In this issue
Fife Employability Services Directory

Click here for the Fife Employability Services Directory

Job opportunitiesJobOpps
for you and your clients

Engagement and Development Officer, LEAD Scotland, closing date 13 March 2017

Junior Admin Assistant / Receptionist, closing date 19 March 2017
BT Apprentice programme, closing date 01 April 2017

Check out the latest vacancies on the Opportunities Fife Website 

Third sector vacancies here in Fife. 
Funding Opportunities
Closing Date 16 March 2017
Closing Date 07 April 2017
Closing Dates - click here for info
Applications will be accepted at any time
TopMarch 2017
 
Welcome to the March edition of our Employability e-bulletin.
 
It's been a busy time at FVA with our Kirkcaldy office New Volunteer House, finally reopened for business.

A reminder! DWP are keen to see as many organisations as possible registered on their new Dynamic Purchasing System. FVA are offering one to one support to help third sector organisations register. Please contact us for help - that is what we are here for!

And if you have managed to register and are now battling with your 'service offer factsheet' come along to our DWP training session on 28th March.

Save the dates!
Despite being run off our feet we've been working hard to make sure we're planning for our next Forum and this year's Know Your Network. Save the dates!

Make sure to check out the employability courses  section to see if there is anything relevant coming up for your clients.

New this month are Diageo's popular hospitality course and a new App Development taster course with Prince's  Trust. On which note two students at Fife College have received investment develop and launch an exciting new job finder app . Check it out!
 
Finally Scottish Government have announced a continuation of Community Jobs Scotland - so let's get making the most of it for our Fife youngsters!
 
Funding opportunities are now all listed in the left hand column - we are always posting new things so keep checking this and our website!
 
As always make sure to let us know details of your courses for 2017 by sending details to David MacPhail so we can include these in the e-bulletin.
 
The deadline for content to include in the next e-bulletin is Monday 27 March 2017.

All the best,
The FVA Employability Team
Fife Employability ForumFEF17
Fife Employability Forum May - Save the date
 
The next Fife Employability Forum will take place on Wednesday 31 May 2017.

Know Your Network 2017 - Save the date
This years Know Your Network event will take place on Wednesday 06 September 2017.

Watch this space for more information and how to book your place at these key events. 
Dates for Your DiaryDatesDiary
Date: Monday 13 March 2017
Time: 7:00pm-10:00pm
Venue: Kinghorn Golf Club, Burntisland Road, KY3 9RS

The AGM will summarise 2015/16's events and will be followed by a presentation from award winning journalist Lesley Riddoch who will talk about why community action is important and what is happening in communities across Scotland.
Employability and Muslim Women in Scotland

Date: Monday 20 March 2017
Time: 12.00pm-4.00pm
Venue:  Radisson Blu Hotel, 80 High Street, The Royal Mile, Edinburgh, EH1 1TH

Amina is hosting an exciting and thought provoking event, bringing together mainstream and other employability providers to facilitate discussion, create new partnerships and work together to foster best practice, ensuring services are inclusive of the employability needs of Muslim women.
Date: Tuesday 21 March 2017
Venue: The Corn Exchange, Edinburgh, EH14 1RJ

This one day event is a marketplace of over 80 exhibitors and a diverse mix of 600 delegates - with many opportunities for trading, learning and making new business connections - helping take Scotland's social enterprises forward. Exhibition spaces at the event are also available to book.
Date: Friday 19 May 2017
Time: 10:00am-4:00pm
Venue: University of Strathclyde, Technology and Innovation Centre, 99 George Street, Glasgow G1 1 RD

2017 will see new child poverty and social security bills coming before the Scottish Parliament - which will have huge significance for all those advising and supporting families.
At the same time the roll out of universal credit and the introduction of a 'two child limit' for key benefits are among UK Government reforms that are radically changing the nature of social security.

CPAG in Scotland's Welfare Rights 2017 conference will give delegates an opportunity to hear from political leaders, welfare rights experts and academics about the latest developments and the implications for their work.

Date: Wednesday 31 May 2017
Time: 9:15am - 3:30pm
Venue: Edinburgh

Co-production is the process of utilising organisations, groups and individuals' skills, lived and professional experience to develop better services.
 
