We are very proud to announce that Kevin Blogg, our founder and patron, has become a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the 2016 New Year’s honours. This is a very well-deserved award and acknowledges the years of work Kevin has put into assisting people with disabilities find paid employment.
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Menz Shed
The Menz Shed is a great place for blokes to learn new skills and for those seeking work, they can learn skills that are valuable to employers. It’s also a community space for men to gather together to share their skills, have a laugh, and work on practical tasks personal projects or on a group project.
Words You Should Never Say in a Job Interview
Image © GARO/phanie/Phanie Sarl/Corbis
Here’s an excellent article we found online and something we should all bear in mind when preparing for our next interview!
Michael – now working
Michael is motivated with the task at hand and is a responsible, enthusiastic, positive guy who enjoys learning new-things and prides himself as someone who will get the job done. He is physically fit and strong, has experience in a variety of physical roles, enjoys hard practical work and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty. He prefers physically demanding roles where he can work away steadily at the task at hand. He has previously worked as a gardener, landscaper, nursery assistant, factory hand, and as a coast-care worker where he operated a weed-eater and maintained beach ladders. Michael is available to start work immediately.
Kerry-Anne – now working!
Kerry-Anne has extensive and recent experience working in Office Administration including Management and Accounts. She is skilled in the use of Microsoft Office, including Excel, Access, Publisher, databases, MYOB and other ledger accounting systems. Having also had experience as an office temp, Kerry-Anne is also adaptable to any work place and able to take on a wide range of administrative tasks.
Rebecca – now working
Rebecca has extensive administration and sales support experience in a busy, high pressure environment. Her time management, multi-tasking and prioritising skills are exemplary, having managed a large team of consultants, where it could go from very busy to ridiculously busy in a heartbeat. Initiative is key in this kind of environment, and Rebecca certainly demonstrates lots of that.
Add to this her great people and customer service skills, her proven ICT and office management ability, database administration experience and solid problem solving ability and she could be the expert administrator your organisation has been looking for.
In The Name of The Law
Having graduated from University of Canterbury in December 2014 with a Bachelor of Laws (Honours) Erin Gough proved herself to be the ideal candidate for a newly created junior position at CLC: Access to Justice Advisor—Disability Portfolio. Catapult supported CLC and Erin’s application for MSD Mainstream funding for the position and the application was successful. In the same year that Erin started her job at CLC she was appointed to our Board of Directors. She subsequently moved to Wellington and was appointed the Human Rights Commission’s Disability focused Specialist. An exciting journey for a very neat lady.
Read more about Erin on the HRC web site.
https://www.hrc.co.nz/news/erin-gough-my-accessible-journey/
Catapult Embraces Enabling Good Lives Initiative
Christchurch is currently in the middle of piloting a new government initiative known as Enabling Good Lives. Enabling Good Lives is being designed to assist people with disabilities and their families to consider what a good life looks like to them and how to achieve it.
The individual, with the initial support of an Independent Navigator, will have increased control over their life, systems, supports, services and funding. They will be supported to access mainstream services before speciality disability services and existing service providers will be encouraged to make processes more simple and flexible.
Catapult are very happy to support the principles of the EGL scheme and are working alongside the Local Advisory Group and with a number of clients, to ensure services offered by Catapult are both relevant and appealing.
To learn more about Enabling Good Lives, visit the Office For Disability Issues online at odi.govt.nz
Catapult Consultant Wins Award for Excellence in Employment Practice
Moving from unemployment to winning the New Zealand Disability Support Networks 2015 award for Excellence in Supported Employment Practice was a fast journey for Luke Kenmare (Iwi – Te Arawa, hapu – Ngati Rangitihi). Luke was a client of Catapult and was looking for paid employment. Seeing potential in Luke’s abilities and capacity to work as an Employment Consultant, Catapult offered him a one-year contract. His potential was soon realised, his experiences in having “been there and done that” as far as unemployment is concerned brought an extra dimension to his work. An example of his excellent work was the relationship he built with the recruitment manager at Canterbury Linen Services, the relationship helped him to assist four of Catapult’s clients into paid work in this business. Luke’s ability to get a good understanding of client choices and aspirations enabled him to match the right people to the job. All of the people he placed at Canterbury Linen Services have a disability of some sort, ranging from cognitive to mental health to Asperger’s. Luke provided on-going support to them and the employer through regular visits and conversations.
Rowan
Rowan is very well qualified, with a Bachelor of Commerce from Lincoln University, Majoring in Valuation and Property Management.
He also has Level 2 and 3 Certificates in Electrical Trade Skills from SIT and has also completed Skills Training at CPIT resulting in Combined Site Safe Certification (Building and Civil,) Traffic Controller Level 1, OSH Forklift Certificate and Basic Workplace First Aid. He has worked in Australia as an energy efficiency consultant and also has experience in property market research and valuation. Since arriving back in New Zealand he would like to utilize his electrical skills and knowledge in either an apprentice-level position or in a more customer facing position within the electrical industry, in either a retail, wholesale, or service environment.
