The Scottish Government’s Permanent Secretary, Sir Peter Housden joined staff and service users of Apex Scotland at the Clackmannanshire Council Greenfield Café in Alloa on the 3rd May 2012 and saw first hand how this successful partnership was making a significant difference to the lives of the Apex clients and the service users from the Council’s Adult Day Services who worked there.
Apex has been working in partnership with the Council for the past 6 months to bring together the skills and experience that can support the individuals who work in the Café to develop their employability skills and learn to work as part of a team. This includes sector specific training for those individuals interested in the catering industry such as food hygiene and food preparation and customer service and money handling.
The Permanent Secretary praised the innovative partnership after gaining feedback from the service users themselves and being instructed in how to make the perfect cappuccino!
Emma Cummings, Apex Forth Valley’s Service Development Manager said:
“We were delighted that the Permanent Secretary could visit the Café and witness the positive impact this experience is having on the people who work here. It’s an excellent example of a very effective partnership with Clackmananshire Council and one of the many spin-offs is the way that the Apex and Council service users integrate and support each other.”