Life as a Fifteen apprentice
Graduating as a Fifteen Apprentice
What happens after they graduate?
We provide a unique apprenticeship-based program in all four of our restaurants. Many of our apprentices have had problems with classroom-style learning, which in some cases has lead to problems of a much greater scale. It is fundamental to Fifteen that the training is as hands-on as possible. So the apprentices start with just a few months’ introduction at an established catering college, then spend just under a year at Fifteen, working for five shifts a week in the kitchen and continuing to attend college for just one day a week.
During that year, we take our apprentices on sourcing trips - to farms, vineyards, fisheries, cheese makers and salt makers, to inspire in them a passion for great food and respect for the environment. By experiencing the food first hand from its origins, they gain an understanding of its meaning and context. We get the most fantastic help from a whole range of people to which we are very grateful for their love and ongoing support. The highlight of the year is three days with Jamie in Tuscany.
By the end of the year, not only have they learnt a vast amount from the best people in the business, but are eligible for the NVQ 1/2, a catering qualification recognised nationally and internationally. If successful, they go on to a three to six month work placement at another top restaurant (past placements include The Ivy, Le Caprice and Passione). Often, this leads to a full-time job offer.
The apprenticeship climaxes at the graduation ceremony. Graduates, their families and friends, previous graduates and our allies and partners from other restaurants, welfare agencies and our business sponsors, gather to celebrate these inspiring young people. To see the distance these young people have traveled in such a short time is so inspiring and, by the end, there is not a dry eye in the place.
Not everyone makes it to graduation. They might drop out because they commit another offence and go back to jail. They might discover they don’t like the hard work involved. They might turn out to have health or lifestyle issues which we simply cannot deal with. There are many reasons why.
In answer to the question ‘What do your mates think of you now?’, 2005 graduate Lloyd Hayes replied, ‘I ain’t got no mates.’ For him, to progress at Fifteen, he had to leave his old associates behind and build new networks for himself. The challenge to our young people should never be underestimated. We ask a lot of them.
So, as well as the formal and hands-on learning, we give our apprentices a wider range of welfare support to help them make the transition to being a working chef. Our training team helps with the range of complex issues which get in our young peoples’ way – housing, debt, relationship problems, and so on. We also use professional educationalists and counselors to provide the young people with the skills they need to make the most of their apprenticeship and to stop using drugs or abusing alcohol. We help them leave behind the false and negative beliefs they may have about themselves, and the sometimes self-destructive behaviours which flow from them, so they can fully embrace what Fifteen opens up to them.
London for example, all graduates are helped to find work in a restaurant of their choice. We have a post graduate support scheme which includes an online alumni site where graduates stay in touch with each other and the Foundation. The top of the class graduates are offered scholarships to restaurants throughout Europe and the highest scoring student is sent to the USA.
Some graduates can’t wait to leave and get on with the rest of their lives. But there are those for whom parting is tough because we have become their family. So it’s important that we support our apprentices through the transition period from Fifteen. It would be very easy for them to lose momentum after leaving Fifteen so we try and find ways of keeping in touch and responding to their needs.
In November 2007, as part of our fifth birthday celebrations, we will publish our first independently verified Social Report which will provide the facts and figures of our first half decade as well as trying to uncover the core dynamics of Fifteen and what it is really going on here which helps the young people make such a profound shift in their lives. By analysing what we are doing and being honest and transparent, we hope that we can continue to improve and get better and better at working alongside some tough and profoundly inspiring young people.