This event will explore how can we draw on the knowledge, ability and resources of service providers and the people who use services to improve outcomes.
Training and Learning Opportunities   Trainingandlearning
A number of Training and Learning Opportunities can be found on the FVA website

We have highlighted some key ones that we think may be of interest below.
Poverty Awareness Training - Supporting Hard Up Households

The training programme contains a range of courses and e-learning opportunities that will be useful and relevant to anyone working with individuals and families in Fife who are struggling to make ends meet.
The next round of FVA training for volunteer managers

PVG Training Session, 16 March, Glenrothes
Course 1 - Volunteer involvement, getting started, 21 March, Kirkcaldy
Course 2 - Effective volunteer recruitment, 05 April, Glenrothes
Course 3 - Supporting your Volunteers, 20 April, Cupar
Course 4 - Fair and equal volunteering, 09 May, Glenrothes
Course 5 - Introduction to managing risk in your volunteer programme, 25 May, Kirkcaldy

Click the title to any of the courses above to find out more or to book your place.   
Date: Wednesday 22 and Thursday 23 March 2017
Time: 9:30am-4:30pm
Venue: Education Centre, Queen Margaret Hospital, Dunfermline, KY12 0SU

Cognitive Remediation Therapy is a behavioural training based intervention that aims to improve cognitive process with the overall aim to improve functioning in everyday activities. It is a B Grade Recommended Therapy in the SIGN (Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network) Guidelines for Schizophrenia, and there is a growing body of evidence for it's effectiveness in other disorders too. It is particularly effective when embedded within a wider psychosocial programme.
Date: Tuesday 28 March 2017
Time: 10:00am-12:30pm
Venue: New Volunteer House, 16 East Fergus Place, Kirkcaldy, KY1 1XT

Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) is the new purchasing system for all locally commissioned DWP provision.
It works on a 'closed' search system. It is critical that organisations upload their service offer factsheets with appropriate keywords and against the relevant 'categories' and 'routeways' to ensure success.

This training session will help participants understand how to complete their factsheets.
Employability CoursesEmpSkillsCourses
                                                                                                 
Course Start Date: Monday 13-Friday 17 March 2017
Venue: Stenton Campus, Fife College, Glenrothes, KY6 2RA

The Prince's Trust are working in partnership with Artronix to deliver a five day taster course in Apps Development, with a focus on Virtual Reality. The programme will be delivered in the Fife region and is for 16-25 year olds who are not currently in education or employment.

Further information can be found through the title link.
West Fife Enterprise - Employability Courses
 
West Fife Enterprise run their CSCS Course on the second Tuesday and Thursday of each month, the dates for their next course are provided below:

Date: 14 and 16 March 2017

Further details of this course can be found via the title link or by contacting  Donna Tucker at West Fife Enterprise on 01383 881364.

West Fife Enterprise are also recruiting for two other employability courses just now:

Bitesize Worktries

Application Deadline Date: Thursday 16 March 2017
Start Date: Monday 03 April 2017
Time: Full Time Mon-Thu 9:00am - 4:30 pm, Fri 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Venue: WFE, Forthview Learning Centre, Newmills, KY12 8TL

This course can be done full time or part time - work towards gaining a variety of accredited qualifications including;
*ECDL
*PC Passport
*Communications in Administration - Level 4

A weekly training allowance is available and help with travel costs - free transport is accessible in some areas.

Contact Details: Sandra Beveridge - 01383 881364

South West Fife CLD Youth Work team - Fife Council Activity Agreement

Start Date: Rolling Programme - Term Time
Time: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10:00am-3:00pm
Venue: Camdean Community Centre, Primrose Lane, Rosyth

Activity Agreement is for young people age 16-19yrs who have no positive destination - work or college.  The programme supports participants to identify where they need to strengthen to help moving on to college, training or work. The programme covers personal development; ABE support; CV building; opportunity to complete Youth Achievement Award (Nat4).
 
For further details contact Corinne McGinley - Corinne.McGinley@fife.gov.uk or 03451 555 555 ext 492399.
What's happening in FifeHappninginFife

We're delighted to announce that New Volunteer House has now reopened in Kirkcaldy after a significant refurbishment.  In partnership with Fife Council, and with funding support from Scottish Government, Fife Voluntary Action has given the building a new lease of life for voluntary sector organisations, public sector partners and the citizens of Kirkcaldy and beyond.

All services are now being delivered from New Volunteer House, 16 East Fergus Place, Kirkcaldy, KY1 1XT (sometimes called The Hub).  You can access the building from Wemyssfield, but you have to walk around the side of the building to the main entrance off East Fergus Place.
Positive destinations for Fife's young people

Figures released on Tuesday 07 March from the Scottish Government about the trends in school leavers' destinations across the country reveal that almost 93% of Fife's pupils are going onto 'positive destinations' when they finish their secondary school studies.

The School Leaver Destination Return (SLDR) by Skills Development Scotland looks at the next steps of the 3,712 Fife school leavers, 2015 - 2016.  To read more about these figures click the title link. 

From 13 February 2017, Fife Council will trial a change to the way it provides goods to Scottish Welfare Fund customers. The Council will acquire furniture and white goods from the new Reuse Consortium in addition to its current supplier, under the current Scotland Excel Framework.
 
