Theo Kalu

Working with Children, Young People and Families BA (Hons)

Theo’s ambition to work with children began in secondary school, where he saw first-hand the impact strong mentorship can have. At BCU, he developed a strong understanding of safeguarding and working with young adults through both study and placement experience. He now works as an Impact Mentor, positively influencing the lives of young people and aiming to take on senior safeguarding responsibilities in the future.

“I discovered my passion for social work, and wanting to be involved with schools, at secondary school. My business teacher was my role model, and I saw the way he helped students in the school with various issues; It was inspiring to see a young black man in a high position in the school. From then on, I took the necessary steps to make it into university. I chose BCU as I thought that it was a great university to go to.

In the first year, I had to quickly adjust to living independently, quite far away from my family, while balancing that with the university work that I had to complete. After overcoming that, I absolutely loved University; I threw myself into the social events and the lecturers, especially my personal tutor, were outstanding.

During my time at BCU, I did my placement at John Willmott secondary school, which was a great experience; I was able to explore the different types of safeguarding procedures and I even had opportunities to go on some home visits, where I was able to listen to social workers and the steps they take.

Luckily, through that placement I got a job with an external mentoring company as an Impact Mentor at Foundations4TheFuture. My job has allowed me to speak to children from ages 5-16 about various issues that they have. I have worked closely with Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSL) and other staff that are involved with the everyday life of students.

My course was the foundation that I needed to gage an understanding of my current role. The safeguarding aspect and different policies to do with working with children had really helped me. Also, learning about various topics such as parenting styles or multi-agency working really helped me to understand what was going on in the workplace.

For anyone considering BCU, I would give three tips; Attend as many lectures as you can, book as many meetings with your personal tutor that you can and start assignments early.

A typical day for me starts with catching up on emails from the night before. From then on, every day is quite a different one. I often pick children up and lead on the Internal Exclusion (IE) department, looking after them and having miniature sessions with them to help them understand why they have been placed into IE.

The most challenging part of my career journey has been making sure that my time is well organised. Sometimes, the workload can be heavy, so I have to organise my day to get the best out of it. I’ve found that organising my day the night before often helps with this.

My proudest achievement so far is being the guest speaker at my graduation; I felt recognised for my hard work, for my late nights, and for all the times that I pushed hard to step out of my comfort zone.

In the long-term future, I am hoping to positively impact as many young adults and students as I can. I would ideally like to push myself and complete the necessary courses to become the DSL of a secondary school.

To fellow BCU graduates starting out on their careers, I would say to push for the things that you want. The world is tough and things do not come easy. Work hard and do not give up on what you want. Take time to research what you would like to do and then go for it.

To me, 'I AM BCU' gives a sense of belonging, something to be a part of when they might not have anything else. It gives people a sense of hope.”