At the recent Scotland Excel Awards on 20 February, Kibble scooped the top award in the Workforce Development category.
The Scotland Excel Supplier Excellence Awards celebrate the innovation and excellence demonstrated by suppliers supporting the delivery of public services across Scotland. Specifically, this award recognised our achievements in developing a successful Child and Youth Care Worker Development programme. This 12-month programme provided a mix of training, qualifications and experience to support trainees into becoming successful child and youth care workers. It was developed to encourage those with the right soft skills to carve out a rewarding career in care.
This vital programme has enabled Kibble to recruit successful, permanent employees that have greatly increased our charity’s talent pool. This has not only strengthened our workforce but has enabled us to provide an outstanding level of care and support to the young people at Kibble.
As many of the young people we support have experienced significant trauma, the programme ensured that trainees understand the nature of trauma and are able to practice in a way that is ‘trauma-informed’. Our training plan therefore ensured that all participants undertake the relevant therapeutic, trauma-informed training available to all Kibble employees.
The programme also creates employment opportunities within the community, attracting candidates looking for a change career path. This has seen us welcome employees from the building trade, taxi driving and those previously unemployed.
Marie Duncan, Learning and Development Manager at Kibble said:
“Winning the workforce development award is a wonderful achievement for the many people involved in our ‘staff in training’ programme. This truly has been a project that wouldn’t have been successful without the commitment, hard work and energy from Directors, the L&D team and the staff and mentors on the ground. The award recognises this work and is a proud moment for us all.
This programme has seen Kibble take an innovative approach towards recruitment which has attracted fresh talent into the organisation. The award will allow us to showcase this work and support the continued growth of the programme in the coming years.”