During 2016-17 Fife-ETC, Fife Health and Wellbeing Alliance and Fife Voluntary Action commissioned two pieces of research to help us better understand the relationship between employability service provision and health inequalities.
The first piece of research, Connections by Joan Riddell, looks at the quantitative data available on Fife-ETC clients through FORT.
The second piece of research, The Confidence to Move Forward, takes a qualitative peer research approach and was coordinated by the Craighead Institute with support from the Glasgow Homelessness Network and the Centre for Health Policy, University of Strathclyde.
Both reports indicate a significant correlation in people experiencing unemployment and identifiers of health inequalities.
They also identify that often the two issues are inextricably linked and there is a strong possibility that we will gain improved employment outcomes if we take this into account when we commission, design and deliver employability services.
The reports contain a number of recommendations some of which are specific to Fife-ETC but many more are relevant to the wider employability agenda at both a strategic and a delivery level.
For this reason Fife-ETC, Fife Health and Wellbeing Alliance and FVA are keen to share the learning as widely as possible.