Social work

Iriss was delighted to play a part in the Social Services Awards 2017. We want to congratulate all the winners and everyone who was nominated for an award. The breadth of inspiring work taking place across the country was fantastic to witness.

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.

Audit Scotland recently concluded that social work in Scotland is at a ‘watershed’, with fundamental decisions needing to be taken on how services are provided in the future. They stressed that the public and people who access the range of social work services provided across Scotland must be more involved in shaping future provision, with a debate required 'on the level, the nature and affordability of services.'
 

On the evening of 14 September 2016, Iriss (Michelle, Kerry and Lisa) took part in an iamsocialwork event in Glasgow. iamsocialwork is a concept created by Zoe Betts, a qualified social worker, to provide peer support and networking for student, newly qualified and qualified social workers across the UK. iamsocialwork involves a series of SUPER:vision events that bring social workers together to share experiences, knowledge and challenges and to provide a listening ear and support to each other.

PACS is a small charitable organisation based in Stirling that comprises parents, social workers and other professionals involved in adoption and long-term foster care. It offers a range of post placement support and services to adoptive families and permanent foster carers. 

PACS receives a grant from Clackmannan, Falkirk and Stirling Councils to provide its services.

Services it offers include:

ScOPTbox is a curated collection of resources for social workers and others involved in supporting learning in the workplace in Scotland. It has been developed by the Scottish Organisation for Practice Teaching (ScOPT), and was launched at the ScOPT conference in Glasgow on 12 November.