SSKS blog

The Self-management and Rehabilitation website aims to enable health and social care practitioners, services users and anyone involved in the management of long term conditions to:

• Access the evidence base for adult rehabilitation and the management of long term conditions
• Access high quality, evaluated information for patients, carers and the public
• Access information on self-management and taking charge after illness

Some resources require an NHS Athens username and password which you can register for at: http://www.ssks.org.uk/login.aspx or from the SSKS hompage.

We aim to make SSKS an easy to use, interactive and indispensable part of the social services world and to help achieve this we’d like the views of those who use it.

A consultation workshop is scheduled for 4 August 2009 (10am until 2pm including lunch) in the Mitchell Library in Glasgow to look at and comment on plans for the next phase of Social Services Knowledge Scotland

The workshop will include members of the SSKS User Group but we would like to include anyone with an interest in SSKS.  To book a place please use the online booking form.  If you are unable to attend but would like to contribute please contact Susan Lindner, or add a comment to this posting.

Background to the workshop
SSKS is part of the strategy to realise the visions set out in Changing Lives for an informed workforce, better use of evidence and a culture of lifelong learning.

Launched just over a year ago it was the first attempt to provide social services professionals, users and carers with a single source of information (evidence, research, policy, advice, guidance) drawn from a variety of sources.

SSKS has been successful in harnassing technology to allow access to information not previously available, e.g. journal articles.  But it could be better.

Consumer services (Amazon, Google, BBC, Facebook, YouTube, flickr) have shown that web based services can be easy and fun to use while providing high standards of quality and reliability.  And we have plans to develop SSKS to make it more interactive and easier to use.

We can set up licenses for journal access and we have the technology to search many sources at once.  And we have the technology to set up discussion spaces, communities of practice etc. In short we can set up an infrastructure that enables conversations and the sharing of knowledge and experience.

But we need the views of users on what the priorities should be for harnessing the technology to make SSKS an easy to use, interactive and indispensable part of the social services world.

If you have vision or an opinion then we’d like to you to join in the workshop and help shape the future of SSKS.

We are now moving into the final consultation stage on the draft knowledge management strategy and action plan and we’re looking for comments by 24th July 2009.  This draft is the product of extensive consultation during January to May 2009 and we are very grateful for the thoughtful contributions made during that period. 

Download the draft strategy and plan here http://tinyurl.com/KMdraft and send your comments and feedback using this the online form:

http://tinyurl.com/socialservices

Alternatively email your comments to susan.lindner@iriss.org.uk

Please remember to do this by 24th July 2009!

IRISS and NHS Education for Scotland (NES) are committed to fostering a knowledge based approach to the delivery of social services.  Our recent survey of Scotland’s social services sector has shown that over 60% of participants say that they search for evidence to support practice during their working day and that 61% believe that they change practice as a result of research.

However, the survey also showed that 53% of respondents found access to the internet from work was sometimes made difficult by network security restrictions.  Although this was not statistically valid sample, it does give us some useful insights into the use of information and evidence and the technical problems facing some users. We were encouraged that 80% of respondents wished to be kept informed about progress with the knowledge management strategy.  This blog is part of that communication process so watch this space.  For further information, all the survey responses are also available.