Eloise is a trainee at Café Victoria, one of Unity Works’ social enterprise cafes who has just completed her NVQ Level 1 in Hospitality Services. Following a period at catering college, she joined Café Victoria to continue developing her front and back of house catering skills.
Through peer support and practical exercises, we worked with Eloise to become more confident when communicating with customers. Eloise’s confidence has not only grown with front of house tasks but also back of house tasks. She regularly asks to move onto learning new skills and tasks when prepping food for breakfast and lunch. Recently, she worked with the café’s Chef de Partie to develop a new strawberry salsa as she had mastered the usual salsa served with lunch.
Eloise also worked on practical tasks to develop her skills using the coffee machine, especially pulling of the shots and steaming milk. Her skills also grew by training alongside her peers who were also learning how to confidently use the coffee machine.
During her time completing her NVQ, Eloise completed modules in front and back of house where she has learnt how to make coffee and perfect her highly sought after chocolate brownies.
Eloise’s confidence in communicating with staff and customers as well as her taking initiative in learning new skills has flourished over the past couple of months. Now that she’s achieved her NVQ level 1, she’ll shortly be moving on from from Café Victoria where she’ll be supported by Unity Works’ supported employment to find a job. Of her time at Café Victoria, Eloise says:
I have enjoyed training at Café Victoria. The people I work with are very helpful and I have learnt a lot about making coffees.
We’d like to wish Eloise all the best for the next steps in her journey!
About our training placements.
Unity Works runs training opportunities across its social enterprises for people with a learning disability. These placements give trainees an opportunity to develop key skills within a real, thriving business, working alongside highly qualified staff who are competent both within their industry sector and also as effective and supportive mentors.
Find out more information about our training placements