In-depth articles and guest posts on internal and sector-related topics.
Everyone deserves music is the title of a conference I’ll be chairing end of April (Community music conference, Gateshead, 29 April). It’s also a good slogan. Music is the way we express our identity and how we relate to the world, especially where the written or spoken word is inadequate or unavailable. As human beings we need music just as we need food, shelter and warmth.
Pearltrees is a creative and visual way to save and manage your favourite websites or 'pearls' as they are known. 'Pearls' - websites, files, photos and notes - can be saved and organised into what's known as 'pearltrees'. These 'trees' can be created and organised around subjects of interest. For example, you may have an interest in photography and want to save lots of interesting websites, blogs, photos on the topic. Using Pearltrees it's simple.
The Care Inspectorate, the independent scrutiny and improvement body for care services in Scotland, has launched The Hub, a website that provides access to resources aimed at supporting improvement in social services and social care through the use and sharing of intelligence and research-led practice. A fully accessible website, the content is provided in three categories: knowledge, innovation and improvement.
If you often need to collect feedback on an event, create a noticeboard, take notes, brainstorm ideas or make lists, then take a look at Padlet. It enables the creation of a 'wall' or web space where you can post text, photos and videos, and then invite others - colleagues, clients, friends - to do the same, working collaboratively to create content. And it's really easy to get started and use - you don't even have to create an account!
Robert McKee, a screenwriter and lecturer, is quoted as saying 'Stories are how we remember, we tend to forget lists and bullet points'. We all at some time have been subjected to busy and / or illegible Powerpoint slides at events, without really taking any learning away from them. Stories are different. It can be argued that the art of telling and listening to stories is at the heart of what it means to be human, how we articulate our experiences of the world and and make sense of it.
The routines and rituals that surround food - shopping, preparing, cooking, serving, cleaning up - are important parts of our lives, yet often we fail to recognise their symbolic or hidden meanings.
Busy modern life can make it difficult to remember everything. And there always seems to be quite a lot to remember, not only in our daily working lives, but also in our private lives. It can be an endless stream of paper to-do lists, notes and ideas tucked into bags, coat pockets, on desks - anywhere to make it easier to remember! However, a web tool that can help put paper lists to bed is Evernote. Evernote provides an easy and effective way to manage notes and ideas using one tool.
For the last four years, Iriss has been involved in creating a daily social services news feed and email newsletter. We like to keep up to date with what's new in social media and are very open to using it to improve how we do things. And our news service has evolved over time. Until Google killed it off in July 2013 were using Google Reader, a tool for reading news feeds (or RSS as it is often called).
The Life Changes Trust (LCT) has been founded to transform the life chances of:
Learning with Care, published by by HM Inspectors of Schools and the Social Work Service Inspectorate in 2001, highlighted the importance of improving the learning and development opportunities for those working with looked after children and care leavers. The Learning with Care training materials were developed and launched in 2003.