The new Reuse Consortium is a national project led by Community Resources Network Scotland (CRNS). The consortium supports 24 of Scotland's local authorities and is made up of 17 accredited reuse members, including Castle Furniture Project and Furniture Plus in Fife.
JobApp
An online idea by two former Fife College students has attracted a six-figure investment package - including support from a former contestant on The Apprentice.

Zane Powell and Lewis Pour have just recently unveiled a new job app to help students and graduates find suitable internships, work placements and full-time employment. The two students, both from Windygates, have created UniJobApp, the first venture of its kind in Scotland - the application and website and is due to launch in the Spring.
Fife Employment Access Trust Celebrate Successes

Fife Employment Access Trust are a locally based mental health charity who support people with mental health conditions to access work.  FEAT are celebrating the news that the Big Lottery have agreed to fund one of their flagship projects for another three years.

FEAT are also celebrating the announcement of being named runners-up in the GlaxoSmithKline Impact Awards for 2017.  The GSK IMPACT Awards have been running since 1997 and are designed to recognise and reward charities that are doing excellent work to improve people's health. They are funded by GlaxoSmithKline and managed in partnership with The King's Fund.
Looking for affordable room hire?

Then look no further than Fife Voluntary Action.

We offer quality, affordable meeting, training and interview space at our offices throughout Fife. Contact us to discuss prices for our rooms in Cupar, Glenrothes and Kirkcaldy.

Want to find out more?
Call: 0800 389 6046
Other News
Employer Toolkit Launched to Help Recruit and Retain More Single Parents and Care Leavers
 
A first-of-its-kind employer toolkit designed to help businesses recruit and retain more single parents and care leavers has been launched by the DWP.

People from disadvantaged groups face challenges that many others do not - such as having to work around childcare requirements, lack of formal qualifications or gaps in their employment history. Ministers want to help more people from these groups to get into lasting employment and reap the benefits that come from work.

More than 400 new training places are now available for people leaving the oil and gas sector to gain the skills they need to move into other industries.

A further five training providers are offering 425 opportunities to individuals thanks to the Transition Training Fund - the fund established by the Scottish Government to support people affected by redundancies in oil and gas.

The second round of funding for training providers follows an initial round last year, which saw five providers offering more than 330 places.

New research has found that only a quarter (24%) of Scottish workers feel their employer provides them with enough mental health support in the workplace.

The YouGov study, commissioned by leading job board, totaljobs, surveyed Scottish workers to find out about their experiences of mental health and wellbeing at work.

The study showed that 4% of people have taken sick days off work, or have been unable to work as an employee, due to a mental health issue in the last year - with nearly a third (29%) of these stating that their employer was unaware of the reason.

Volunteer Scotland found that 52% of young people volunteered in the last year, compared to only 27% of adults.

In a survey carried out by Ipsos-Mori of people aged 11-18 on behalf of the organisation, it was found that 146,000 had formally volunteered with one in three doing so at least once a month. Overall that's an increase of 19% from 2009.

Researchers found that youth volunteering is much more inclusive than was expected.

The proportion of young people who volunteer in school time, such as at lunch clubs, in the most deprived areas is the same as the least deprived areas (both 33%) and volunteering participation by those with a physical or mental health condition is greater than young people generally.

The 2017 Awards to celebrate the UK's favourite Lottery-funded projects are now open to applications.

The Awards are open to authorised representatives of projects that have received Lottery funding at any time since 1994. The main beneficiaries of the project must be based in the UK.

Last year, Conflict Resolution Services and Cyrenians created a free video resource for young people focusing on the topic of anger.

The response was overwhelmingly positive from young people, and they heard many from teachers, project workers, support staff and more who have used the video successfully to kick-start conflict resolution and emotional intelligence sessions for young people.

So they decided to make another video and would love to share with you.

Young people across Scotland will continue to benefit from a fund to help them into work thanks to a £6.1 million investment, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said.

The funding for Community Jobs Scotland (CJS) will support up to 700 new job opportunities for 16 - 29 year olds. The support will be targeted at groups who face significant difficulties finding employment - including carers, young people with experience of care, those with disabilities, and young people with past criminal convictions.
Latest Employability and Productivity Statistics

The release of annual Labour Productivity Statistics for the period 1998-2014 was announced by Scotland's Chief Statistician.

The Scottish Government has also released these figures regarding employment which show that Youth unemployment rates are at a record low and that employment rates are up. 
Fife Voluntary Action
Tel: 0800 389 6046
Fife Voluntary Action is the Third Sector Interface for the Fife Council area.
supporting, developing and representing community groups,
voluntary organisations, social enterprises and volunteering

Registered Office: Craig Mitchell House, Flemington Road, Glenrothes, KY7 5QF.

Fife Voluntary Action is a Company Limited by Guarantee, Registered in Scotland No. SC203613 and Registered Scottish Charity No. SCO28457.