Bio
My name is Thomas, I am 22 years old. I am the best uncle. I like the Wiggles, Mrs. Brown’s Boys and working. I currently work at the YMCA leisure centre in Epping where I clean and stock the shelves. In the past I have had lots of different jobs such as a fast food crew member, office worker, sales assistant, general hand, childcare assistant, food preparation and a wait staff. I always want to make people happy. I am very hard working, dedicated and motivated. My aim of employment is to join an organisation that can offer me professional and a motivated workplace for communicating, interacting and developing new skills. I went to Lakes Entrance Secondary School and completed my Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning in 2018. I completed a New Horizons short course and certificate II in work education at TAFE Gippsland. I attend YMCA camps where I complete fun activities and learn independent skills with the help of support workers. I learn team work and create strong friendships when I am on camp.
CORE Capabilities
Co-design is the process where people work together to create something of value tailored to their needs and preferences that is built around four CORE capabilities (collaboration, openness, respect, and empowerment). How these are evidenced is profiled below:
Collaboration – demonstrating how I work as part of a team.
The photo of my support worker Jack and I at work. The support worker encourages me to fully engage on the work I have to do and to make sure I am doing a good job. Sometimes I can be a bit too quick and the support worker encourages me to take things more steadily and do a thorough job. In the morning I meet my support worker and the team of other workers and we are told which areas ie cabins, bathrooms, kitchens, social centres or wherever needs work and we go off on our separate work way to do our chores – sometimes if one group has a lot to do we all pitch in to help so I like work as you can have fun and yet still work hard and do a good job and I like socialising and joking with my friends there.
Openness – Demonstrating how I listen to the ideas of other team members, and how I make judgements by weighing the pros and cons of different ideas.
I love going on YMCA camps as we do so many activities and all the buddies are super cool- I want to be a buddy and leader one day. The activities include discos, going to the beach, basketball, games etc. As you can see I love dancing as I can express myself creatively and sometimes others in the group cant get a dance move so we help each other. It doesn’t really matter what moves we all make during the dance as we all joke around and it is a good way to exercise and have a laugh!
Respect – Demonstrating how I express my ideas and how I react to the ideas of others.
This photo is with Simone who is one of my buddies – I like girls but you have to be respectful around them. On the camps sometimes there are some people that I don’t get on with. For example one boy called Mitchell kept wanting to take a photo of my dog Bella and I didn’t want him to so he got upset. I had a chat to one of my buddies who told me I was upsetting Mitchell and perhaps we could all talk about it – which we did and now I am happy for Mitchell to take photos of my dog – it feels good to talk and have a happy outcome for us all. Win win!
Empowerment – Demonstrating my independent decision-making, how I show pride in my work and that of my team, and how I support others.
I love YMCA and have wanted to work there for at least four years. My mum kept saying one step at a time, be patient and never, never, never give up ….. and guess what? I have a job at YMCA Camp Manyung, Mt Eliza and do work experience in the coffee shop in Epping at YMCA fitness centre. It makes me feel proud to work at YMCA and I can wear the new Y uniform which makes me so proud – my dream has come true at last. This is a photo of me at work at the coffee shop.
