ASPire hub

What are we doing about Professional Curiosity in the Scottish Borders?

Improving chronologies is a national challenge and features on most Joint Inspection reports across Scotland in relation to both adults and children’s services. This is as much a challenge in the Scottish Borders as it is across the rest of the country. Here in the Borders, we want to change this. Alongside a desire to improve our chronologies, making them more analytical, we are also thinking about how we can develop a culture of professional curiosity across partner agencies.

Seven minutes might not feel like much, but it’s long enough to learn something new. That’s the thinking behind seven-minute briefings, several of which now sit on the ASPire Hub. These briefings provide an accessible way into a topic and are – to boot – lovely and colourful!

I have now been in post for a little over two years as the National Adult Support and Protection Coordinator – which I find very hard to believe, it has completely flown by!

The National ASP Learning & Development Framework - get involved!

We published the quality improvement framework (QIF) on 15 October 2024. The primary purpose of the QIF is to support Adult Support and Protection partnerships to carry out multi-agency self-evaluations of their adult support and protection arrangements. We can also use the QIF to underpin future joint inspections of Adult Support and Protection.

The revised Adult Support and Protection (Scotland) Act 2007: Code of Practice (the ‘Code’) was published on 28 July 2022. Organisations and local partnerships then began the work of considering how to adapt and - if required - change their local guidance, procedures and practice to align with the revised Code. The next step was to implement those adaptations and changes.

We are delighted to see the development of the ASPire Hub, which launches today (28 August). Within it, you will find a wide range of useful resources, which illustrate the diverse topics and issues relevant to Adult Support and Protection practice.