social work and social workers

Social Care TV is a new online channel for anyone involved in the social care sector, ranging from managers and trainers to front-line staff and people who use care services. As part of the SCIE family of resources, Social Care TV brings to life the work and lives of people involved in all aspects of the social care sector, through a series of short films and links to multimedia and e-learning resources. This site offers access to video-based training resources and general interest programmes, reflecting the issues, challenges and rewards in current social care practice.

Multimedia e-learning resources that cover a range of topics, with each topic containing a number of modules. Each module provides audio, video and interactive technology to assist in exploring the topic area.

Knowledge reviews pull together knowledge from research, practice and people who use services. They describe what knowledge is available, highlight the evidence that has emerged and draw practice points from the evidence. Topics include residential child care, adult mental health services, improving social and health care services, social work education and looked-after children.

The most trustworthy knowledge comes from systematic reviews where a whole body of work on a given topic is examined, using set ways of deciding what is relevant, how the quality of different studies should be judged and how the messages should be brought together. Looking at a whole body of work in this way means that there is less potential for the messages from research to be unduly affected by single studies.

SCIE has developed systematic mapping of social care research. Systematic mapping is a way of taking stock of the existing literature on a particular topic. It is a tool that offers policy makers, practitioners and researchers an explicit and transparent means of identifying narrower policy and practice-relevant review questions. It also enables the identification of gaps in the evidence base and the assessment and comparison of in-depth systematic literature reviews within the broader literature.

A list of online reports on various areas of social care.

A one-stop shop for social care practitioners, presenting key findings, current legislation and examples of what is working well to guide and inform practice. Topics include mental health; children, young people and families; disability; fostering; and older people.

A part of IRISS's Evidence Informed Practice Portal, the toolkit provides guidance on the process of finding and using evidence for service innovation and improvement. It has four steps designed to help users acquire, assess, adapt and apply evidence in practice, and involves a number of learning activities to help improve skills and confidence in these areas.

A range of elearning resources developed by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) to assist employers in meeting the expectations of the workforce development and registration agendas for the social services sector. Some are focused on supporting the individual employee to plan and progress their own learning and development, and others are intended for employers to support them in developing the workforce they need now, or may need in the future.

Resource designed to provide ready access to relevant policy, available evidence and emerging practice on topics of current importance. It addresses topics where the evidence base is currently less well-developed, but where practitioners and managers still need to access emerging evidence and information to help inform their practice. Themes include outcome-based commissioning and contracting, support brokerage, joint strategic needs assessment, and social firms.