidents or disasters, it looks like I’ll be doing two jobs from November! I won’t go into the ins and outs of how this has transpired – needless to say it’s been an interesting time of offers and opportunities and me trying to find a way to have my cake and eat it!!

The main thing I’ll be doing is leading an ambitious, national program of social enterprise development for a major Australian welfare organisation (I won’t name them until it’s all signed, sealed and delivered). The focus will be on using a transitional labour market model (on-the-job traineeships allied with vocational training) to support marginalised young people to access and sustain mainstream education or employment. Some really interesting commercial opportunities are on the table, plus the organisation in question has excellent links with government and corporate supporters, so it’s an amazing opportunity for me to lead something on a large scale which could, if we get it right, have significant impact, not only on individual young people but on the policy environment here in Australia. I’ll be working with senior staff across the organisation, and corporate/government partners, to design, set up and roll out the business model across each state and territory in Australia.

Then, on a very part-time basis, I’ll be supporting a brand new organisation which aims to create employment for people who can’t access jobs elsewhere, by buying existing businesses and developing supportive, integrated workforces over time. My role there, as part of a small management team, will be to set up the framework and accompanying policies for the business managers to work with when they’re recruiting and employing people who may not have worked for many years, if at all.

As you can imagine, I’m really excited about both jobs and feel like I’ll definitely have the challenge I was hoping to have in my time here. And hopefully both will give me strong experience and a useful perspective to bring back to the UK in 3 years!

Fingers crossed, I’ll be finishing up in my temp job and kicking off both jobs in late Oct/early Nov – wow!!!

Probably couldn’t have written a better script for this if I’d tried and am currently in a slight state of shock at how well it’s all worked out. Am particularly happy with myself for not rushing into taking the first opportunity that came along and forcing myself to wait for the right thing. Patience isn’t one of my strong points (no, I hear you all cry!!!!) and I’ve had to repeat various mantras to myself for the last few months to stop myself randomly applying for all kinds of jobs that I could do (but wouldn’t necessarily be happy with long-term).

Note to Sarah if you’re reading – I remember speaking to you about this way back before you left for SL, and I’ve often recalled our lunch in Tate Modern when I’ve been on the brink of giving in to temptation – so thanks!!!