Adult Support and Protection

For the past four years Iriss has been involved in supporting the Adult Support and Protection (ASP) community in Scotland. Through funding and support from the ASP team in the Scottish Government we have been leading on a number of initiatives that support data and evidence use, and learning and development. This aligns with the ASP Improvement Plan, most explicitly the sections on Data and Information and Practice Improvement.

We have the hope that through this work, people working in and around ASP will:

• Feel more connected and better supported to improve and change.
• Have increased opportunities for learning and reflection.
• Have a better understanding of what best practice looks like in ASP and how to make it happen in practice.
• Understand the local and systemic barriers to good practice and how to address these.

Over the last two years we have developed a number of resources:

• ASP: everyone’s business – This report raises awareness of ASP and its important role and contribution in keeping ‘adults at risk’ safe.
• Working together in adult support and protection – A resource that helps practitioners support the participation of adults and carers throughout the ASP process.
• Large Scale Investigations – An online learning resource explaining the role of large scale investigations (LSIs) within the context of ASP practices in Scotland.
• Multi-agency adult support and protection conferences (case conferences) – A course supporting professionals to understand and improve practice in multi-agency adult support and protection conferences (commonly referred to as case conferences).
• Chronologies in Adult Support and Protection: moving from current to best – A research scoping report on how best to respond to challenges around ASP chronologies.

Over this time, other work has been continuing to: develop and deliver a minimum dataset for areas across Scotland to use; collate and summarise the biennial reports that come from ASP Committees across Scotland; support the national ASP Implementation group; and design and write the annual data survey. We also currently maintain the public facing Act Against Harm website, helping people understand what harm can be, and crucially, where to go to get help. 

In 2023/24 we will be continuing much of this work, including working in the area of chronologies in ASP, further developing the LSI work, and producing an online repository for national and local learning and training materials related to ASP topics and processes.

We also now have the National Adult Support and Protection Coordinator (NASPC), Brenda Walker working alongside us at Iriss. Her role is to support national innovation and improvement in relation to outcomes, activities and measures linked to the governance of ASP. You can keep up with some of her activities on the NASPC website.

If you have any questions about this area of work please contact our Head of Programmes, Stuart Muirhead, at stuart.muirhead@iriss.org.uk.