Blog | Iriss

Writing with, not about

Thursday 19 June 2025

A group of practitioners from the Transitions Team in Scottish Borders Council asked us if we could support them with a shift in writing culture.

Projects

Illustration of crowd of colourful figures

Wisdom in the difference

Tuesday 17 June 2025

Over the past few weeks, we have had the chance to listen to practitioners from across Scotland reflect on safeguarding and child protection…

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Call for Learning Partners

Tuesday 17 June 2025

We’re looking for third sector learning partners in using a new Iriss resource developed to supp

Voices and visions: collaborating for improved third sector social work student placements

Write Right About Me

Thursday 5 June 2025

Iriss are so pleased to share this guest piece, written by Mim Smith from Aberdeen City Council and Theresa Lillis from the Open University; sharing their work in supporting professionals to write

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Illustration of head made up of household items

Effects of Clutter or Hoarding on people affected by it

Thursday 15 May 2025

One current estimate is that 2-5% of the population has issues with clutter/hoarding, but this is hard to estimate as there is so much shame for someone admitting they have a clutter or hoarding is

Supporting people who hoard

Groups of people discussing the resource for TSOs

This Must Be The Place(ment)

Thursday 8 May 2025

After working on it for a year, our resource to support social work placements in third sector organisations is here!

Voices and visions: collaborating for improved third sector social work student placements

Finding a Focus

Monday 14 April 2025

Project planning is full of decisions to make. What partners do you need? What will success look like? How responsive can your plan be to new information?

Voices and visions: collaborating for improved third sector social work student placements

Practitioner Research with NQSWs: Inspiration from practice

Wednesday 2 April 2025

Recently we were invited back to North Ayrshire to meet some Newly Qualified Social Workers (NQSWs) and talk about practitioner research. This was a follow up to a session we ran in 2023 where we…

Reimagining social work practice

Launching a new resource for third sector social work student placements

Tuesday 18 March 2025

We’ve been quiet on the Voices & Visions blog updates recently while we’ve been working away on developing our new resource to support social work student placements in third sector organisations…

Voices and visions: collaborating for improved third sector social work student placements

Reflections on the MHO Conference 2025

Tuesday 4 March 2025

On February 25th, we had the opportunity to attend and present at the Mental Health Officer (MHO) Conference, Reigniting Our Resilience: Informing and Future-Proofing the MHO Workforce, held at The

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An update from the Hoarding Taskforce

Monday 17 February 2025

2025 has started at a fast pace with Hoarding Taskforce activities.

Supporting people who hoard

What did we learn from our Learning Week?

Wednesday 12 February 2025

Learning Week is over at Iriss now.

Inside Iriss

Evaluation - Invisible String

Tuesday 11 February 2025

As part of our learning week we had a day where we focused on our internal evaluation process, as well as how we can better use the data we already collect to show our impact to partners and…

Inside Iriss

a train crosses a river reflected in the waters seurface

Exploring the intersections of our work

Tuesday 11 February 2025

In a fast-paced environment, the instinct can be to act quickly, but without a shared understanding of where we have been, we could move in directions that are not fully aligned or as effective as

Inside Iriss

Making Time

Tuesday 11 February 2025

As a Development Lead with Iriss, I spend a lot of time thinking about time.

Inside Iriss

Ethical Commissioning Support for Commissioners Group

Wednesday 27 November 2024

Following the recommendations by the Independent Review of Adult Social Care, the Scottish Government

Ethical commissioning programme 2025–26

Narratives, problem rehearsal and the implementation gap

Monday 25 November 2024

The social services and social care system is complex and we face enormous challenges including a lack of resources, squeezed budgets, burnt-out staff and moral distress.

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Developing peer support: from acorns to trees

Thursday 21 November 2024

Last year we worked with Future Pathways, Voices for a Better Future and the Scottish Recovery Network to look at how we might co-design peer support for care survivors supported by Future Pathways

Co-designing peer support: future pathways

Developing national guidance for Large Scale Investigations

Tuesday 19 November 2024

Large Scale Investigations – or LSIs – can be a knotty issue for all involved. LSIs are a specific type of Adult Support and Protection intervention that is triggered when there’s more than one adult…

Projects

Sunlight shining into a woodland. Person with long hair in a ponytail facing the light and lifting their arms up towards it.

Great expectations: social work student perspectives on placements

Monday 18 November 2024

“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 w

Voices and visions: collaborating for improved third sector social work student placements

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