Sylvia Said:

Career Develpment Loan..?

We Answered:

They dont use your addresses to decide they use your name, date of birth & national insurance number, they will have the previous address, they get them from council tax department, you will get turned down by everyone as they all use the same database. On the database your name & NI number has every thing you have -wage details tax details, child benefit, they will ask how youy got child benefit if you were travelling round the world, they have record of every credit card you have applied for etc, your income and expenditure. The way they see it is why should they give you a loan when you never paid your porevious ones?

Arthur Said:

how to get a career in advocacy?

We Answered:

Hi - I have worked in advocacy (in England) for nearly 8 years and it is a very rewarding career to follow. However, you may be surprised to learn that advocacy is still a growing service due to the increasing number of Governmental white papers (in England at least) so there really isnt THAT many people out there that have experience in working strictly within an advocacy organisation.

As most positions ask for experience, I would recommend that you use your academic knowledge & skills to gain work either voluntarily or on a paid contract with an organisation or service that have a mission to provide a 'person centred' and 'client led' service and who work with for example, the physically disabled, the homeless, ethnic groups, refugees, travellers, mental health service users, or with youth in order to understand the needs of the clients you are likely to encounter as an advocate.

As many advocacy providers are in the charitable sector, it might be a good idea to approach charities that provide services to any one or all of the above service users and maybe ask for voluntary work; very often, if you prove yourself to be good with clients and record your work effectively, you will be offered a paid position when one arises.

However, dont let this prevent you from applying for any of the positions that advertise saying they want experience, as I have found that this reduces the amount of applications recieved and depending on how you come across in your application, you could be shortlisted for interview as a result. Please feel free to contact me directly with any questions at patcoloz:hotmail.com (for your info only) and I will help in any way I can. Regardless, I would say, emphasise your knowledge, life experience understanding and motiavtions and link them to the questions on the application in any that you submit because your fellow applicants may not have as much expertise as you suspect. It is a chance worth taking and interviews are always a good way of finding out what interviewers want to hear whether you are sucessful or not. One important thing to remember in any application is that advocacy is very different to advice giving and the buzzword is 'empowerment'. An Advocate never advices, rather they give a client the information / options they need to make a choice and then supports them in that choice! Other important words/ phrases to remember are: equality, support, working 'with' , signposting, giving a voice to people who are unable, for whatever reason, to speak for themselves, abilty to research new information or info that is unknown to yourself at that time (there is no shame in admitting you dont know everything). Advocacy emcompasses many areas so I would also recommend that you research around the services that the organisations you apply to provide ahead of writing your application. Forearmed is forewarned and knowledge is power!! .

Anne Said:

I am having a career crises today?

We Answered:

You can acctuly do both.. A webpage developer has his own hours.. do it as the part time job... and programming as a full time job... You will be making 1000's more a year doing both...

Audrey Said:

What kind of career can I go into with Human Sciences?

We Answered:

Forensic research is quite interesting if you like that sort of thing.