Louise Bowen

2025 has started at a fast pace with Hoarding Taskforce activities. Iriss Development Leads Kerry and Louise have been out and about facilitating stakeholder events with the taskforce local partners - Pan Lanarkshire, Glasgow City and Clackmannanshire and Stirling. Over 200 people participated across the three events, representing a fantastic cross-section of agencies, groups and organisations that provide care, support and public protection at local and national levels.

“I wanted that first placement to be something that I would be like ‘okay is social work the right career for me, is this the right job for me?"  - Reflection from an early career social worker on their third sector placement.

‘I learned a lot, but it wasn’t what I expected it to be’ is the message we’ve heard loudest from the students and recently workers we’ve been speaking with recently about their placement experiences.  

The bees are back! Watching these amazing creatures leave their hibernation spots and fly around again this Spring has struck me as I look back on this year’s Foundations for Change work. I’m thinking particularly about the powerful hive mind that colleagues in North Ayrshire have engaged with over the last year to find collective solutions and network their changemaking across different organisations, teams and functions.

I’m writing this with a cup of tea next to me, thinking about colleagues in North Ayrshire who are working with us this year through our Foundations for Change programme. I’m sitting here at my desk tapping away at the keyboard while they are getting active - forming scrums and starting sprints!