Developing a Knowledge Management strategy

The Scottish Government is funding development of a knowledge management strategy for social services, to underpin the goals of Changing Lives.  Production of this strategy is being managed jointly by IRISS and NHS Education for Scotland, and builds on the foundations established by Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS) the national online knowledge service. Susan Lindner has recently been appointed as  Knowledge Services Adviser - working jointly with IRISS, NHS Education for Scotland and other partners - to define and cost a knowledge management strategy and action plan for the Scottish social services workforce.  The working vision is to "share knowledge to equip and empower staff and service users,  to improve service outcomes."  This will be achieved by making information and learning available when and where they are needed, in the format required, and by developing skills and confidence in using information. The aim is that the culture of asking questions, finding, evaluating and sharing information, and putting it into practice becomes an integral part of day to day work throughout the social services.  Susan will be undertaking an extensive consultation exercise in the coming months and aims to produce a working framework document by June 2009. To find out more about Susan's work please contact her on 0141 352 2909 or email susan.lindner@nes.scot.nhs.uk .

Promoting Social Services Knowledge Scotland

This strategy will build on the firm foundations already in place for knowledge support provided by Social Services Knowledge Scotland (SSKS). SSKS is a powerful service providing a single point of access to knowledge and information for the Scottish social services workforce. SSKS is the outcome of a partnership between IRISS, NHS Education for Scotland, the Scottish Social Services Learning Networks and the Social Care Institute for Excellence. It includes input from a growing number of key social services knowledge and information brokers and providers including each of the Centres for Excellence.

IRISS, NES and our partner organisations will be working together over the coming months to promote SSKS amongst the workforce, create materials to support SSKS users, and design and disseminate an information literacy training pack. Ellen Daly (IRISS' Knowledge & Information Assistant) is responsible for promotion and outreach work with a focus on social services managers and learning and development staff. If you are interested in inviting Ellen to provide an input to an event, or run a hands-on workshop, or if you would like hard copies of our information materials to distribute (e.g. see the pdf below) please contact Ellen on 0141 950 3107 or email ellen.daly@iriss.org.uk. Ellen would also be very interested to hear any thoughts or ideas you might have about the design or future development of SSKS.