As of Monday April 27:
• Information on school placing requests, admissions and transitions has been released;
• New advice issued on reported Coronavirus-related scams.
Our children and families service is planning for children and young people who would have had a key transition into Nursery, Primary 1 or S1 next term.
Although there has been no national announcement about when nurseries and schools will re-open, the children and families services is keen that children and young people of all ages, along with their families, can think ahead to when that happens.
A Dundee working group is being set up to co-ordinate the approach to matters like transitions and placing requests and to make sure that the views of children and their parents can be heard.
It will reflect on the experience of children and young people, families and staff during the lockdown and concerns about the progress of children’s learning.
It will also assist those children with additional support needs.
Meanwhile, updated advice has been issued on the latest fraud and scam risks being used by hoaxers in order to obtain members of the public’s bank details.
Residents are advised to remain vigilant and be wary of email interception and bank mandate frauds, online quizzes which harvest personal information, illegal streaming services and devices, and hoax phishing emails.
As of Tuesday April 28:
• Dundee City Council pays tribute to workers around the world as part of International Workers’ Memorial Day (IWMD)
• New online learning hub launched
• Safe Zone bus back helping the most vulnerable in the city
• NHS Tayside, Health and Social Care Partnerships and Local Authorities working together to support staff and residents in care homes
International Workers Memorial Day remembers all those who have died through fatal injury at work or through occupational disease, and the thousands who have suffered life-altering injuries in work-related incidents.
This year, it also recognises the dedication of those here and around the world working to maintain services during the Coronavirus pandemic.
A minute’s silence was observed today at 11am to remember all of the front line staff and key workers who have lost their lives to Coronavirus while doing their jobs to keep others safe.
Meanwhile, the new Dundee City Council online learning hub to support pupils and families while schools are closed has been launched.
During school closures, young people at times may require to access online learning resources. This website will support staff, pupils and parents to do this effectively.
This new resource hosts a range of resources to help support pupils learn from home and can be found here: https://bit.ly/2y7rheT
On Saturday, Dundee’s Safe Zone bus was back on the streets to help some of the most vulnerable people who are at risk from COVID-19.
The Safe Zone bus is an outreach service which traditionally caters for the night time economy on Friday and Saturday nights by offering help to anyone in distress in the city centre.
Although lockdown restrictions are in place, there continues to be a number of people on the street for a variety of reasons, including homelessness or begging.
The Safe Zone bus will initially operate on Saturdays to provide basic support, in relation to welfare and health interventions, hot food and drinks and support to access accommodation and to be safe.
Dundee Health and Social Care Partnership, Tayside Council on Alcohol (TCA), Police Scotland, Xplore Dundee, Hillcrest Futures, WRASAC, Health and Homeless Outreach Nursing and Parish Nurses are working in partnership to deliver the Safe Zone service.
Also today, families are being reassured that NHS Tayside, Health and Social Care Partnerships and local authorities in Angus, Dundee and Perth and Kinross are working together to support staff and residents in care homes.
The organisations supporting care homes across Tayside would like to reassure families that all care homes, both those run by the health and social care partnerships and those provided by private sector organisations, are working in line with existing infection control measures.
NHS Directors of Public Health are now taking enhanced clinical leadership for care homes.
The Scottish Government has also announced that care home residents and staff with Covid-19 symptoms are to be tested in Scotland, however NHS Tayside was ahead of the curve and has been proactively testing staff and residents for more than three weeks. In the last week alone, over 700 patients, care home residents and health and social care staff or their contacts have been tested for Covid-19.
NHS Tayside’s community testing team is continuing to provide support for testing in care homes, including for staff members with symptoms to identify if they have Covid-19, to enable a return to work more rapidly in the event of a negative result.
Dundee City Council
Dundee draws skilled workers from a 60-minute catchment population of 640,000 and has a local population of over 140,000. The availability of a large pool of highly skilled labour is a key feature in the Dundee economy. Flexibility in the labour force is currently more prevalent in Dundee than in Scotland as a whole. All forms of labour market flexibility - part-time, temporary employment, self-employment and shift work - are widely operational within the city. Labour force stability in the city is excellent, enabling companies to plan with confidence. Labour turnover levels are less than 5% and absenteeism averages 2%.
