SSKS blog

Today the Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services (IRISS) launched a series of guides about Leading for Outcomes. These provide support and training materials to help lead the social services workforce to focus on the outcomes important to people.

The guides; Leading for outcomes: a guide, Leading for outcomes: parental substance misuse, and Leading for outcomes: dementia, are freely available on the IRISS website. Each guide is aimed at team leaders, managers and trainers in social services and related areas.

The guides are designed to be adaptable and teams can use them in the way that is most appropriate for their needs and their area of practice. The guides were developed in partnership with researchers, policy-makers, managers and practitioners.

For further information on the Leading for Outcomes series, including plans for future guides, please contact Emma Collins, Evidence Informed Practice team: emma.collins@iriss.org.uk.

IRISS are pleased to announce that our website has been redesigned and was launched on Friday, 17th June. It is available at: http://www.iriss.org.uk.

The easily accessible content includes the latest news, events, multimedia resources, videos and podcasts, as well as information about us and our three programmes of work – evidence-informed practice, innovation and improvement, and knowledge media.

The site is searchable by keyword, which will return results from both our website and the Learning Exchange, IRISS’s digital library of resources.

You can also subscribe to a number of very useful RSS feeds – IRISS news, social services sector news, sector events, and podcasts. Further information and instruction about using RSS is available on this page of our website.

Please do visit and let us know what you think.

Happy viewing!

IRISS has produced a series of five booklets on the topic of innovation in social services in Scotland. They are designed to help individuals and organisations think differently and more creatively about providing services, as well as manage risk more effectively.

The titles include:

• Embracing change
• Balancing innovation and risk in social services
• How do you create the right conditions for innovation?
• Developing a framework for innovation
• Rising to the challenge: where can ideas come from?

To download the publications, visit the IRISS website.

IRISS has produced two new Insights as part of its series of reports that provide the social services workforce with brief, accessible and practice-oriented summaries of published evidence on key topics.

Developed through a process of rapid appraisal, Insights seek to highlight the practice implications of research evidence and answer the ‘So what does this mean in practice?’ question for each topic reviewed.

What distinguishes these two titles from the other reports is that they have been authored by individuals from SIRCC and the National Care Advisory Service (part of Catch 22), and have been completed in partnership with the Looked After Children Strategic Implementation Group.

Insight 10: Attachment-informed practice with looked after children and young people, by Judy Furnivall, SIRCC, on behalf of Scottish Attachment in Action.

Insight 11: Permanence and stability for disabled looked after children, by Dr Claire Baker, Senior Policy Manager, National Care Advisory Service.

If you have any questions or queries, or would like to order print copies, please contact: enquiries@iriss.org.uk