International Women's Day 2024
What is International Women's Day?
International Women's Day (IWD) falls annually on the 8th March and is a global day for celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women.
The day also marks a call to action to campaign for gender equality. IWD is one of the most important days of the year to:
· celebrate women's achievements
· educate and raise awareness about women's equality
· call for positive change advancing women
· lobby for accelerated gender parity
· fundraise for women-focused charities
Everyone everywhere can play a part in helping forge gender equality. From a wide range of IWD campaigns, events, rallies, lobbying, and performances - to festivals, parties, fun runs, and celebrations - all IWD activity is valid. That's what makes IWD so inclusive.
The campaign theme for International Women's Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion. When we inspire others to understand and value women's inclusion, we forge a better world and when women themselves are inspired to be included, there's a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment. Collectively, let's forge a more inclusive world for all women and girls.
Here at FRASAC we are marking International Women's Day by holding a Celebrating Success event with our staff team to share and celebrate our work place successes. Our colleagues have been encouraged to contribute to the event by sharing a client's journey, feedback received from a client or professional and any other work achievements to be celebrated.
At FRASAC, we celebrate women every day and we will remain committed to working towards gender equality.
#InspireInclusion
FRASAC Investing in Volunteering Award
Investing in Volunteers Award
FRASAC began the Investing in Volunteers Award process in November 2022. We started our self-assessment and implementing changes to benefit the volunteers currently supporting our centre right away.
After a very exciting year, organising Volunteers Week, countless peer support sessions, and a few social events for volunteers we were ready for assessment in August 2023. An assessor from Volunteer Scotland started the assessment in September 2023, and after a couple of months of interviewing staff and volunteers, reviewed documents, and supporting FRASAC throughout the process, we were awarded the Investing in Volunteers certification in November 2023!
Volunteer Scotland interviews were able to gather lovely, anonymised feedback from our volunteers:
- ‘I feel that I am my best here’.
- ‘I need to feel welcome and safe, particularly in this line of work, and (here) I do’.
- ‘It’s the smallest organisation I’ve volunteered for, but it's the most appreciated I've felt. Volunteers are very much included, we're all one team’.
This year was definitely a year of growing and learning, as well as a year to recognise everything we were getting right, being proud of the work we do to support our volunteers, and to recognise their hard work and value they bring to FRASAC every day.
We are thankful to the volunteers and members of staff who contributed and participated in an interview with the assessor and shared their experiences volunteering at FRASAC.
Huge thanks to Raith Rovers Down South who funded the award, we are very grateful for their support.
For more information on volunteering with FRASAC, click here to go to our support us page.
FRASAC Awarded Bronze Award for Equalities & Inclusion
FRASAC are delighted to announce we have achieved the Bronze Award for Equalities and Inclusion. Our Services Manager, Nicola Smith, worked alongside Elric Honore, Chief Executive of the Fife Centre for Equalities (FCE), to carry out an equalities audit of our services.
The audit looked at the following objectives:
- Assisting FRASAC in delivering its service with compliance with the Equality Act 2010.
- Understand how Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practice is embedded.
- Recommend areas for development or improvement.
The audit showed that FRASAC is an organisation with a clear positive intent of being client-led and accessible.
Fife Centre for Equalities was pleased to award FRASAC with the Bronze Equality Pathfinders Award in November 2023.
An objective for FRASAC on our new Strategic Plan, is to strive to achieve the Silver Award for Equalities and Inclusion.
FRASAC would like to thank our colleagues at Fife Centre for Equalities, who worked closely with us during the audit, providing expert advice and guidance.
The FRASAC Equalities Audit report can be read here.
Funding Update!
We are delighted to share the news we have been awarded funding from The National Lottery Community Fund Scotland!
This funding is crucial for the provision of immediate short-term support to survivors of sexual violence and Prevention work within youth groups and educational settings across Fife.
Vacancies for the lottery funded positions have recently been advertised and we have received a huge amount of interest!
Details of the two funded posts are:
- Here and Now Trauma Practitioner
- Prevention and Young Persons Trauma Practitioner
Interviews for these positions will take place in the coming weeks and we are really looking forward to welcoming our two new employees to the FRASAC team!
We would like to take the opportunity to thank the National Lottery and all their players who have made these crucial posts possible.
For more information on The National Lottery Community Fund, please visit their website.
Children's Health Awards 2023
We are so excited to share that our Young Person’s Team were nominated for two categories of the Scottish Children’s Health Award's 2023! The categories were: Improving Life Experiences Award and Health and Wellbeing Award.
We are even more excited to announce that we won the category ‘Improving Live Experiences Award’!
Team Leader’s Zoe and Lucy attended the Bear’s Tea Party, in August at the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh and collected the award on behalf of FRASAC.
Here is what Children’s Health Scotland had to say: “We are honoured to announce the Young Persons Team from Fife Rape and Sexual Assault Service as the winner of our Improving Life Experiences Award. The Improving Life Experiences Award recognises the commitment and expertise of those who have made a significant difference to improving life experiences of a child or young person.
On receiving the Award Zoe Henderson, Team Leader at FRASAC said: 'Trauma work is hard, and the team show up every day for the young people who often struggle with their mental health. We see a lot of young people who have been shut down, not believed, carry guilt and shame – and the team listens, believes and respects them and gives them a safe space to explore their feelings and emotions. It means a lot for us to be recognised for our hard work and commitment we provide to ensure that young people have quality services to access and opportunities to improve their self-esteem, confidence, and outlook for their future.' Our judges said how impressed they were with the work undertaken by this team, supporting individuals who are often hard to reach, and so a high level of flexibility is required, meeting young people where and when it suits them. We very much admire the work of this team and believe it is a great example of providing much needed support to young people who are hard to reach and in great need of their amazing help!”
Children’s Health Scotland have been announcing the winners of their awards daily during Scottish Children’s Health Week (4th – 10th September). For more information on Scottish Children’s Health Week and winners of the awards click here.
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