EmployAble has delivered 8 paid jobs places for learners with disabilities over the past year. We have exceeded our project target of 5 paid placements and are extremely pleased with the resposes from employers to the EmployAble scheme.

Cody Gingam is one of the students to gain a plaid job at the Quality Assurance Agency in Cheltenham. She also won the college award for Work Skills this year. This articlae appeared in the Stroud News yesterday.

The EmployAble programme received very good coverage on the BBC local news programme last night. It is available here for anyone wishing to see it. It will be available for the next 3 hours.

Attached is the press article to promote EmployAble to local employers in the Gloucestershire region. Published on 3rd April in the Gloucestershire Echo.

Bank holiday Monday 21st April EmployAble will be featured in the local news bulletin Points West. If you can listen again on the BBC iplayer please do.

EmployAble banners have been printed to promote paid work opportunities for people with disabilities. These will be shown at the NIACE^definition regional events and at the national BASE conference in September.

Students have already received two offers of paid employment following the EmployAble business breakfast. last week. Those with experince of working in the Star Bistro have ben offered opportuiiinities to work as part of a corporate events catering and service team and one student is working at local restaurant.

A business breakfast launch attended by 24 local employers, keen to know more about National Star EmployAble programme, was a huge success. A presentation showcased the barriers to employment for people with disabilities and outlined how EmployAble would support employers to overcome these. A presentation by a local employer on the business benefits of employing disabled people was well received. A Job Mentor from the EmployAble programme talked about how employers could use the mentoring service to ensure employees learnt the right skills for each job offered. During the event we were able to play four video CV's from students seeking employment. Feedback found that employers really valued seeing these as it focussed very much on the person and not their disability. Before the event BBC radio Gloucestershire featured the event in the morning breakfast programme with interviews with an employer, trainee and project leader. During the event Gloucestershire Echo was able to interview attendees and photograph the event (to be posted when published). Overall this was a very successful engagement event with many new employers and employer networks involved in the EmployAble scheme. Attendees included; Gloucestershire Jobs, In2Print, Mitsubishi Motors, Gloucestershire County Council, Le Beaujolais restaurant, Burtons Kindergarten, Quality Assurance Agency, Federation of Small Businesses among many, many others. Our EmployAble team will be meeting with individual businesses over the next two weeks to arrange individual placements.

La Beaujolais restaurant in Cirencester is working with the National Star's EmployAble scheme and supporting a learner with a disability through a six week training placement with the opportunity of paid employment. This will be our first placement success under the EmployAble scheme. Our EmployAble employer engagement event on Wednesday 26th March will bring together over 20 local employers to generate placement pledges for learners with disabilities under the EmployAble scheme.

Our first EmployAble employer engagement event is taking place on 26th March with over 20 local employers scheduled to attend. Presentations by trainees with disabilities, employers and the WorkAble audit team will make up the mornings presentations. This will be a pledge event where employers will sign up to the EmployAble scheme.

We are also offering free support audits through WorkAble to those who sign up to the scheme to enable workplaces and employees to become more disability confident.

We have filmed 8 of our 20 trainees for video CV's which we will also present at this event. A sample video CV will be posted here nearer the time of the event.

20 trainees are now compiling video CV's with a film maker in preparation for a large employer engagement event in March as part of the EmployAble programme. Trainees talk about their skills and aspirations and are filmed completing tasks in their current work training placements. The aim is to show employers the levels of communication and practical work skills trainees with disabilities have in order to break down employer preconceptions of disability. An established employer forum consisting of three local employers is helping the project board recruit employers who are willing to offer job carved employment for trainees with disabilties.

You can now follow the EmployAble project on twitter @Employ_Able

The EmployAble programme is off to a great start. Our aim to create specialist job mentored training in job carved roles for young people with disabilities in order to gain sustainable paid employment.

We have already compiled a ‘Hot List’ of local employers who will engage with the scheme and have started to assemble an employer led project board. We have recruited the Employment^definition Commissioner for the Learning Disabilities Commissioning^definition team for Gloucestershire County Council to work on the project and to engage the county wide network of employers. We have identified and recruited 20 young people with disabilities who will taking placements and we are currently working with them to prepare video CV’s to document their skills and allow them opportunities to talk through their CV’s to potential employers. We have scheduled out first employer engagement event in February. We have had one set back in that we have failed to recruit for a specialist job mentor and are now having to back fill until an appointment can be made in the New Year. But we are still on track!!