Jenna Kersten’s favourite job at The Grape Escape Café is stamping the napkins with its grape-inspired logo, and at some stage sitting down to a cup of jasmine tea.
Every Sunday at 4pm she joins the team at the café to help clean up, polish cutlery, stamp the napkins and fold them into triangles.
Come Monday morning, she heads to her second job at McCashin’s Tap Room in Stoke where she can be doing anything from folding napkins to wiping down tables and chairs.
For Jenna, who lives with autism and an intellectual learning disability, her jobs help fulfil her need to be a productive staff member and part of the wider community, and it works both ways.
She has been employed at The Grape Escape Café for two years on Mother’s Day after her sister, Amber Healey, told the café’s owners Brad and Nikki Deane that Jenna had always wanted to work there.
“They heard that it was Jenna’s dream to work at the Grape Escape and their response was, ‘well, let’s make it happen’.”
From there, the Deans worked with family to identify tasks that Jenna would enjoy and be capable of successfully accomplishing.
Amber says Jenna’s autism is in essence, anxiety, which can be debilitating at times and make group gatherings a struggle as well as leaving the security of her home. Too much stimulation can result in anxiety outbursts, and it can be prompted by group laughter, background music or just too much noise. For that reason, her job at the café begins when the doors close for the day but there is still the job of cleaning up, and Nikki says staff will often leave some dishes on tables just so Jenna can pick them up and be an important member of the team.
“The café has known Jenna for a long time,” Nikki says. “She’s a lovely, gentle person and if we can help her towards her dream, it’s great. She feels like she is participating, and she is part of the team.”
“The team always say hello to her when she arrives,” Brad says. “They force her to say goodbye because she is sometimes in a bad mood! I like winding her up and she has a giggle.”
He says, employing Jenna helps normalise autism and others with challenges which is good for the whole team, while Jenna has a role she enjoys. Plus, there is the jasmine tea.
“She always has jasmine tea in a green cup. It’s the only reason we have jasmine tea!”
“She’s wonderful,” Nikki adds. “It’s a nice, regular part of her routine and she looks forward to it every week.”
On Monday morning, once she has been coaxed her out of the security of her home, she heads to McCashin’s Tap Room with her support person, where Deborah and Colin Lott offer her a handful of jobs to choose between each week. It’s closed on a Monday, so a quiet atmosphere for Jenna to work, though Deborah says there are always people around, which is also good.
“It’s a feel-good factor for everyone in the brewery to be helping her and she’s invaluable to us now.
“You forget that there’s lots of jobs that can be done when we’re closed and that works for Jenna.”
Amber says Jenna’s workdays are the highlight of her week, even when it is at times challenging to get out the front door of her home.
“She walks away from her shifts at both workplaces beaming and proud as punch.”
April was Autism Acceptance Month to raise acceptance and promote inclusion and connectedness for people with autism.
