KONNECTS LIFE CHOICES

With Konnect Communities

Many people are stuck in anxiety and depression, with low self-esteem and chronic lack of confidence and motivation.  Normal welfare to work assistance does not help enough and while mental health therapies can assist with mental illness, they do not provide the holistic and sustainable approach to life and work needed for life progression and human flourishing.

People of any age without work may be helped by practical training, improved literacy, and employability skills (services delivered by lots of education and training providers).  However, large numbers of workless people may face behavioural, emotional, and social difficulties and feel disengaged and excluded.  Many face barriers from a past that follows them, such as school exclusions, few or no qualifications, unresolved trauma from Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and/or an offending history.  Typically, they may have low esteem, engage in risky and challenging behaviour including drug and alcohol misuse and suffer with anxiety and depression.  Normal learning and training provision does not always address these people’s needs sufficiently, and they can remain feeling alienated and excluded.

Konnects Life Choices is a CBT based employability course created for people who are far from the job market and classified as long term unemployed or economically inactive and could be described as ‘not flourishing in life’.  The course was created recognising that what holds many people back is an absence of, or very low sense of, self-worth, confidence, and motivation, just as much, if not more than a good CV and interview skills etc.

This provision’s core organising idea is that a person’s self-esteem is the key building block for a flourishing life.  Research shows that when positive self-esteem is lacking so is confidence in one’s own abilities and what follows is a subsequent lack of motivation and aspiration.  It is upon the cornerstone of positive evaluation of self-worth that a person can develop self-confidence, be confident in their inherent natural abilities (strengths and skills) and become motivated to find a constructive outlet (employment) for those abilities.

Konnects Life Choices is designed to be delivered in groups of up to 12.  Course duration is flexible and can be run over 12, 10 or 5 weeks from just 1 to up to 3 days per week.

The course is built upon 4 themes:

• Developing your self esteem
• Knowing your skills and strengths
• Relating well to one another
• Choosing to take control of your life

Course aims: –

• Getting past the barriers and sticking points in their life
• Helping them to build positive self-belief and confidence
• Giving them the thinking skills, they need to get motivated and go after goals
• Letting them know how to take control of their life so they can be their ‘best self’
• Helping them discover their skills, strengths and passions
• Enabling them to relate and cooperate with the people around them

Course Objectives: –

• Feel you have a better life (wellbeing /contentment).
• Have strength to feel in control (self-control)
• Seek to take practical actions (Autonomy & self-determination)
• Know you are of value and are ok (positive self-esteem)
• Have a growth mindset (personal growth)
• Have confidence that you can achieve (self-efficacy, confidence)
• View your circumstances optimistically but realistically. (optimism)
• Realise you can achieve your goals (hope)
• Identify your barriers (hope)
• Able to keep going in adversity (resilience)
• Know you are loved and have experienced love (Intimacy, belonging)
• Believe that you can love and relate (Inclusion, community)
• Know your strengths and passions (Competence, self-worth, confidence, motivation, aspiration)

If you are interested in finding out more including when our next course is running feel free to get in touch with us at [email protected]

You can read more about Konnects Life Choices and the difference it makes to those that attend by clicking HERE.  In this article our Learning Mentor explains what Konnects Life Choices is all about and how it helps individuals to move forwards in their lifes.

Participant feedback from clients that have attended the Life Choices course.

• “It has given me a mental toolset to challenge my way of thinking, so I actually take a step back and challenge my thoughts rather than just accepting them as they are” – LC 26/08/2021
• “I used to always wear a mask and hide behind a laugh that wasn’t real. Now I have found people who I can open up to and who listen and I feel so much better, I know I don’t have to suffer alone” – AM 26/08/2021
• “I really look forward to these groups and sharing with people that I could relate to. I am going to really miss coming here now it has finished, but I am definitely going to sign up as a peer mentor, so I can give what I have learnt back to others”. – CT 03/06/2021