Once you have joined BEST through a successful referral, we will try to offer you our services.

It is nice to know, before you begin any role, that you are understood and that your needs are going to be considered fairly and viewed favourably. Our service sells itself to employers in terms of supporting you in adapting to the challenges of the workplace. We make sure that early contacts promote understanding and offer reassurance – this helps you to settle in.

Employers provide the crucial opportunities for experience that you need – but are still running a business. This is why we will supply job coaching in the early stages of a placement, where necessary, so that you become familiar with what the role involves under reduced pressure.

Once we are made aware of any difficulty that may have arisen in a placement we will seek to advocate on your behalf to resolve it if there is unfair treatment or misunderstanding. We will talk with placement providers tactfully about what can be learned and direct potentially negative experiences into becoming positive ones. Don’t forget, though, that if your conduct really is a problem (like always arriving late!) we will bring this to your attention as something you need to correct. Basically, everyone should treat everyone else with fairness and respect in the workplace.

We maintain up to date employer contacts that provide you with opportunities for experience. This is very much about acquiring new skills and updating old ones as well as gaining up to date experience that will strengthen the profile of your CV.

The employer can show you the ropes and feed back useful information which will help increase confidence in the work place and identify any training needs. This information is shared informally with you at 6 monthly reviews. We encourage you to assess your own progress and feelings about the placement too.

Placements will usually last between 2 and 6 months (but can if warranted be extended to 10 months) for between ½ a day and 2 days a week. Number of days on placement per week can be increased in the later stages should you wish to experience what a more typical working week would feel like. We always give control of any such increases to you, so you only build things up if and when you feel ready. This gives you more scope to find a manageable level of workload before attempting to fit into a pre-determined, paid role.

We offer you a maximum of 16 months of placement time with our service, covering a maximum of 3 placements