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CHANGING LIVES IN PRACTICE
The following three pages highlight some of the excellent work being done throughout Scotland relevant to Changing Lives and focus on the impact on and experiences of those directly involved…
CHANGE ACADEMY FOR SOCIAL WORK SCOTLAND [ CASWS]
BALLOONS LAUNCHED TO PASS GOODWISHES TO PARTICIPANTS AT THE END OF A STRENUOUS 4 DAY RESIDENTIAL PROGRAMME WERE SYMBOLIC OF THE ENERGY AND ENTHUSIASM RELEASED BY THE FIRST CHANGE ACADEMY FOR SOCIALWORK SCOTLAND [ CASWS].
Changing Lives: the Report of the 21st Century Review of Social Work recognised that universities have a vital role to play in policy delivery and the Scottish Government developed an innovative approach to utilising their involvement with the Change Academy for Social Work Scotland ( CASWS), one that has generated interest from a range of public sector bodies and agencies.
A Change Academy is more than a one off event. It is a highly facilitated process which extends over a year that includes a four day residential event. It aims to develop teams to lead, co-ordinate and facilitate complex change. Its outputs are not only institutional projects and implementation plans, but also a strongly developed sense of team capacity and capability to implement change.
Based on the model of Summer Academies developed by the American Association of Higher Education [ AAHE], Change Academies have been running annually in the UK since September 2004 through the Leadership Foundation in Higher Education and the Higher Education Academy.
The Change Academy for Social Work Scotland has broken new ground from this UK-wide model, both in application and context. In the traditional model the institution-wide projects on which teams work are matters for the institutions themselves and thus the resultant action plans are confidential to them and their organisations. In the CASWS model the enhancement of the Scottish social work degree and its outcomes are a matter of public interest.
CASWS started in April 2007 with an introductory day for university heads of social work, and projects were submitted and agreed in the summer. Team Leaders were brought together for a more focused planning and development session in September and the four day residential event took place in January 2008, with all the universities delivering the social work degree participating.
During the process teams were supported to think creatively and to go beyond their project brief, challenging their own and others' assumptions and seeking innovative, transformational change within their work.
As part of CASWS, and as a considerable departure from the UK-wide model of Change Academy, teams were encouraged not only to participate as cohesive groups, working on their specific projects, but also to mix across teams to explore wider, more strategic opportunities that both their projects and wider collaborations might offer. To this end they had the opportunity to engage with employers as well as other stakeholders including senior colleagues from the Scottish Funding Council and universities.
The achievements of CASWS might perhaps only be properly judged in the longer term. However, there have been some immediate indications of success. Of prime importance is the universities' engagement and commitment to this process. As one team stated "Buying into this process was a risk due to many factors; time required, resources, energy. There was some suspicion and a sense of non-co-operation." Yet by the end of the residential event that same team were "feeling prepared, energised and ready to meet the work ahead".
Employers who facilitated discussions on cross cutting strategic themes were also energised and enthused. One senior colleague stated that "the opportunity to reflect and collaborate on ideas was unique:
a model that had considerable development opportunities".
CASWS has clearly brokered relationships across boundaries: teams reported that there was a new spirit and commitment of cooperation and collaboration across institutions. Conversations with some of the senior figures from across the social services sector were reported to be the start of some genuine engagement around key issues, which both parties are clearly keen to find ways to build on.
CASWS demonstrates an approach to change and policy delivery which fosters a shared sense of purpose across boundaries of individual interests, mutual trust and respect, and enthusiastic engagement in its creative processes. Early signs are that it appears to be a highly effective process, generating buy-in and ownership from its participants as well as wider stakeholders.
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT: CASE CONVERSATIONS
Through a blend of face to face and online discussion, social workers from across Argyll & Bute are discussing and reflecting on complex cases featuring children with disability and their families. However, the cases are fictional, though based on authentic cases…
This is all part of a project between Argyll & Bute Council and the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services ( IRISS) who are harnessing technology to support the development of a pilot professional development community for case-based peer supervision. The project aims to:
- Create a supportive, collaborative and purposeful community for professional inquiry, learning & development;
- Share and exchange perspectives on working with complex cases;
- Provide access to up-to-date evidence & knowledge;
- Support the development of critical & reflective practice;
- Improve skills in information search, retrieval and appraisal for evidence-informed practice;
- Enhance service outcomes for children with disability and their families.
