Opinion: You never stop being their youth worker

Niall had been a pleasant lad. He regularly attended the youth club and I remembered him well. He left school with few qualifications and went into manual work. Shortly after turning 18, however, he spotted an ad in the papers for a care assistant's post with disability organisation Scope. Bored with his job, he was keen to explore new directions in employment and came to see me to ask for a reference.

We looked through the application form, job description and person specification, which spoke at some length of awareness of equal opportunities and related public policy issues. Of these, unsurprisingly, Niall knew little. I suggested that he wrote his reference, which we would look over together, and I would tailor. A few days later, he appeared, apologising for his poor writing as he handed me a couple of sheets of paper. I was very struck by what he had written. He had addressed the person specification through the only relevant experience he had - as captain of a local football team.