News

New Scottish Social Services Awards

The Scottish Social Services Awards are now open for nominations and we encourage you to enter!

Including 10 new categories such as ‘silo buster’, ‘the untold story’ and ‘head above the parapet’, the awards have been designed to recognise innovation and excellent practice across the sector.

Sharing experiences of the workforce

Plans are underway to curate content for two public exhibitions of The View from Here in 2017 - one at the Grampian Hospital Arts Trust in Aberdeen (10 February - 10 March) and another at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery in Glasgow (June).

Making it easy to access knowledge

The Office of the Chief Social Work Adviser at Scottish Government is seeking contributions from the social services workforce to a survey on how they access information and knowledge online.

The plan is to understand:

Co-production Week 2016

It’s Co-production Week (14-20 November)  in Scotland!

At Iriss we believe in active citizenship and involving people who access care and support in a meaningful way - a way that means people have the right to participate in and access information relating to the decision-making processes that affect their lives and well-being. These values underpin effective co-production and are reflected in a lot of our work. 

Examples of our work include:

Big thanks to David Wiseman

David Wiseman has completed his term of office on the Iriss Board.

David brought experience from his previous roles as Head of Older People’s Services, South Lanarkshire Council, Director of Strategic Services and Depute Chief Executive of the Care Commission.

We would like to thank him for his outstanding contribution to supporting Iriss over the years. It's much appreciated and we wish him all the best in the future.

Inspirational examples of evidence in action

We're looking to capture and showcase inspirational examples from across the social services sector in Scotland on how the translation of evidence into action is being effectively supported within organisations. This could include structures, processes or supports (such as resources, roles or initiatives) that are in place to implement change using this evidence, and the impact that this has generated.

We believe Relationships Matter

This week, at her party conference, First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon accepted the Who Cares? Scotland's pledge to listen to 1,000 care experienced young people over the next two years. We were really pleased to hear this  - our Relationships Matter work has been around supporting continuing relationships for young people leaving care, which we believe is really important. 

Can SDS support recovery from substance misuse?

Pilotlight says 'Yes'.

Using a design approach, Pilotlight aims to demonstrate how to design support for seldom heard groups, provide more personalised and appropriate services and increase the marketplace of support providers.

Staf to manage Relationships Matter website

Relationships Matter was a project led by the Relationships Matter Collective, a group of inspirational practitioners and young people who were brave enough to challenge, and confident enough to promote, continued relationships between practitioners and young people as they leave care.