Case Study

Caroline

Course - In 2nd year of day release NVQ level 2 course in Painting and Decorating.

Work
Caroline is training to become a painter and decorator on Credit Funded Training with the council’s Construction Training Group. She is on placement with Housing and Environmental Protection - Building Services.

Caroline loves her job saying it’s the "best thing I’ve ever done". Of her current placement she says she "wouldn’t swap it for anything. It’s a place where everyone is friendly and happy all the time. No one blanks me out". She says they have had a few female apprentices beforehand "so they’re used to it". Caroline tends to work on large council buildings such as Britannia House and Jacob’s Well, rather than on council houses. When working on these sites she also gains experience of other crafts such as carpet fitting. When asked how she copes with heavy lifting such as scaffolding, Caroline says she just makes more trips carrying fewer things at a time. Caroline’s enjoyment of her current placement is a particular triumph as she was not as happy at the two placements where she worked prior to this.

At both of these previous placements she was the only woman but felt isolated because the men tended either to exclude her or to make hurtful remarks. However, these experiences did not cause her to abandon her career. On the contrary, she persevered and was the first trainee in her college group to pass all theory and practical NVQ level 1 assessments, and so was the first to obtain the NVQ level 1 certificate.

Caroline says that staff from the council’s Construction Training Group, her Credit Funded Training provider, visit her every week or fortnight and are "wonderful, really good to me". She says the same about her college tutors. She says, "I have brilliant tutors at college who keep telling me I can do it". Any problems she encountered from her fellow students were dealt with immediately. She feels that the male students have accepted her and that now she is "one of the lads". There is one other woman in the class of about thirty and Caroline "teams up" with her in class and at break time. Caroline now "loves college" and says "it’s unbelievable how I enjoy it so much".

Influences
Caroline says she was always really good at Art when she was at Queensbury Upper School. When she announced that she wanted to become a painter and decorator, Caroline’s mother and grandmother initially laughed and said she "must be mad". Her teachers said she was "too bright" and "deserved a better career". She thinks that her mother and grandmother would have preferred her to go to Art college, but Caroline says that she did not want to continue in full-time education for another five years or so. She preferred to start working and just attend college on a day release basis, and thought "if lads can do painting and decorating, so can I". Caroline’s family and teachers all told her that she would not enjoy or stay in painting and decorating, but she says that her family did support her once they realised that she had set her heart on it.

Caroline’s advice to other women interested in doing non traditional jobs is "if you really want to do it, do it. Don’t listen to anyone else"

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