How Darren found a job to support his mental health and anxiety transcript

Darren: My nerves aren't as bad as they used to be. Makes me happy, I'm doing something and have a purpose. My name's Darren. I'm 56 and my disability is anxiety and OCD. I got referred to APM after I'd been to other job networks and hadn't got a job yet. They helped me with my confidence, got me to do some courses, helped me out with my resumes and just given me support.

Samantha: When Darren first came to our office, he had been long-term unemployed, he was quite shy, but very eager to look for work. We helped him with a certificate in business to help with his employability in that area. And after some time of job searching in his chosen field, we decided to look a little bit outside of his comfort zone and that's when I threw him a bit of a curveball and said, "What about McDonald's in Somerville?" And we haven't looked back.

Sarah: So when Darren first started, we spent a bit more time with him just to make sure he got the roll correctly and knew what he was doing, but now he does it all on his own. He comes in and he's always... he loves the fryers and the grills and cooking all the meat and the chicken. And then he also makes the burgers as well. His confidence has grown and he always gets in on the conversations with everybody, joins in, making lots of friends.

Darren: Sort of a bit of a negative being unemployed, type thing. It's like a stigma. Yeah. Just happy to be working.