Confirmed workshops for SDS National Voice 2021

The 2021 SDS National Voice conference on Wednesday 17 March will focus on quality and closing the implementation gap between SDS policy and practice.

In addition to hearing from key players in Scottish social care, you’ll have the chance explore current Self-directed Support (SDS) focused projects delivered by Self Directed Support Scotland members, partners and stakeholders including from user-led organisations and people with lived experience.

This year, we’re excited to announce a choice of 11 interactive workshops for conference attendees to choose from.

Breaking down walls- working together in Highland
NHS Highland and Community Contacts, Carr Gomm

No one likes it when big powerful organisations make decisions without us and for us. So, join NHS Highland and the Highland Council as they share how they are resetting the Satnav and are breaking down walls by working collaboratively with citizens and third sector partners to realise the spirit of the SDS legislation. Exciting times are ahead as we embrace the new Social Work Standards for SDS and the Review of Adult Social Care, and in Highland we are working together for shared SDS strategy. Please join us as we work together towards making the dream of SDS a reality.

Quality Streets- all postcodes!
ILF Scotland

We know that to some, SDS can sometimes feel like a postcode lottery, for ILF Scotland it’s important that a high-quality approach is consistent across the country.

Join ILF Scotland to explore the importance of high-quality interactions, relationships and outcomes and understand how their Quality Standards have helped them achieve a high satisfaction rate for their approach to quality. There is also the opportunity to explore a new ILF Policy around what ILF can fund.

New Routes Home
In Control Scotland and Radical Visions

New Routes Home is a partnership of individuals and organisations committed to ensuring that everyone is able to achieve their right to live in their own home with support that makes sense to them. Sadly, for too many people with a learning disability or on the autistic spectrum placed away from home or in institutional settings, this is still not the case. In this workshop we will share what New Routes Home aims to achieve, the resources we have developed, how you can get involved and how we can support you.

SDS – Releasing the potential for dementia care
Age Scotland – About Dementia and The STAND group

SDS has the potential to improve quality of life for people living with dementia, but we routinely hear about barriers to access SDS. When SDS is offered, there is little choice and people living with dementia struggle to obtain creative and specialised care. We’ll highlight the work About Dementia are doing to improve access to SDS. We’ll also share the Dementia Training Team’s work with SDSS, which aims to empower unpaid carers to seek more control over respite arrangements. To close, a member of STAND will share their lived experience of being denied SDS as a person living with dementia.

Linda’s Journey of Self-Directed Support
SDS Collective

Join the SDS Collective as they provide a personal and professional journey of both working in the care field and becoming someone who uses SDS. The workshop will look at the different attitudes and developments in working with people with varying disabilities over the past 50 years.

Maintaining Quality – How we moved service delivery online
Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living (LCiL)

The Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living will share their learning from the past year. Join us to hear how we moved from being an in-person service to a fully online service in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. We will share how we now deliver peer support groups, online sessions and training, 1-1 support, information service, benefit checks and a payroll service fully online and what our learnings have been in this major transition for us as an organisation and our service users.

Applying legislation to SDS
Civil Rights First and SDSS

Join Civil Rights First as they support you to gain a greater understanding of how to apply the SDS legislation and guidance to local implementation issues, either for yourself or for someone you support.  Civil Rights First is a legal rights-based charity, who deliver an advice and representation service to Scotland’s most vulnerable members of society. They are making a real difference with their Advocacy Plus project by providing a wide range of support services to carers and those in receipt of social care at all levels. This rights-based project supports people to realise new rights and entitlements conferred by the Social Care (Self-Directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013. It is aimed at individuals looking to access and make use of SDS and to empower them to live their best lives.

Moving forward together to promote greater quality and consistency of social care and support in Scotland.
Social Work Scotland and SDSS

Join Social Work Scotland as they explore the recommendations from ‘My Support My Choice’ and the draft Self-directed Support Standards. Have your say in how we can, together, move towards rights-based practice, ensure greater consistency in implementing Self-directed Support within local authorities and improve people’s experience of social care and support across Scotland.

What matters to you? – Community-led Support
Healthcare Improvement Scotland and National Development Team for Inclusion

Scotland has been on a journey to change the conversation from ‘What’s the matter with you?’ to What matters to you?’, and to improve the quality of life people can have when the conversation is changed. Join this session to hear how nine Health and Social Care Partnerships have embarked on this journey through a values and principles based approach called Community-led Support. You will hear great examples of the difference it makes when we really focus on what is most important to people and provide the right support to help people live their best life.

See my support, see my choice, see me
See Me Scotland

Join See Me Scotland to explore foundational mental health inclusion elements of Self-directed Support in light of the “My Support, My Choice” report from SDSS and the ALLIANCE. We will explore practical and systematic ways of reducing mental health stigma and discrimination in the delivery of Self-directed Support.

Community Brokerage in Action
Community Brokerage Network and Independent Living Assisters Planning

Join Community Brokerage Network as they explore the community model of brokerage and share some examples of this in practice, highlighting the impact it has made on the lives of individuals who have been supported. You’ll also learn more about the SQA Brokerage Award and its successes.

Click here to secure your place at the 2021 SDS National Voice.