Engaging Scottish Local Authorities Sharing knowledge: building impact Engaging with Involuntary Service Users in Social Work Heather Wilkinson, Mark Smith,

Engaging Scottish Local Authorities

Sharing knowledge: building impact

Engaging with Involuntary Service Users in Social Work

Heather Wilkinson, Mark Smith, Michael Gallagher

Borders Council, City of Edinburgh Council, East Lothian Council, Fife

Council, Midlothian Council, West Lothian Council





Project Aims

• Explore the context of social work with involuntary users

• Gather evidence of ‘what works’ in engaging involuntary users of social work

• Support dialogue and learning around this topic, for both academics and practitioners

• Capacity building through practitioner research projects



Activities

• Scoping reviews

• 3 sharing seminars

• Practitioner research projects (PRPs) with academic mentors

• Training for PRPs



Main results to date• Scoping reviews:

– Key themes briefing published, +ve feedback– Reviews 1&2 completed

• Sharing seminars:– 1st was a success, made contacts and

gathered action points– 2nd will take place on 15th June

• PRPs:– All are going, some faring better than others



Issues arising for coordination/review• A lot of learning from the PRPs:

– The process of refining aims and questions has taken a lot of time

– Issues of time, workload and project scope– Ethics: most of our partner LAs don't have ethics committees– Practitioners have in some cases encountered barriers getting

other practitioners on board, also recruitment troubles– Academics are learning that face to face communication is vital;

email is OK but not ideal; online methods no good (e.g. wiki)– Practitioners are starting to think about impacts and appear to be

well placed to achieve some direct immediate improvements to practice

– Practitioners and academics appear to be enjoying the opportunity to work together



Acknowledgements

Thanks to:

• All of our local authority partners

• Our academic mentors: Susan Hunter, Janice McGhee, Kay Tisdall, Bill Whyte

Documents

Engaging Scottish Local Authorities Sharing knowledge: building impact Engaging with Involuntary Service Users in Social Work Heather Wilkinson, Mark Smith,