GambleAware has commissioned a Gambling Support Service which will be supported by Citizens Advice Scotland.
Seeking to strengthen social responsibility support, it will offer training for debt advisers and other frontline workers to understand, prevent and reduce gambling-related harm among its users.
Staff will gain access to a range of new tools to identify and support people who may be experiencing harm from gambling, as well as directing those at risk to the specialist help that is available.
Four regional hubs will also be established as part of the project, and will be located in Airdrie, Inverness, South West Aberdeenshire and West Lothian.
These hubs will enable staff across Scotland to deliver training to other frontline workers in other professions who come across people experiencing harm from gambling, such as frontline local authority staff, youth practitioners and healthcare workers.
The programme, which will run between 2020 and 2022, will run alongside the ‘constitutionally distinct’ programme in Citizens Advice England and Wales, with the separate initiatives working closely to support one another.