Many people find themselves out of work for extended periods of time, and it is usually the case that it becomes increasingly more difficult to find employment the longer you remain out of a job.
The Wise Group, a Scottish charitable organisation, aims to support long-term unemployed people back into the workplace by helping them develop and improve their skills and employment prospects.
Established in 1983, The Wise Group’s mission has been to help those without work move into sustainable employment by assessing the needs of individual clients and liaising with the local business community to ensure the skills gaps are being filled.
In partnership with learndirect scotland, The Wise Group launched an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) lab at its Charlotte Street premises in Glasgow in December 2003.
The centre was created in response to the growing importance of ICT in today’s flexible and competitive labour market, and to ensure open access to learning for all.
Anastasia McBride, head of skills and learning, said: “Through our partnership with learndirect scotland, the quality of service we offer to individual clients has expanded and has become much more flexible as a result of the technology, software and licensing agreement we now have in place.”
learndirect scotland worked with The Wise Group over the last two years on a consultancy basis to support the full implementation of their web-based resource and to ensure that both staff and learners receive maximum benefit from the new online material.
Anastasia added: “Online learning provides an ideal opportunity for people to develop new skills in new ways, and challenges the traditional approaches to training.
“Our e-learning lab enables learners to monitor their progress and continually develop their skills at a time and pace to suit them. This comprehensive service gives learners access to employment opportunities that previously would have seemed out of reach.
“As a result of partnership working, we can begin to address the barriers to learning in new ways, including literacy, numeracy and IT skills.”
The Wise Group is part of learndirect scotland’s national network of learning centres throughout Scotland and provides learning opportunities at a place, pace and time which meets the needs of both the clients and the local community.
Anastasia, said: “By breaking down the barriers that prevent people from learning and competing within the labour market, we help over 2,000 people each year back into full-time employment through training and work placements.
”We are planning to make our current service even more accessible and more relevant to all sectors of the community by opening the learning centre in the evenings and at weekends so that no-one is excluded from learning.”