In this blog, Georgina Aitchison (Learning & Development Co-ordinator) from includem shares their journey towards including gambling in their work, and setting up a staff induction training partnership with the Hub.

At includem we had a member of staff attend the Gambling Harms training (Nicola Galloway) and felt this was hugely beneficial to use with our young people and families and to embed into our A Better Life Modules.

From here we had the opportunity to apply for funding within Glasgow to train staff in Gambling Harms and promote the cause to our young people and families and expand on more staff receiving this training for this purpose. We received £3000 towards training and to update A Better Life to include Gambling Harms within the addictions module.

Learning and Development contacted Fast Forward as we knew the organisation from previous training 5 years ago and Fast Forward staff were amazing and set up 3 training dates to have most of our staff trained on this subject. We rolled the training out for most of our Glasgow staff but also included our staff from various geographical areas that the company is based in. These areas are Stirling and Forth Valley, Fife, Aberdeen, and Dundee – plus we have staff that travel all over Scotland that support spot purchases (cases where a young person or their family need immediate support).

Fast Forward were amazing and 47 staff have participated in the training so far and the feedback has been great. We have now set up a partnership to have 2 deliveries a year to all new staff that join the organisation to complete this training and create awareness for their young people and families. This is a great opportunity. Thank you to Fast Forward.