The Leicester College careers team were invited to The Nursing Times Awards 2018 ceremony, which took place at the Grosvenor House Hotel on October 31st. Nottingham University Hospitals Trust won an award that evening for the Integrated Approaches to Care category.

The Leicester College careers team have been working closely with the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust and were therefore invited to join the trust at the awards.

Project Background

For the past two years, the Leicester College careers team have been a partner with the Young Adult Survivorship Service, based in Leicester Royal Infirmary. The Colleges careers team have been an integral part of The BOOST project which was initially designed as a pilot in 2016/17 with the aim of bridging the gap in careers provision available for young people who are in remission or recovering from cancer. It was identified, through listening to the issues pertinent to young cancer survivors, that these young adults lacked general information, advice and guidance (IAG) about the employment and education opportunities available to them.

With the aim of supporting re-integration into work or education, BOOST began in March 2017 in partnership with the Leicester College Careers Team. The careers team were approached by Laura Cutler (Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust), whose aim was to forge a partnership with Leicester College to provide IAG to patients identified as needing support with all vocational and educational needs. In order to meet these needs, integrated and collaborative working with a variety of partners was essential for the project’s success.

Working closely with those young people who are recovering and are in remission from cancer, Laura would make an appropriate referral to the Colleges careers team. A designated careers adviser will then make contact with the individual through a variety of platforms. These interventions include telephone, email and/or face-to-face careers appointments to provide quality and impartial information, advice and guidance and is very much dependent on the individual’s needs and how the service will work best for them.

Due to the success of BOOST Leicester with 34 referrals to date and outcomes including course enrolment, university placement, navigating patients onto a new career path and working on confidence in the workplace the project has now expanded to Nottingham in partnership with New College Nottingham with the intention to roll out BOOST across the whole of the East Midlands region and wider. The success of the project is due to a variety of factors although in particular patient focus is at the heart and forefront as the project was borne from listening to the needs of service users.

The Leicester College careers team were able to support many young people, through a variety of platforms, maximizing the use of technology such as e-mails, and adapting the service to their needs. It has proved to be effective and has had an impact on progression for those individuals who participated in the project, whether this is going to university, gaining employment or improving their confidence. The work undertaken in the BOOST project has been truly inspirational for all those involved as it allowed practitioners to re-evaluate the way that careers education, information, advice and guidance is delivered and the impact and benefits to themselves, partners/community and client groups.

Student Success – Andrew Blair

Andrew Blair, a student enrolled onto the access to engineering course came from The BOOST Project and has gone onto win The Local to Leicester scholarship with the University of Leicester. Read Andrews Story here.

We are delighted to have been supporting the Nottingham University Hospitals Trust on the night. We hope to continue supporting them via The BOOST project.