Reports

Scotland is facing an ageing population demographic and the implications have been widely discussed: the size of the available workforce; pressure on pensions; and how health and social care will support more individuals with emerging long term conditions. These implications coupled with a desire for public services to be more flexible and personalised to individuals, has led some local authorities to fundamentally redesign their approach to service delivery.

The Iriss has three programmes through which it delivers its work: evidence-informed practice, innovation and improvement, and knowledge media. Iriss wished to conduct research to examine attitudes, approaches, use and barriers to innovation and improvement and evidence-informed practice in the sector which could be used as a baseline for future research to track and monitor attitudinal change. The objectives of the research were to:

This document offers guidance to help social service organisations develop systems and processes to ensure good research governance and shared ethical principles for conducting social services research in Scotland.

This evaluation explores the practitioner research initiative of Children 1st and the Glasgow School of Social Work which was aimed at supporting practitioners to develop and undertake their own small-scale research projects. The project sought to have an impact at three levels: individual, team, and organisation. The findings discuss the consequences, benefits and outcomes at all of these three levels.

Summary of a literature review undertaken to establish the context for practitioner research and its impact on practice through identifying practitioner research carried out in a social services context. The review formed part of an evaluation into the initiative taken by Children 1st and the Glasgow School of Social Work to develop a practitioner research programme. The evaluation was commissioned by Iriss with funding from the Scottish Government's Changing Lives Fund.

This report describes the development of Key Capabilities in Child Care and Protection, which set out the knowledge and skills an emerging social worker should have in relation to children and their needs by the point of qualifying. The report looks at the two phases of the project:

A project investigating the Alignment of the Standards in Social Work Education (SiSWE) to the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF). This project shines a spotlight on the social work qualifying degrees in Scotland with a particular emphasis on the relationship between the SiSWE and the SCQF.

The Continuous Learning Framework sets out what people in the social services workforce need in order to be able to do their job well now and in the future and describes what employers need to do to support them. It has been developed by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), Iriss and a reference pool of people with a broad range of expertise and experience across the social services sector.

Research enquiry into the history of social work and social welfare is a vital and ongoing scholarly activity, underpinning our understanding of the past, and illuminating present day practice and policy. 'Memory institutions' like libraries and museums have a key role to play in preserving, and providing researchers with access to, original cultural heritage material