Director of the Year Awards – The Countdown is on!

On Friday night the KDS and Stevie Kidd People team will be cheering Stevie on at the Institute of Directors (IoD) Director of the Year awards. 

Stevie has been shortlisted in the “Director Award for Youth Development” category. To coincide with this I have decided to remind everyone of all of the amazing work that Stevie does with young people by posting a blog everyday this week.

First up is the story of Mark McKirdy.

Mark McKirdy is a 16 year old male, he is the son of KDS Distribution employee Paul McKirdy and he has Downs syndrome.

KDS Group Managing Director, Stevie Kidd first met Mark in April last year, when he had an urge to come into his offices on a Saturday morning (not something that he usually does). When Stevie arrived he found that Paul had brought his son in. Mark walked straight up to Stevie and said “I want to come in and do work experience here. Can I come in and make teas and coffees please?”

Stevie took some time to process the information and responded to Mark by saying “Of course you can come in and do work experience but who told you that you were only good for making teas and coffees?”

Stevie was alarmed by the fact that Mark felt that all he was good for was menial tasks. He took the decision to write to Mark’s school to express his concerns for this lack of self belief and confidence and to ask if Mark could come in to complete a week’s work experience. The school agreed to this and from there Stevie went to work creating a work experience programme that encompassed all areas of the business. Stevie’s objective was that he wanted Mark and other employers to see that just because someone has additional support needs, it doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t be offered every opportunity and shouldn’t be given goals to strive for.

Mark completed his first week of work experience in April 2010, this was a roaring success and Mark has been back on 3 more occasions to complete work experience with us.

Read his full story and watch all of the feedback footage at

http://www.steviekidd.co.uk/people/marks-journey/
 

1 Comment

Posted by Stephen McDonald on 15 March 2011

What a fantastic journey! Its been fantastic to see so many positive changes in Mark and it shows that everyone deserves opportunities and goals! Mark - YOUVE MADE IT HAPPEN!

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