News

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.

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.

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.

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. 

We're delighted to welcome Karen Reid, Chief Executive at the Care Inspectorate; and Elaine Torrance, President of Social Work Scotland onto the Iriss Board.

Karen is one of Scotland’s foremost leaders in public sector scrutiny. She has extensive experience in devising and leading scrutiny and improvement interventions across the fields of social work, social care, health, education, and community justice. She led the development of new multi-agency scrutiny models for children’s services in Scotland, and played a key role in setting up Iriss back in 2008. 

We would like to express our sincere thanks to Jim Elder-Woodward, OBE who has now completed his term of office on the Iriss Board.

Jim has had life-long experience of disability, not only as a health and social service user, but as a service provider, planner and researcher. He is Chair of the Scottish Government’s Independent Living in Scotland Project and Co-Chair of its Independent Living Partnership Board. 

His contribution has been invaluable and we wish him all the very best in the future. 

You are invited to provide a workshop contribution to a national conference to share and promote best practice in service user and carer involvement in professional education.

The conference will be held on 26 April 2017 at the University of Stirling and 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.

Workshops should:

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.