SSKS blog

The Social Services Knowledge Scotland website (SSKS) has been helping social care practitioners get easy access to a wealth of evidence, information and learning resources for three years now. At the moment, SSKS does 3 key things for its users:

1. Gathers together quality information such as evidence overviews, e-learning materials and government publications
2. Gives you FREE access to subscription content such as books and journals on health and social care topics via your NHS Athens password
3. Provides access to communities of practice for social care practitioners for you to link up with like-minded individuals and share resources

 The next step for SSKS is to expand our Topics and Resources section. We are currently looking at developing new topic zones on Early Years, Older People, Learning Disabilities, Drugs & Alcohol and Criminal Justice. These zones will draw together all the useful content for staff working within each area in one easy-to-access portal.

More information about these zones will follow soon, but first up is the Early Years zone. If you work with under 5s and would like to have your say about what resources would be most useful here, please complete our questionnaire here https://www.research.net/s/EarlyYears2011

Your views will help us shape the content of the new Early Years zone, so please tell us what you think.

IRISS is pleased to announce the release of three new IRISS Insights, a collection of reports providing the social services workforce with brief, accessible and practice-oriented summaries of published evidence on key topics.

• Insight 7: improving support for black and minority ethnic (BME) carers
• Insight 8: supporting unpaid carers: the benefits of telecare
• Insight 9: intensive supervision, surveillance and monitoring of young people

To request free print copies of any of our Insights series or to suggest topics, please contact us: enquiries@iriss.org.uk /  0141 559 5059

Over the next few months, the SSKS team will be highlighting the FREE resources available on key social care topics on SSKS.

This week, it’s time to look at drugs and alcohol. If you work with people who have drug or alcohol issues, you might find it useful to look at http://tinyurl.com/3fmld7y

Read the rest of this entry »

IRISS is pleased to announce that it is sponsoring Social Innovation Camp 2011, which will be held in Edinburgh this year from 17-19 June at Informatics Ventures, University of Edinburgh. The event will bring together ideas, people and digital tools to build web-based solutions to social problems.

Some of the best UK software developers and designers will team up with those at the sharp end of social problems, with the mission to turn six, back-of-an-envelope ideas – complete with working software, in under 48 hours – into innovative social start-ups . The theme of the this year’s camp is around social isolation.

The call for ideas is now open and submissions will be accepted by anyone interested in taking part. The best ideas will be shortlisted by the judges over the June weekend, and the camp will close with a Dragon’s Den-style pitching competition, involving the panel of judges who will choose the team who has shown the most potential over the two days. The winning team will receive a prize to support them in further developing their idea.

If you have an idea or you want to find out more, sign up here for a workshop, which is being held at IRISS’s new offices on Thursday, 5th May.

For further information and examples of previous ideas that have come out of Social Innovation Camps, please visit: www.sicamp.org.

IRISS is packing its bags and moving to a new home in Glasgow’s historic Merchant City.

Our new details are:

Brunswick House
51 Wilson Street
Glasgow G1 1UZ
t 0141 559 5059
e enquiries@iriss.org.uk

Please note that our telephone number has also changed so do update your contact lists and diaries.

Further information on the move is available on our website.

As you might be aware, the SSKS team has been out on the road a lot in the past 3 months spreading the word about the new-look site and delivering lots of hands-on training to the local authorities in Scotland and private and voluntary organizations. The training has been a big success, and we’re very pleased that we’ve been able to help so many practitioners get the best out of SSKS and find the information they need to support them in their day-to-day work.

Don’t forget that if you haven’t yet had your free SSKS training, you can still sign up to attend one of our online training events here http://sskswebex.eventbrite.com/

The events are your opportunity to have a guided tour of SSKS from your desk – all you need is a laptop or PC with an internet connection and a telephone line!

In the meantime, we thought you might be interested to see what some people thought about the new SSKS after their training:

 “. . .learning that I could have an Athens password – brilliant. I think it is an excellent resource “

 “This is useful for supporting my knowledge base in research for forthcoming graduate certificate in child protection and welfare”

“In my role as practice assessor I will be able to access relevant research and teaching articles”

 “Excellent for research purposes and cascading info to staff”

IRISS is pleased to announce that it will be running a one-day social media workshop designed specifically for academics and researchers, which will be held on the 20th May at the Edinburgh Training and Conference Venue.

The workshop will demonstrate current uses of social media in higher education and will include practical exercises to help participants familiarise themselves with tools such as Delicious, Twitter, Wikipedia, RSS feeds and blogs.

The aim is to improve social media skills and awareness, and to encourage participants to think creatively about how these resources can be of use.

For further information and booking, please visit the event website.

On 1 April 2011 the New Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children was launched, incorporating and extending the work of SIRCC, Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care.  Its aim is to support professionals, carers and parents to provide the best possible outcomes for young people.

The SIRCC Management Committee has formed the basis of a Transitional Management Committee along with three additional external advisors: Alistair Gaw (ADSW), Sara Lurie (The Fostering Network) and Susan Elsley (Independent Consultant ).

More information http://www.thenewcentre.org.uk/