Liam left Budmouth College after many years of unproductive and pretty useless education, the school and the system that it sits within had not prepared him to get a job or provided him with a useable manual skill even though he was Statemented throughout his time in the system.
It was blatantly obvious to onlookers that the school was desperately trying achieve academic greatness and Liam was hindering their progress even though the people in immediate contact with him were extremely helpful, the head wasn’t going to move on this one.
So Liam left school with very low level qualifications at best and was kept in education for another year due to ridiculous legislation at Weymouth College. We, as parents, attended several meetings at the College to assure ourselves that Liam would get the same level of support under his Statement at the College that he’d had at the School and they assured us that they had all of his notes, his file and the details of his Statement and so, yes, he would get the same support.
This proved to be a lie, they certainly had all the documents that they claimed to have but they forgot to tell us that they had no intention of reading them. They had the funding that transferred to them with Liam’s Statement but they didn’t spend it on Liam, he had no scribe, no one to one help etc. Still don’t know where that money went.
Liam left College, again without any further meaningful qualifications, and entered the working world without a job and without much prospect of getting a job.
However, he’s not a lazy person, and he managed to get a seasonal job for the summer after a winter of nothing at all. He was to become a Lifeguard at one of the local Haven Holiday Parks, I may or may not write about that at some point in the future, still not sure how they survive.
Liam worked well for them for 2 full seasons, hey laid him off for the winter in between, the two summer seasons were very different experiences due to the change in Management there, the lac of consistency in the two experiences should be a cause for concern to the higher ups. I’ll let them come to me to explain that can of worms.
So now here we are, Liam’s 20 years old, just finished season 2 as a Lifeguard and he is looking for work, he realises that he needs a better job that lasts all year (i.e. permanent) and one that preferably pays above the minimum wage. With these simple goals in mind we have approached several agencies, both private and public, and several government bodies to see what help is available for someone like Liam and we have been sadly let down. It appears he falls between the cracks.