Working for NCS The Challenge; new experiences, making a difference and living a little.

 After my second year of university, I thought, hmm, what am I going to do with my summer.
I wanted to work, yes, but I wanted to do something more me, more fulfilling than retail or tutoring.
My friend told me about NCS-National Citizen Service, The Challenge and I applied for it, went through interview processes and luckily had plans for the summer.

NCS-The Challenge is a government funded programme and an organisation that creates a summer scheme for 15-17 year olds, that aims to develop them for their next steps in life. It allows young people to have a fun time going on trips,  participating in activities, workshops, competitions, going to university halls and meeting a whole new range of people whilst building a skill where a qualified practitioner assists!


I worked as a Senior Mentor and I was responsible for a group of 12 young individuals. My role included safeguarding, preparing and leading evening sessions, leading workshops, preparing ice-breakers/review sessions, supervision, staff meetings and participating as much as possible. It sounds like a lot but once you get the hang of it, it becomes nothing but fun! There are also a range of others roles for example, managerial roles, programme leaders alongside many others. The variety of roles makes NCS relevant to a lot of people with regards to their preferred working role, and gives you the opportunity to expand as well as transfer your skills!

It helped me as a person grow, understand young people, and similarly challenge myself! I was in quite a stagnant space of mind before I worked, and was feeling quite incapable of a lot of things in life, but going out of my comfort zone and doing this programme really changed my mindset and saw that you can make good out of bad situations in life, a lot of the young people came from various backgrounds and hearing their life stories was eye opening!

I met more than 50 new people and had a great team to work along who were supportive.

If you are at all interested in making a change in young people's lives, and have at least some experience working with young adults, this is the opportunity you've been looking for.

Here is the link to tell you what you need to know, or even sign your young person/yourself onto the programme.

http://www.ncsthechallenge.org/



 These are some pictures of what it was like, unfortunately due to safeguarding there will be no pictures of the young people.

Q

                                                                  Hope you enjoyed this. xo