Fife Region Network of Supported Employment

Values

• We are a partnership of statutory and voluntary agencies in Fife working with and for people with disabilities.

• We aim to raise awareness of the skills people with disabilities can bring to the workplace to make it easier for them to find and keep jobs or take part in learning.  By sharing expertise and experience, our partners aim to work together for the benefit of people in Fife with disabilities.

• We are led by Fife Council Community Services.  Partners include Fife Council, Skills Development Scotland, Jobcentre Plus, NHS Fife and a range of statutory and voluntary agencies.

• FenLink, our information and signposting service, puts you in touch with the person or agency who can best help you.  Phone 01592 583378 or email info@fenlink.org.uk.

• Our free Directory of Opportunities for Disabled People in Fife gives an overview and contact details for over 100 agencies and is available in public venues across Fife or you can download it from our website at www.fifedirect.org.uk/fenlink

• Our quarterly electronic newsletter keeps agencies in touch with local and national developments in disability.

• Kit for Work, our assistive technology loan scheme, helps people with disabilities starting or trying to stay in work by lending assistive technology until Access to Work comes through or more permanent arrangements are made by the employer.

• Our information and training events, led by network agencies with an expertise in the subject, help raise awareness of issues in dealing with clients with particular disabilities.

• Our Events Calendar offers network agencies a marketing opportunity for their own events and projects.

• There’s Ability in Disability is an electronic tool signposting businesses and practitioners to services to help them in recruiting and retaining staff with disabilities  - visit www.fifedirect.org.uk/fenlink

• Our Email Vacancy Circulation Service helps jobseekers in Fife with disabilities access job vacancy information by emailing vacancy information made available to us straight to their mailbox.

Fife Business Diversity Awards 2009

On Tuesday 6 October 2009 over one hundred people attended the annual Fife Business Diversity Awards in Bay Hotel in Kinghorn, Fife.

Fife Business Diversity Awards are sponsored by: -

• Jobcentre Plus
• Fife EmployAbility Team
• Careers Scotland
• Fife Employability Network
• Triage
• Working Links and
• Healthy Working Lives.

These organisations recognise that there are good examples of supportive employers within Fife, who have discovered the contribution people from diverse backgrounds and abilities make to their workplace. It is important to celebrate this diversity and to communicate the message of good practice to other Fife Employers.

Keynote speaker for the evening was the Rev Erik Cramb who used anecdotes from his own life and work. Rev Cramb, who had polio as a child, berated the common inability of people to see the abilities behind disability, stating: -  

“What a loss it would have been if these employers hadn’t had the wit and the insight to recognise and hadn’t been encouraged to use the too often unseen gifts of those who don’t tick all the usual boxes. Well done you employers with vision. Fife Business Diversity Awards are a celebration of what people can do, given the opportunity, and a celebration of what diversity can bring to a workplace.”

Overall Winner

• Alphabet Signs

Recruitment

• Recruitment Winner - Fife Animal Park
• Recruitment runner up – Methven House, Kirkcaldy
• Recruitment Highly commended – Deep Sea World, North Queensferry

Retention

• Retention Winner - Abbotsford Care Homes
• Retention Runner up – Pinpoint Ltd, Methil
  

Management Steering Group, contact us at:

Fife Employability Network
Fife Council Community Services
189 Nicol Street
Kirkcaldy
Fife
KY1 1PF
Tel: 01592 583378
Fax: 01592 583634
Email: info@fenlink.org.uk
or visit www.fifedirect.org.uk/fenlink