VIAS News

December 2009

New Newsletter

Our new improved newsletter is now available! Please click on this link to open / save the file (920kb PDF)

Course Outlines

As many of you will know, the Scottish Government has been developing a National Framework for Supported Employment.
The following are a series of training events that, in partnership, ENABLE Scotland, SCLD and Values Into Action Scotland are running from January to April 2010 to help anyone involved in the field of supported employment for people with learning difficulties. Our aim is to help you meet the framework requirements. By combining our efforts, we are able to offer you this comprehensive package of training at a greatly reduced cost.
 
 

A two day course for anyone who wants to help people with learning difficulties to find paid work. With a good mix of theory and practical exercises, this course will cover everything you should do to help someone to identify their ‘ideal job’. An introduction to negotiating the benefits system is included.

Reduced Rate £200 
For more information contact Cath Hurrell on 0141 226 4541 or Norma Curran on 0141 587 2487

 
Job Finding/ Employer Engagement 

2nd Feb 2010 9.30am – 4pm
Adelphi Centre, 12 Commercial Road, Glasgow

A one day course for anyone who wants to help people with learning difficulties to find paid work. The course will cover involving the person in the process; identifying suitable employers; getting appointments and turning these into opportunities for people.

Reduced Rate £100   
For more information contact Cath Hurrell on 0141 226 4541 or Norma Curran on 0141 587 2487

Systematic Instruction Strategies
(On/Off the Job Support)

22nd -25th  March 2010 9.30am – 4pm
Adelphi Centre, 12 Commercial Road, Glasgow

A four day course for anyone who wants to help people with learning difficulties to find paid work. This will cover everything that you need to know to successfully support someone in a job including preparing for someone to start work; encouraging co-workers to be involved in support; effective training strategies and problem solving when methods aren’t working.

Reduced Rate £400   
For more information contact Cath Hurrell on 0141 226 4541 or Norma Curran on 0141 587 2487

Career Planning (Aftercare)

20th April 2010 9.30 – 4pm
Adelphi Centre, 12 Commercial Road, Glasgow

A one day course for anyone who wants to help people with learning difficulties to find paid work. This course will help you to build a career planning structure and review process which encourages the person’s continuous employment development. There will also be an opportunity to discuss general supported employment practice issues and work out solutions.

Reduced Rate £100  
For more information contact Cath Hurrell on 0141 226 4541 or Norma Curran on 0141 587 2487

To book a place on any if these events, click on the following link

 www.scld.org.uk/what-we-offer/training/calendar-of-courses-and-events.xhtml

 Then find the date of the event on the calendar and book from there!

And now for something different!

The following is a training event that Values Into Action Scotland are running to help anyone involved in helping people with learning difficulties to find volunteering opportunities. As a special introductory offer, we are delivering this training at a greatly reduced cost.

I Want To Volunteer Too!
 
2 March 2010 9.30pm – 4pm
Adelphi Centre, 12 Commercial Road, Glasgow

A one day course specifically designed to inform the practice of people who work in mainstream volunteer centres throughout Scotland. Many people take up volunteering opportunities as well as having a job and it shouldn’t be any different for people with learning difficulties. With a good mix of theory and practical exercises, this course will cover everything you should do to get the most out of your initial interview and help people progress.

Reduced Rate £100

For more information, contact Norma Curran on 0141 587 2487. To book, download the booking form and follow the instructions on the form.  

October 2009

Newsletter uploaded

You can now download our October Newsletter - please click on this link to open / save the file (733kb PDF).

VIAS Annual General Meeting

Our second AGM will be held

on WEDNESDAY 11th NOVEMBER 2009

from 6 till 8 p.m.

Perth Subud Centre, Highland House,
7 St Leonards Bank, Perth, PH2 8EB
(Within 200 yards of the main Railway and Bus Stations)

Following the business there will be two interactive sessions on:

WEBSITE DESIGN
with John Phethean from PAVE Graphics who has been actively involved in our website development and has some exciting new ideas to take it onto a whole new level.

MAKING MEETINGS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL  
with Linda Campbell and Iain McDonald from Hear Here, a self-advocacy group based in Renfrewshire. Hear Here celebrated its 10th birthday this year and has been involved in a wide range of meetings & consultations at local and national level over the years. We are delighted that they will share their thoughts and experiences with us on this important topic.

ALL MEMBERS/ NON MEMBERS WELCOME

Click here  to download our AGM booking form

August 2009

New newsletter available

Please download our new newsletter for August 2009 here - August Newsletter (319kb PDF)

May 2009

Real Jobs How Conference Update

Please visit our conference page for the latest details and downloads!

Newsletter Published

Please take a look at our May 2009 Newsletter - available to download here (171kb PDF file)

January 2009

Happy New Year! We are now accepting bookings for our Real Jobs How Conference - please visit the new Conference Page for more info and online booking form.

October 2008

Values Into Action "Real Jobs How?" Conference

Rescheduled to 24th March 2009

Please note: Real Jobs How? NOT now on 30th October 2008

• We have secured the same venue – Scottish Youth Theatre
• We will have the same great workshops –including website design for all; video making for all; creative writing; North Lanarkshire’s experience of How to do it; How to sort the Benefits issues; and Life Changing Jobs research.
• We will ask your views on current issues in getting work with electronic voting so everyone can have their say.
• We have a new date – 24th March 2009.

We hope that this isn’t a problem for you. We are really sorry if the change means that you can’t make it.

We will of course offer early bird discount prices to everyone who transfers their booking to 24th March.

This rescheduling will allow us to share new research data, to assess the impact of imminent changes in Government policy.

We are confident that this will result in us having a more meaningful and significant event next March.

AUGUST 2008

DATES for your DIARY

The first VIAS A.G.M. will be on Wednesday 10th September at 6pm at Adelaide’s - a venue in Glasgow.

We are busy planning the follow up Conference to our More Jobs NOW conference.

We have already confirmed workshops on

• What works – securing more money by working (Jen Dolan); working full time (North Lanarkshire)
• sharing good practice – making videos (Foxy Films) creative story telling (lipSync) and research (UCLAN and Advocating Together) on what works and why work is important,

We are working with Workforce Plus to let everyone contribute their ideas and opinions to the national agenda on work and have many other exciting ideas.

Or email Julia at info@viascotland.org.uk

Talking about what work means to me

We want to collect peoples’ stories about getting work – how they did it and what it means to them. We want anyone who wants to share their story to get in touch with VIAS.
We also want anyone who has a DVD that tells their story about work or who knows of DVDs that tell other peoples’ stories to let us know; so that we can watch them and maybe get a copy. We plan to work with Annette Allison of LypSync to gather more stories. Let us know if you’d like to do this.

Life Changing Work

We are starting a pilot research project, to test the idea that working more than 16 hours a week can change your life. With the support of Advocating Together (Dundee) and North Lanarkshire, Julie Ridley (University of North Lancashire), Julia Cowie and Susan Hunter (Edinburgh University), Fiona Wallace and Keith Lynch will be interviewing a small sample of 6 people who have experience of working full time. We want to see if we can identify what is important about working full time (over 16 hours work a week) Does it offer more than working a few hours –if so what.
 

News updated by Paul Cargill