Together with Talkback: Celebrating Disability Pride Month and beyond
July marks Disability Pride Month, and we’re celebrating our impactful partnership with Talkback, a local autism and learning disability charity. Talkback believes that, with the right support, everyone can find employment, including through work experience. Thanks to our long-term collaboration, we've expanded our efforts from offering work experience to providing paid fixed-term employment opportunities.
As a not-for-profit provider of social housing, we pride ourselves on being a certified Level 3 Disability Confident Leader, the first business to achieve this in Buckinghamshire, and the eighth Housing Association nationally. We are dedicated to supporting individuals with disabilities at Fairhive and maintaining our Level 3 status.
Our close relationship with Talkback has allowed us to offer various work placements 
to a few of their members. As a Disability Confident Leader, we are committed to promoting employment for individuals with disabilities. Talkback has joined us in addressing the UK's disability employment gap locally. You can listen to a recent podcast from our Assistant Director of People, John Wallbank, talking about this effort for Buckinghamshire businesses.
Arjun recently carried out a work experience placement with us. During this time, Arjun was involved in many things including creating video guides, resolving printing and display issues at our Independent Living Schemes, helping us recycle old equipment, and researching new equipment to meet our requirements.
Following his successful work experience, Arjun applied for and secured a fixed-term position within our IT support team. This opportunity allows him to gain paid experience, and he has already proven to be an invaluable asset by setting up equipment for new users, tro
ubleshooting issues, and updating our Service Desk.
Arjun spoke to us about his experience on placement with us:
“I am enjoying my time so far at Fairhive and feel I have fit in well with the team. I have gained new skills such as building and rebuilding laptops and linking them to the network ready for staff to use.”
Ian Rowlands, Talkback’s Employability Coordinator, has been working closely with Arjun and helping with his work experience placement. Here, he tells us how it went: “It has been fantastic to see how Arjun has grown in confidence and developed new skills during his time with Fairhive. The IT team has been so supportive of him and Arjun’s success has further solidified our relationship with Fairhive, hopefully creating opportunities for other young people in the future”.
Rick Smith, Head of IT at Fairhive commented: “Arjun is a great addition to our IT team as he is so willing to learn new things and always approaches each task with a smile. He has settled into the team well”.
You can read more about the Disability Confident Scheme on the Buckinghamshire Business First website.
