Profile: Jodie Williams

Please introduce yourself?

Hi, I'm Jodie, I'm from Leeds and I'm 24.

What did you do before the FPS?

Attended University, worked at a hospital, volunteering work with young people

Can you describe your placement?

General Assistant at South Leeds Community Radio, progressing into a 'Youth Engagement Officer'.

I started off doing general admin and helping with some of the ESOL classes, helping volunteers to produce radio programmes, getting more volunteers on board. After a few months I worked on a project called 'Turn It Up' which is funded by the council. This was a number of music workshops that took place in and around South Leeds, I had to source the venues, get people to run the workshops (at a decent price), promote the workshops and get all the children booked onto them. This involved going to the local schools, doing taster sessions with decks, instruments, anything to get them involved. The project was very successful. After this I applied for some funding to do some workshops with potential NEETs (individuals not in Education, Employment or Training). We secured the funding, I then liaised with schools to get the potential NEET kids on board, and co-ordinated and facilitated the workshops. We ran workshops with kids from all kinds of backgrounds.

What do you do now?

I'm a Project Assistant in the Learning and Development/Diversity department at ITV. I co-ordinate and assist with lots of different projects, including ITV's work experience programme, and ITV's internal networking and cross company events. 

What are your plans for the future?

At the moment I'd quite like to become a production manager.

What is your favourite thing about participating on the Foundation Placement Scheme? 

The scheme was tailored to the individual, it was not 'one size fits all', everyone experienced something different and the coordinators of the scheme put a lot of time and effort into nurturing talent. The amount of development opportunities and support was amazing. Also having connections with the diverse people on the scheme is cool!

I love what I am doing now, and I think the FPS provided a year of training that I needed to get my skills to where they are at now. I had never worked in an office before now, and I have improved my communication skills as well as improving my organisation and coordination. I think without my FPS year I would not have progressed this much.