shmuTRAIN Case Study: Dylan

 “I met new friends, have new skills and feel I can achieve more than I originally thought.”

In July 2019 Dylan joined Positive Transitions on our Stage 2 Employability Fund course, here's his story...

At the time, Dylan was unsure what he wanted to do as a career, but had a keen interest in art and was often seen with his notebook, hand-drawing intricate ink doodles while on a break.

It was during one of these break times that our Graphic Designer, Laura, spotted Dylan doodling and was impressed by his talent.

Dylan and Laura discussed potential products for Dylan’s artwork such as stickers, badges and mugs. As a design business owner herself, she was able to answer questions and advise on any additional skills and training that would be useful. 

After discussing the idea with the wider shmu team, Laura approached Dylan to design a small sticker that shmu could use for events. 

Dylan created a design to fit with the shmu brand which became a sticker that we use as a ‘giveaway’ at events, an experience which inspired him to pursue a career in the creative industries.

On the course itself, Dylan enjoyed its media elements, particularly Film and TV, so he successfully applied to join both our BFI Film Academy and inaugural MIA (Moving Image Arts) courses.

He did well on both projects and enjoyed working as part of a team on the BFI short film project adding “I learned many new things and it has opened up a possible new path for my future, so it was useful”.

In February 2020, Dylan again found himself thinking again about what his future held, and after a chat with our employability team, he joined our Stage 3 Employability course.

Restrictions put in place due to COVID-19 have meant that all three programmes Dylan is part of have been affected, with work on both the BFI and MIA courses due to be completed at a later date, including a screening of the final BFI films at The Belmont Filmhouse.

Despite this, Dylan has continued to engage with our employability course as we moved to online delivery, and we’ve been supporting him to look at higher education options which has led him to apply for the FIlm Craft and Animation course at NESCOL 

Dylan said that before the employability course  he "used to sit in my house kinda bored all day, I wasn't motivated at all", and that the course had “put me on a better path than before, so it did exactly what it set out to do. It did what it said on the tin. It gave me a positive transition”.

We’ll continue to work with Dylan and, as a Northfield resident, he’ll also have the opportunity to continue to be a part of shmu as a volunteer.

Read more about shmuTRAIN here