High praise for four new Dumbarton Area Council on Alcohol graduates

Jul 10 2009 by Tina Kemp, Lennox Herald (main ed)

DUMBARTON Area Council on Alcohol’s latest health and social care trainees graduated recently.

Andrew Zdanowicz, Amanda Keith, Ross MacKay and William Hodge graduated from DACA’s Intermediate Labour Market Addictions programme following a one-year training and employment package.

The students all gained an SVQ Level II in Health and Social Care at Clydebank College.

This is the second year DACA has run the ILM, which was designed to provide a way back to sustainable employment for people with a history of drug and/or alcohol misuse.

As part of the programme the trainees did two four-month work placements with local voluntary and public sector organisations and attended college one day a week.

Kate Hamill, supervisor, said: “This year’s trainees have all done extremely well. Their progress over the year in terms of skills and abilities, as well as confidence levels, is nothing short of remarkable.

“Returning to the workplace after so many years of unemployment is not easy for anyone and can be even more difficult where there are addiction issues but they have all worked really hard and tackled any challenges they encountered head on.”

Andrew, from Balloch, said: “The ILM experience has helped me to build on the skills I already had and increase my understanding of the processes which will enable me to work in the social care sector with confidence.”

DACA has received more than 20 applications for next year’s training programme.

Tom Jackson, West Dunbartonshire addictions manager, said: “There are a number of reasons why this project is in place. One of the reasons is because unemployment locally is higher than the national average and we have a lot of economic challenges to deal with.

“The most important reason that this programme has done so well is that we need skilled people to work in the care field and we now have four more skilled, experienced and qualified young people to take up jobs in this profession.”

John Redmond, Clydebank College centre manager, praised their hard work and commitment adding: “The students achieved a variety of successes, not just the SVQ qualification. They have shown considerable motivation and commitment, support for each other and growth in confidence as well as reliability.”