When Thomas first moved to BC from Saskatchewan four years ago, he had a job lined up and didn’t need to go through the job search process. However, when he found himself looking for work more recently, he found he needed some help and decided to join our Creative Employment Options program.
“I just really found myself needing just some extra help around finding work within the last year,” he shares. “It was pretty easy to do last time, and I hadn’t had to do a resume or anything for myself in a very long time. And definitely as a person with a disability, it has some extra barriers.”
At 15 years old, Thomas was diagnosed with a rare cancer that affects the bone and tissue called Ewing’s Sarcoma in his hip, knee, and spine. He was successfully treated for the cancer, but he now needs to use a wheelchair as a result.
He began working with our Creative Employment Options team right away.
“Onboarding was an easy process. I felt like I was immediately getting the help that I needed, and there was actual progress,” he says. “The whole experience has been lovely the entire way through, like I felt like each person that I worked with actually took time to get to know me to understand who I was.”
Thomas worked on his resume and cover letter with the team — while he had learned how to make them in school, he felt out of the loop on what employers were looking for today.
He appreciated the one-on-one support he received, getting personalized leads for jobs that suited his interests and encouragement throughout the process.
“I could be open and honest with them,” he explains. “It was just an awesome, very collaborative time and space. And just so thankful that I had people like [my Career Facilitator] Radu on my side to help me through it. And on the days where I felt, man, I’m still not hearing any answers, I’m still not hearing anything from these other places, he’s like, ‘Well, that’s okay, you’ve just got to keep going.’”
Thomas’s hard work paid off when he landed a job at the Individualized Funding Resource Centre (IFRC) Society (new window) as a Navigator for their clients who receive individualized funding from the Choice in Supports for Independent Living (CSIL) program. The CSIL Program enables people with significant physical disabilities to hire their own Personal Care Attendants, so they may live independently and successfully in their own homes and community.
“This is a way for me to give back to a community that I know needs it and to also help other people like me who are just trying to make sense of what life is like at this point and trying their best to figure out how they can live independently,” he says. “It’s empowering people, giving knowledge and power back to people that oftentimes don’t have any control at all.”
Thomas says he strongly recommends Creative Employment Options to others.
“I can’t imagine trying to have done this all on my own, and I probably would be in a very different mental health capacity if I had to do this on my own,” he shares. “I’m so thankful. [. . .] You guys have such amazing staff that actually looks at the human aspect of things and doesn’t just go, ‘Well, here’s a job, and here’s just any link to whatever.’
“They have to know who I am, so they could find the right job, not just any job, but the right job for me.”
