Institute sets out to gather opinions

The Social Care Institute for Excellence
(Scie) has embarked on a “listening exercise” to help shape the way
it works.

The scheme is to run between January and June
and relevant organisations, such as the British Association of
Social Workers, the Association of Directors of Social Services and
Mind, are being asked to nominate people to attend regional
workshops.

Scie is seeking the views of service users,
those who support and care for service users, practitioners,
managers, policy-makers, researchers and trainers and educators of
staff.

“We want to make sure we are listening hard to
what people think,” explained chief executive of Scie, Ray
Jones.

“We want views about how Scie can be a
resource for them, what they think Scie’s priorities should be and
where it should be focusing attention first of all.

“It’s also about how they think Scie ought to
work and how it should be working with a whole range of people in
social care in the future,” said Jones.

The workshops will take place in England,
Wales and possibly Northern Ireland, with 60 and 70 attendees at
each one. People will also be asked to give their views through
Scie’s website.

The information gathered is likely to be fed
back at a Scie and Community Care conference in early
summer and focus groups will follow up the main themes.

“We do see this as a real indication that we
want to be relevant for everyone in social care and one way we see
ourselves as relevant is making sure people influence what we’re
doing,” said Jones.