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
Engaging Scottish Local Authorities
Sharing knowledge: building impact
Engaging Scottish Local Authorities
Sharing knowledge: building impact
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
Engaging Scottish Local Authorities
Sharing knowledge: building impact
Activities
• Scoping reviews
• 3 sharing seminars
• Practitioner research projects (PRPs) with academic mentors
• Training for PRPs
Engaging Scottish Local Authorities
Sharing knowledge: building impact
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
Engaging Scottish Local Authorities
Sharing knowledge: building impact
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
Engaging Scottish Local Authorities
Sharing knowledge: building impact
Acknowledgements
Thanks to:
• All of our local authority partners
• Our academic mentors: Susan Hunter, Janice McGhee, Kay Tisdall, Bill Whyte