The All Wales Academic and Social Care Research Colaboration Seminar Series

As part of the ongoing development of ASCC we have organised a series of seminars based around topics that we feel, based on the research that we have conducted to date, will be of interest to social care practitioners.  A schedule of the progamme is below together with joing instructions.  Please feel free to circulate to anyone that you feel may be interested in any of these topics.

The ASCC Team

Citizen Directed Support Summit llandrindod Wells

The Social Services Improvement Agency’s  Citizen Directed Support Summit.

On Friday 26^th. April 2013 The @ASCCCymru team attended the Citizen Directed Support Summit at the media resource centre in beautiful  Llandrindod Wells. http://bit.ly/YhGdhG   

The summit was organised by @SSIACymru. http://bit.ly/15Vi4jG

Citizen Directed Support (CDS) is an approach/model by which people who require assistance can live as independently as possible.

Access to mainstream opportunities most people enjoy, are enabled through the support of others who recognise that the person her/himself is best placed to know what they need and how these needs can be met.  CDS adheres to the fundamental social work tenets of respect for the person, valuing and empowering her/him as an individual with the capacity to change and supporting  self determination.

The Welsh Government, within Sustainable Social Services, identified as a key principle that the people in Wales should have a 'strong voice and real control'. They identified Self Directed Care as an approach by which this could be achieved and stated that "The model will offer a range of methods for securing services".

To support the development of CDS across Wales there is a Citizen Directed Support Learning and Improvement Network (CDS LIN) which consists of local government representatives.  This network is supported and facilitated by the SSIA, to learn more about the CDS LIN please click here: http://bit.ly/13FFBRf

Structure of the Summit.

One of the morning sessions was provided by Steve Dowson a social care consultant and trainer who explored the international and other UK experiences of developing CDS outside Wales. This was a very interesting session where Steve explored the very different ways that CDS support has been interpreted in various environments and social care settings.  You can find a link to a selection of Steve’s papers here: http://bit.ly/10o4igU

Later in the morning there were three different perspectives delivered of experience of implementing service delivery change in three different local authority areas within Wales:

Gareth Jones – Wrexham  http://bit.ly/12dw1T5

Julie Boothroyd – Monmouthshire  http://bit.ly/ZY6i0w

Deborah Driffield – Swansea.  http://bit.ly/12VhH5I

This presentation again explored the various challenges that face those that seek to change more traditional ways of working and the challenges and promises this can present.

Following lunch there was a series of parallel workshops that explored:

Effective information for citizens

Definition of Citizen Directed Support.

Managing cultural change and expectations.

A New Focus on families

These workshops provided a focus for lively and constructive discussion of the day to day issues practitioners are facing.

The day was rounded off by a feedback session  to the whole group from the individual parallel sessions.  The whole day provided a useful focus to help improve knowledge and understanding  of best practice and current models  of CDS and how it can be best developed and implemented.

Dr Martin Webber Presents the First ASCC Research / Practice Seminar 12 April 2013

On Friday the 12^th April at the beautiful venue of Castell Amare Bracelet Bay, The Mumbles near Swansea ASCC held its first research/ practice seminar.  The seminar was very well attended by more than twenty practitioners and academics working in the field of social care from throughout South Wales.

The first invited speaker was Dr Martin Webber from the University of York.  Dr Webber spoke on social capital and its relationship to social care.  

 Dr Martin Webber

His talk can be viewed below:

Social Inclusion, Social Capital and Social Care Practice - Martin Webber from SOCSI TV on Vimeo.


You can also visit his blog at: www.martinwebber.net

Dr Webber’s talk provided the focus of the morning session of the all day seminar and the topics that were explored through his talk provided the focus for some very useful discussions during the afternoon sessions where approaches to evaluation were explored.

This seminar represents the first of a series that ASCCC intend to develop over the coming years in order to develop networks between academics and practitioners to increase research and practice capacity within Wales.  Details of forthcoming seminars will be posted soon.

First Blog: Welcome / Croeso: SSCR Conference London School of Economics 27th. March 2013

THE ALL WALES ACADEMIC AND SOCIAL CARE COLLABORATION BLOG

Welcome to the first blog of the All Wales Academic and Social Care Research Collaboration (ASCC).  You can find out more about ASCC by visiting our web site at http://ascccymru.org/

As this blog develops you will find reflections and links to resources aimed at increasing the research capacity for the Welsh social care sector but as we all know the world of social media has no borders. Feedback and suggestions for content to be included in the blog are most welcome and follow our Twitter account on @ASCCCymru to enter in to a dialogue with us if you feel we can help in any way.

The blog is currently maintained by Martin O'Neill based at WISERD in Cardiff who can be contacted via:

oneillm2@cf.ac.uk    

School of Social Care Research Annual Conference 2013: London School of Economics and Political Science:

27^th march 2013 ASCC attended the 4^th  School of Social Care Research Conference (SSCR) at the London School of Economics.  The School was originally established  in 2009 via funding from the National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) and today is one of the leading funders into adult social care practice in England, and aims to improve adult social care practice in England through conducting and commissioning research.  The welcome and introduction to the conference was provided by Professor Martin Knapp Director of SSCR who provided an overview of the School achievements to date with over 53 research studies commissioned and of their developing links with practice and policy.

The first morning plenary was provided by Think Local Act Personal

 ( http://www.thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk/ ) which is a national multi sector agency aimed at improving adult social care in the UK. This presentation addressed a very salient issue in the field of social care at the moment, that of  personal budgets for older people. Detail of the presentation can be found here: http://bit.ly/ZCnpDP

The second of the mornings presentation was a fascinating exploration of the problems and potential of user controlled research by Professor Peter  Beresford  from Brunel University. As the name suggests “User Controlled” research poses particular challenges to more traditional, particularly positivist, approaches to research  which tend to prioritise and valorise the knowledge and perspective of the professional and academic.  Professor Beresford argued that there was a need to fundamentally challenge traditional approaches to research but to do so within a robust methodology. A more detailed exploration of Professor Beresford’s presentation can be found here:  http://bit.ly/Zb8mRz

The afternoon parallel sessions covered a number of research initiatives supported by the SSCR.  For example Marcus Jebson from the University of Bristol produced his findings of the social process involved in the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards process (DOLS) This is particularly of interest to people who are working in the field of elderly care and is a field that tends to be characterised by uncertainty and lack of clarity. A more detailed account of the study can be found here: http://bit.ly/12n14hh

One paper I found particularly interesting, based on my experiences of participatory film making, was presented by Dr Andrea Capstick from the University of Bradford  who has just commenced a project exploring the use of participatory video production with people with dementia.  This presentation posed  some interesting questions in relation to producing narrative with people with dementia which I am sure will lead to some interesting findings for this research. More details can be found at:   http://bit.ly/17fN6l8

There were a number of different papers covering various aspects of social care and for those of you with access to Twitter if you use the hashtag #SSCR13 you can find links to resources and links to outlines of many of the other papers.