Dougie Dunlop (Head of Service, Children and Families) said "As a rural authority we are very excited at the potential of this project to create a supportive community of practice for our staff. The end result should be more confident and capable workers, who are as comfortable collaborating online as they are face to face, and who can make sound evidence-informed plans for our service users."
The staff group are being led online by Liling Payne (Principal Officer, Children with Disability) who explained that "This is all very new to me and to the staff group. With the support of the IRISS learning technology team we've been learning how to work together online and how to find evidence that connects with cases. Some of our more remote and isolated staff are already talking about the sense of support and connection they are getting from the project. Of course it is a pilot, and we're still feeling our way, but we've learned a lot already about how best to blend online and face to face collaboration."
DEVELOPING A LEADERSHIP COMMUNITY CASE STUDY: 'YOU SHOW ME YOURS, I'LL SHOW YOU MINE'
Leading to Deliver is a postgraduate leadership development programme, which the Scottish Government has fully funded since 2004, making about £2.5 million of investment in some 500 participants, who have now completed the programme. Within the Changing Lives change programme, the Leadership and Management Group began to explore ways social services might benefit more widely from this investment. The concept of a leadership community was developed, whereby graduates from this programme and others might work together as a community.
In March 2007, Leading to Deliver (L2D) graduates were invited to an event in Glasgow that aimed to develop a Leadership Community - defined as "a community of connected, open minded and motivated leaders who share ideas, knowledge and experiences, and who seek to be the best they can at delivering social services in a way that meets the needs of service users".
Janet Menzies and Alice Timmons are two of 7 volunteers who are developing the concept of this Leadership Community. The 7 leadership champions worked out that the community would work best through sharing expertise and experience: the ground rule being that if you give something to the 'community' you then have the opportunity to take things from it.
Various ideas arose in terms of sharing skills and knowledge to assist learning and development. One of the ideas was Co-Training which Alice and Janet brought to the group.
Through networking events, Janet, a trainer for Renfrewshire Council Social Work Department, had become aware of Alice's (a team leader with the Care Commission) range of experience, work, knowledge and personal communication style within a learning context. They had discussed various aspects of practice and leadership and Janet decided to ask Alice to co-train two of seven Middle Managers' Workshops, covering aspects of leadership, that she was running. Alice was keen, as part of the Leadership Community, to take part and saw it as an opportunity to share experience and skills that could contribute to her own continuing professional development.
The two workshops were on a) Self, Leadership and Relationships, and b) Teams, Motivation and Change. Janet prepared material and Alice's role was to generate discussion, provide illustrations and give alternative perspectives as the workshop progressed.
They agreed that both being L2D graduates gave them a common understanding of relevant themes and theories. Janet felt that Alice's differences in experience and the application of knowledge and theories would work well alongside her own. Both Janet and Alice's management were aware of the co-training proposed, and Alice's involvement was readily agreed.
The key and important issue here is that Alice's contribution was complimentary to Janet's; although it was contrasting, there was sufficient overlap for workshop participants to benefit from Alice's expertise. There is also an agreement that because Alice has participated in the co-training event, both she and her organisation can expect some 'repayment' from the Leadership Community. Since Janet has drawn from the Leadership Community, she and/or her organisation require to 'pay into' the system.
The Leadership Community project is still in its early phase, but there is already a group working in South East Scotland, calling themselves SELF ( SE Leadership Forum). They have had an inaugural meeting and are planning co-consultancy as well as action learning sets to support each other. In the West an event is taking place on 2nd May to develop a community in that region. Janet and Alice's case study demonstrates how this community could work._
WORKING TO IMPROVE OUTCOMES FOR, ANDWITH, COMMUNITY CARE SERVICE USERS AND THEIR UNPAID CARERS: USING THE UDSET
Carer, East Renfrew
'It (outcomes focused carers assessment) gives you the chance to think about your life from a different perspective.'
Two key priorities for current social care and health policy in Scotland are that service users and carers should be better included in decisions around their care and support, and that services should focus not just on the nature and extent of support they deliver, but ensure that the support provided delivers good outcomes for service users and carers.
Over the last two years, the Joint Improvement Team ( JIT) has been working with two researchers, Emma Miller and Ailsa Cook, to develop a way of both improving outcomes for, and with, users of community care services and their unpaid carers, and of gathering information about user and carer outcomes to feed into service developments. More recently, this work has linked with the development of the National Outcomes Framework for Community Care, a joint performance framework.
