Enterprise UK Blog

With the help of two businesses in the region, it cost less than £320 to help 18-year old Dean Jeffries turn his life around from not having a great deal of burning career ambition to actually setting up his own social enterprise and wanting to take it forward as a real career opportunity when he leaves school.

Dean who is from Catcote School in Hartlepool has blossomed academically since undergoing the YENE Team Programme, which is an educational enterprise programme for people aged 15- 19 with learning difficulties.

Armed with the tailor-made Team Programme business kit incorporating cartoons, video case studies and specially designed software that allows individual students to work at different ability levels, they take responsibility for the management, production, sales, marketing and financial roles of running their own real company.

Dean’s business mentor was Dave Spensley, managing director of Aycliffe Fabrications, who as an entrepreneur himself, has given Dean the confidence to realise that he can one day set up his own enterprise. Dean took on the role of sales director within his group and despite his learning difficulties he went on to win the Sir John Moore’s award at the YENE Regional Final earlier this year.

Dean’s link teacher Alison Brown said: “Since Dean has been running the Young Enterprise Team programme he has developed in maturity and acquired good business skills and knowledge, he is now a very employable young man. The lessons that he has been given by Dave have helped him to progress academically in his maths and English lessons as he learns all the skills that are needed in business.”

Dean also won his team a place on the “space to think” programme sponsored by North East architecture and management company, _Space.  After the programme he won a prize for ‘the most promising business person’ for his natural sales technique. Dean thrived so much in this programme that the chief executive of _Space took Dean on for a day’s work experience of running the company’s internal café at the Spaceworks head office on Gosforth

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2008 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Local hubs, Make Your Mark Clubs, North east, Regions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.