social work and social workers

SCIE Position paper 3: Has service user participation made a difference to social care services?

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) wants to bring together a lot of knowledge about social care, so that information on what works best is available to everyone. This Position paper is about how social care services can be made better by the people who use them - that is, the service users themselves. It brings together the main findings from six reviews that looked at whether service user participation made a difference to changing and improving social care services.

Changing Lives: Report of the 21st Century Social Work Review

Report of the recommendations made by the 21st Century Social Work Review Group for the future of social services in Scotland. Published by the Scottish Government in February 2006, it set out a new direction for social work services in Scotland based on the strong core values of inclusiveness and meeting the whole needs of individuals and families. It seeks to equip social work services to rise to the challenge of supporting and protecting our most vulnerable people and communities in the early part of the 21st century.

At a glance 01: Learning together to safeguard children: a 'systems' model for case reviews

This At a glance summary presents a new ‘systems’ model for serious case reviews. The model provides a method for getting to the bottom of professional practice and exploring why actions or decisions that later turned out to be mistaken, or to have led to an unwanted outcome, seemed to those involved, to be the sensible thing to do at the time. The answers can generate new ideas about how to improve practice and so help keep children safe.

SCIE Guide 29: Changing social care: an inclusive approach

Adult social care is changing, to ensure that the people who use services are at the heart of their own care and support. This change, outlined in 'Our health, our care, our say' (Department of Health 2006) and confirmed in 'Putting people first' (Her Majesty's Government 2007), will result in greater choice and control for individuals and better support for carers and families. To achieve this, the social care workforce will need to change its approach.

Our health, our care, our say: a new direction for community services

The Our Health, Our Care, Our Say White Paper sets out a vision to provide people with good quality social care and NHS services in the communities where they live. NHS services are halfway through a 10 year plan to become more responsive to patient needs and prevent ill health by the promotion of healthy lifestyles. Social care services are also changing to give service users more independence, choice and control.

Evaluation of Reading Rich

Scottish Government evaluation of the Reading Rich programme, a partnership between National Children's Homes Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust which aimed to introduce a 'reading rich' environment for children and young people who are looked after in residential and foster care settings in Scotland so they could benefit from reading, books and literature. It ran from 2004 to 2007.