Does an employability journey ever have a final destination?

Louise shares her insight of working in the Scottish employability field.

When I first started working at the ALLIANCE, stakeholders used to frequently say that the employability landscape was changing and I guess for me at that point I never truly understood that the landscape would and has never stopped changing since.

The Scottish Government’s ‘Fairer Scotland’ agenda unveiled considerable commitment to tackle the inequalities faced by disabled people and people living with long term conditions in accessing and retaining employment, as evidenced by relentlessly stubborn employment statistics. This has initiated and shaped a lot of our employability work, including our up and coming consultation event.

Through the array of pieces of work that the ALLIANCE has undertook in the years I have been here it has always been apparent that employability is borderless and touches on so much of our work from transport through to human rights. So equally, this must mirror image into the lives of people living well with long term conditions which continues to drive forward this area of work.

Working on the Self Management and Co-production Hub, and working with a range of key stakeholders supporting the efforts of the sector in supporting people in their employability journeys has highlighted just how important self management is in the ground work, it is everything, it is the paramount building block which offers strong foundations from which an employability journey can grow.

I hope to explore this a bit more in October when we host out Employability and Self Management Event in partnership with the Community Partner Project within the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). (To register an interest in this event, please email me at louise.coupland@alliance-scotland.org.uk)

During the time since I returned to work in January, Scotland has seen the introduction of Fair Start Scotland, and for our larger organisation members this has a large impact on their day to day business.

On the wider landscape, I would say the two things that have struck me most in a positive shift in the landscape is the originality and collaborative work of some of the projects funded through the Scottish Government’s Innovation and Integration Fund and secondly, the DWP’s introduction of the Community Partner Project – a committed project led by staff with lived experience striving to bridge DWP to local support, community employability based projects.

The third annual UK Employability Day will take place on Friday 29^th June, to show what employability support means at the frontline and the impact it is having in the local area. We are using this as an opportunity to highlight the personal journeys of people across Scotland, which have been and continue to be supported by our members and stakeholders. So follow us on Twitter at @ALLIANCEScot as we will share these personal journeys with you, releasing one on the hour throughout the working day using the hashtag #empday18.

End of page.