Kleek Apprentice Natasha Bloor helps to raise awareness of those who live with hearing loss

This week is Deaf Awareness Week 2022 with the National Deaf Childrens Society.

This years theme is Inclusion, to raise awareness of, and support, those who live with hearing loss and to promote inclusivity and equality.

Kleek Apprenticeships apprentice, Natasha Bloor who works at Bliss Hair in Nottingham, was recently invited back to her old school to talk about her career in hairdressing, here she gives us a few words on this fantastic accolade.

Hi Everyone - My name is Natasha and I am based at the Nottingham branch of Bliss where I am doing my hairdressing apprenticeship. I am deaf and have a cochlear implant fitted. I am fluent in BSL and use speech and lip reading to communicate with the team and clients in the salons.

Last month, I went to visit my old school to talk to deaf pupils about my work journey at Bliss and how I got to where I am today.

Firstly, I explained how I applied for the position of apprenticeship and how I got into contact with Nick, who is the salon owner, by myself, I met him previously when he came to give a talk to my class about his artwork, which has some deaf themes & he also talked about his hairdressing career at Bliss. This made me feel confident when I did this independently, so I hope my talk inspired everyone to do the same - to try do things independently and learn new skills.

I talked about what apprenticeships are & outlined my work in the salon along with the practice & assessments I do with Kleek Apprenticeships, the training providers who work with Bliss.

It was great to share my favourite things I’ve done so far - I’ve worked in all 3 branches of Bliss & met everyone who works there. I enjoy perfecting my skills on the practice heads, talking to the clients at the backwash, learning lots of new skills and having fun with the team.

Nick asked me to help deliver deaf awareness training and basic British Sign Language to the team at our last conference day and I’m now working on real models and am really enjoying learning all the colour and styling techniques Bliss is known for.

I’ve learnt so much about myself and my confidence has really grown.

Natasha x

Natasha, who is part way through her hairdressing level 2 apprenticeship offers up an amazing example of what can be achieved with the right attitude and is doing fantastically well with her apprenticeship at Bliss Hair. We are proud to be associated with such a inspirational person and are looking forward to helping her achieve the greatness she deserves.

If you would like to follow in the footsteps of Natasha and the other amazing apprentices with Kleek Apprenticeships we have many great salons with new apprenticeship opportunities available right now on our vacancies pages and if you are in the Nottingham or Loughborough area take a look at blisshair.com to find out more about their stunning salons and the tremendous training opportunities.