Leading Supported Employment Service maintains Support With Confidence accreditation for ninth year!

Leading Supported Employment Service maintains Support With Confidence accreditation for ninth year!

Optalis Supported Employment Service is pleased to announce its ninth consecutive year of Support with Confidence (SWC) accreditation. The Supported Employment Service provides specialist coaching, training, and support to individuals who require additional support to find and maintain employment. Despite the recent challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic, the service is ranked first in the South-East for the number of people with learning disabilities who have paid employment and number two in the country.

Donna Morgans, Head of Supported Employment Services, acknowledged the ongoing demands and commended the team, stating, 

"The team have been doing an outstanding job supporting everyone - particularly as we moved out of covid measures and began to see more people moving back into their workplaces. The team have also supported a number of new initiatives this year, including our Try a Train programme and have ensured that standards have remained high across all of our programmes."

Support With Confidence (SWC) is a Local Authority scheme, coordinated by Trading Standards, which provides a list of approved care and/or support services that have been vetted on the grounds of quality, safety and training. This allows SWC to provide a pre-approved list of businesses and individuals to reassure anyone in the community who wishes to use a support service either for themselves or a loved one, that the service will be delivered safely and to the highest quality. Gaining SWC accreditation involves providing services to customers and communities at a consistently high-quality standard.

The Supported Employment Service was assessed against a range of criteria including measuring excellence in customer care, equality and diversity. The accreditation also recognised the level of safeguarding training carried out for staff and the robustness of the organisation’s Quality Assurance Framework, which enables customers to give feedback.

Team members of the Supported Employment Service can rightfully be proud of their ongoing commitment to "high-quality standards and excellent service to customers and the community."