As a partnership, CheckIn Works and Giraffe Trading CIC are enthusiastic about improving the way they support job-seekers in their journey to employment. An important element in this support is the assessment of the needs of job-seekers and the planned support for each on an individual basis. We’re keen to ensure that the support we offer closely matches the Scottish Government’s national outcomes and indicators. Over the past year, manager James Alexander has been working with external consultant, Stewart Black to devise a bespoke Outcomes Assessment Profile that will enable the Partnership identify individual outcomes, assess needs and plan support, and provide a more evidence-based approach to the reporting of outcomes achieved. The Partnership’s Outcomes with job-seekers focus of Employability (work, training and education) and Quality of Life (independent living, health, move-on support and equalities)

The new Job-seeker Assessment Profile toolkit is being used in:

1) identifying the outcomes Check In/Giraffe intend to achieve for the job seekers they support, and checking their ‘fit’ with the Scottish Government’s 15 ‘national outcomes’ and 45 supporting ‘indicators’
2) re-designing the main tool Check In/Giraffe use (the ‘Assessment Profile’) to assess the needs of each job seeker and plan appropriate support – so that the Profile is now re-focussed systematically on the relevant outcomes 
3) checking the new Profile tool also captures the outcomes identified by the current partners CheckIn and Giraffe have (e.g. Perth & Kinross Council), and also possible future partners (e.g. the BIG Lottery in Scotland and other independent funding bodies)
4) checking what further arrangements need to be made to reflect the goals and supporting outcomes that Check In/Giraffe have set for themselves as organisations, where these goals and outcomes are different  from those for job seekers
5) helping Check In/Giraffe improve the evidence base for the need for its supports for job seekers, and what it is achieving, by helping designing a survey to be carried out in late Summer/Autumn 2011.