The Festival of Residential Child Care is a week-long programme of events, celebrating and supporting the work of residential child care across the whole of the UK. 

We were delighted to support Centre for Youth and Criminal Justice (CYCJ) produce two discussions as part of the week's activities. The discussions involved residential childcare workers and secure care staff discussing research undertaken by CYCJ and the implications for practice.

It's Learning Disability Week 2017! We're looking forward to attending the Learning Disability Awards tonight at the Grand Central Hotel in Glasgow, to celebrate, on a national level, the rarely heard stories and achievements of people with learning disabilities and the people who support them.

Booking is now open for the Scottish Social Services Expo 2017 which will provide an exciting opportunity to learn about current innovation and best practice in Scotland’s social services.

Taking place at Crieff Hydro hotel, the Expo will allow attendees to participate in a wide range of workshops throughout the day and network with colleagues from across the sector. It will provide an opportunity to hear and input into current policy development and to share expertise and best practice from frontline service delivery.

A free event for managers and strategic leaders working in health and social care. It is a partnership event with SSSC and supported by Scottish Care and CCPS. 

The Enabling leadership research (SSSC, 2016) identified what good leadership looks like in Scotland’s social services and includes a logic model which captures the links between inputs, activities and outputs and how these contribute to positive outcomes for people using services. 

The Scottish Social Services Awards shortlist is now available, announcing the 31 successful entrants making it to the final out of 155 entries nationwide.

It includes a mix of individuals, teams and organisations working in social services for a range of third sector and independent organisations, local authorities and the NHS, who have made a positive difference to people's lives.

Whatever your form of communication in social services - reports, project proposals, online content, strategy documents, presentations - this two-hour, 'Iriss how' workshop will give you simple techniques to help you get your message across.

It will be fast-paced and participatory, with lots of fun, creative exercises.

What it will cover:

We've published a short summary of The View from Here project 2016/17.

The project involved promoting a deeper understanding of the impact of care and support and the contribution of the frontline workforce, and sharing frontline experiences of providing support, specifically focusing on the emotional impact of caring.

The work resulted in:

Friday 24 March saw the launch of Iriss Insight 35 - Gypsy Travellers: Human rights and social work's role - at an event to start conversations to bring about lasting change. The event was a partnership of members of the Gypsy Traveller community, Iriss and Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW), and was chaired by Lesley Riddoch. Held at Glasgow Caledonian University, it formed part of World Social Day celebrations and had 70 people attend.

A national conference to share and promote best practice in service user and carer involvement in professional education. The conference will bring together service users and carers, students, educators, professionals and policy-makers.

It will be relevant to social work, health, education and other areas of professional education, at qualifying and post-qualifying levels. The conference sets out to:

Pilotlight was a five year programme funded by the Scottish Government as part of the implementation of self-directed support. 

Pilotlight co-designed seven pathways to self-directed support focusing on mental health, risk, self-employment, young people in transition, older people in transition, people with younger onset dementia and people in recovery from substance misuse.