Shetland Charitable Trust receives Healthy Working Lives Gold Award

March 1st 2019

Shetland Charitable Trust is delighted to have been awarded the Gold Healthy Working Lives award, having previously received the bronze and silver awards in 2009 and 2014 respectively.

Shetland Charitable Trust receives Healthy Working Lives Gold Award

Shetland Charitable Trust is delighted to have been awarded the Gold Healthy Working Lives award, having previously received the bronze and silver awards in 2009 and 2014 respectively.

Improvements in workplace culture made over the past three years secured the trust the Healthy Working Lives Gold Award, an initiative led by the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives.

The team have been supported through the gold award by Jillian Charleson, Health Improvement Practitioner with NHS Shetland who advises on the Healthy Working Lives award as part of her role.

The assessors noted: “Shetland Charitable Trust has embraced and successfully embedded the ethos of Healthy Working Lives. The team is led by a chief executive who recognises the benefits of a healthy working environment and a good work life balance.

“The organisation has experienced a culture change since their involvement with Healthy Working Lives and now enjoys extremely low levels of absenteeism, incidents and turnover. Individual employee interests and skills are recognised and utilised.

“The organisation has demonstrated its commitment to employee health, safety and wellbeing through a very concise, well written strategy and action plan. The strategy shows the long term commitment of the organisation to these themes and sets out clear wellbeing aims.

Trustee and Chair of the Audit and Governance Advisory Committee, Keith Massey said: “It is evident to us all the benefits of a healthy working environment and a good work-life balance, and the work the Trust has done to achieve this. We are delighted this has been recognised through the accolade of the gold award”

For information about the Healthy Working Lives award visit www.healthyworkinglives.scot

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Testimonials

The funding COPE Ltd receives from the Shetland Charitable Trust supports us in many ways. It allows us to develop and maintain a strong foundation to our core business and assists us to provide on-going employment skill development opportunities to people with disabilities living within Shetland. COPE Ltd highly values the support provided to our organisation by The Shetland Charitable Trust.

“The substantial grant made to us by Shetland Charitable Trust every year allows us to provide first-class facilities and dedicated staff to underpin sporting success among people of all ages and abilities in the islands.”

Having this core funding from the Charitable Trust means that we can use that money where we need it at any given time. It's multi-year funding which really takes the pressure off. To have the funding to keep going is really important as it is improving the lives of disabled folk in Shetland.

The funding that we get from the Charitable Trust pays for part of staff support and matching with other funders. Without local funders we wouldn't have national funders, and without either of those funders, we wouldn't be able to do this, so funding from the Shetland Charitable Trust is incredibly important.

The funding Shetland Arts gets from Shetland Charitable Trust is about making sure the organisation can thrive, access other funds, and deliver on behalf of the community of Shetland. Our funding from the Shetland Charitable Trust really helps us with our conversations with national funders because it shows that we're working on behalf of what the local objectives and priorities are.

The Access to Leisure scheme was introduced to allow folk to be able to get access to classes and activities for a lower cost. I feel that the SRT play a critical role in every community across Shetland and that's all down to the funding of the Shetland Charitable Trust that we're able to maintain that.

Unpaid carers do an amazing job looking after people 24/7 in their own homes, keeping them living at home safely, and they really need help to do that. Thanks to the funding from Shetland Charitable Trust, we've been able to employ a deputy manager, recruit more care attendants, and provide overnights. We're also really grateful for the funding because it means that everybody can get the service for free.