Anxiety, Work and Pickr

Josh has been on work experience with us for the last few weeks after we started to partner with Norwich for Jobs. Read his story below about his battle through anxiety, unemployment and his journey with Pickr. (Callum, Head of Community, Pickr).

“Many hear about spouts of anxiety caused through a lack of employment. However, my experience has been different. Anxiety has been the cause of me not being well enough to seek employment. My name’s Josh and I’m here to tell you about my story.

The dictionary defines anxiety as:

“A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.”

For me it’s been a four-year battle. I’ve often felt that over-worrying has left me paralysed. At its worst it has prevented me leaving the house and has often led to states of depression. The culmination of both have limited my access to employment.

However, more recently I’ve felt that I’ve gotten to the stage where I can begin looking at work again. Enter Norwich for Jobs.

Norwich for Jobs is an initiative aimed at helping unemployed young people with work barriers, such as mental health issues, into employment. Started in 2013, they have helped over 2,000 people move into work. They run weekly group sessions designed to equip attendees with the skills and help them develop CVs.

Now, often I’ve found groups like this to be really unhelpful, because often they boil down to someone standing in a room telling you to go home and do a job-search online. However, my experience of Norwich for Jobs was very different.

Norwich for Jobs work directly with employers to offer work experience opportunities. They bring in companies from various industries to help explain what they look for in employees.

On 8th November 2017 it was Pickr’s turn to give one of the sessions and I managed to land some work experience. I later found that Pickr has recently joined the Norwich for jobs employers panel, which includes other businesses within the Norwich area; Aviva, Marriott and the local council, to name but a few.

Pickr have been extremely helpful, allowing me to go at my own pace and not pushing me to do more than I’m ready for. As such, I was asked to have a go at writing a piece for Pickr’s blog. This was simultaneously exciting and slightly terrifying to me; I like writing, but other people seeing my writing is a major point of anxiety. However, Pickr has been endlessly supportive and I’m already feeling more confident about my work, and my ability to work.

This is all an extension of what Pickr does on a day to day basis, helping people get into work as quickly and easily as possible, while still allowing them to go at their own pace.

If you’re a business local to Norwich or Norfolk and my story has inspired you. Contacting Norwich for Jobs at www.norwichforjobs.org.uk and see what you can do to help too.”

Credit: Josh Lowles

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