Working with partnerships in Scotland, the researchers have developed tools, guidance and support materials - the User Defined Service Evaluation Toolkit ( UDSET) - based on the outcomes important to users and carers of community care services. The toolkit builds on previous work funded by the Department of Health conducted at Glasgow University along with three service user research organisations.
More recent work has focused on building outcomes based tools into community care practice, identifying the training and support materials required in the process. The focus now is on collating the data gathered from users and carers to inform service improvements. Building on early work in Orkney, some pilot sites are using an outcomes approach to review service users while others are building outcomes into their assessment processes. Current piloting work with six early implementers of the National Outcomes Framework for Community Care (as well as Orkney and Glasgow) should be completed in June 2008.
The biggest investment required to use the UDSET is time spent with users and/or carers, as well as training and guidance for staff on using an outcomes approach. Initial feedback has shown that adopting outcomes based approaches to capturing service user views are making positive differences. Practitioners are working with people to identify their priorities which can help to ensure both that interventions are relevant, and that they focus on aspirations, not just problems. The opportunity to be listened to and talk about experiences in a holistic way has in itself proven beneficial to some users and carers. Practitioners have identified that the approach has allowed them to use core skills and exercise innovative practice, increasing professional satisfaction.
The results of the piloting work will be reported on the JIT website later this year. The UDSET is now available on the website, along with support materials and tools from pilot sites. The researchers are also working with a lottery funded digital stories project. Two short stories relating to an UDSET pilot with carers in East Renfrew - Part of the Job? and Black and White - are also available: http://www.jitscotland.org.uk/action-areas/themes/involvement.html
SOCIAL SERVICES KNOWLEDGE SCOTLAND: A NEW PORTAL
The portal 'Social Services Knowledge Scotland' is going live in May. Developed in partnership by NHS Education for Scotland, the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services ( IRISS), the Social Care Institute for Excellence ( SCIE) and the Scottish Social Services Council Learning Networks, it is a major new resource for social services.
The purpose of this portal - www.SSKS.org.uk - reflects the overall commitment of the partners across the boundaries of the NHS and social services to provide knowledge support, learning and other resource and tools to support the workforce in improving services for users and carers and through all stages of a patient/client journey. There is clearly much to be gained by achieving coherence through managing these resources across sector boundaries.
The scope of this SSKS might best be understood through the realisation that using the search facility will simultaneously search a huge repository of resources across the NHS e-library, the Learning Exchange and Social Care Online, including its Research Web, and encompasses not only these materials but also some of the key social science, social work and social policy data bases. Searching will find websites, policy documents, journal articles and books with links to full text where available.
Changing Lives underlines the need to build the capacity of the social services workforce, highlighting the importance in achieving this goal of accessing knowledge to underpin evidence based practice in the form of collaborative working, shared learning, accessing and sharing knowledge and evidence.
To this end, the SSKS portal will provide users with access to a full and vast range of text, journals and books across the sector: a service currently unavailable anywhere else in the UK.
The portal specifically aims to provide improved access to information and knowledge to support policy and practice across the entire social services workforce, including:
- A single integrated point of access to research, information and learning resources.
- Provision of links to identify and promote initiatives of the partner organisations.
- A portfolio of tools and guidance to support individuals, communities and organisations in accessing and sharing knowledge and applying it to policy and practice at all levels.
It also makes available tools, models and guidance to help facilitate development of a knowledge culture in the social services, expressed through collaborative working, and sharing of learning, evidence, explicit and tacit knowledge.
The website will highlight for social services staff:
- Quick links to useful websites
- Services to help you keep up to date
- Information and learning services
- Useful services for users and carers
- Electronic full text journals and books
- Tools to help manage and share information and knowledge with colleagues
Providing the means to host communities and networks of practitioners, the SSKS is integral to some of the ongoing work of the Changing Lives Change Programmes, for instance the Leadership programme.
Following its launch, the partners are now in discussions with the Changing Lives team to link the portal up with the Changing Lives website www.socialworkscotland.org.uk. They are also working with specialist groups and experts to develop topic areas, and overseeing the development of a governance structure and communication plan for the on-going support of the portal.
If you would like to find out more about the portal please go to www.ssks.org.uk or contact Annette Thain ( NES) on 0141 352 2908 or at annette.thain@nes.scot.nhs.uk .
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