Shannon's Box - putting love in the care system
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| Dear Friend,
I want to begin with a bit of personal news this month.
After six very successful years both our Chair and Vice Chair's tenure in office comes to an end this autumn, and I too have chosen this time to stand down.
This is something we have been working on with the Board for some time and I am pleased to say we have put in place a comprehensive transition plan which will ensure staff confidence and guarantee Staf's continued growth.
If you are interested in taking on the Chief Executive role for this fantastic charity, or know someone who should, find out more here.
Over the coming months we will unveil our succession plan, with the new people in place to take this exciting organisation forward and lead the established team and projects to build on their enviable success.
That success has been evident over the past month: - Shannon's Box has been successfully launched with interest and support from across Scotland
- Tickets are selling fast for the 'We Care' conference on 29th October in Stirling, which will be focussed on workforce wellbeing and trauma-sensitive care
- Our Mapping Relationships project has launched a Scotland-wide survey to capture a national picture of relationship-based practice
- We've launched the second full edition of our podcast with co-chairs of the love group on the Independent Care Review
As you can see, we've got a lot going on just now, so I won't be slowing down before passing the baton on!
Thank you again for your support of Staf – I hope I can catch up with many of you over the coming months.
All the best,
Norma
Norma Corlette CEO, Staf |
| | Introducing Shannon's Box... |
| | "Shannon's Box is about a sense of giving something back to the care system. I would like to show our young people we do care about their health and wellbeing and give them a sense of feeling loved, as some young people may have never felt this in their lives before." - Shannon Brown.
Read Shannon's blog on the launch of the box in East Ayrshire here. |
| | From alienation to connection - what we learned from Dr Gabor Maté Staf attended the ACE Aware Nation event with Dr Gabor Maté in Glasgow on 11th June. The day reinforced our belief in the importance of relationships but it has also opened our eyes to the impact of the opposite - alienation. Read more about what we took away from the day here. |
| | Could you be our new CEO? After six years of leading and growing Staf, our Chief Executive Norma Corlette has announced that she will be standing down. We're now looking for an inspirational leader with the drive, understanding, vision, gravitas and political awareness necessary to engage, motivate and enable others to thrive and flourish. Apply for the position here, closing date 12pm 12th July. |
| | How can Staf support you to embed trauma-informed change? Following on from our full-day training conference with Dr Karen Treisman, we are keen for our members to continue on the journey towards trauma-informed change with us. Find out three ways we are taking this work forward and how you can get involved here. |
| | The Forum: Love in the Care System Join us for the second edition of our podcast, The Forum. We met with Joanna McCreadie (Seamab) and Rosie Moore, who co-chair the Love work group at the Independent Care Review. Listen as Pamela, Head of Learning and Development at Staf, asks them about their work on Love.
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| | | | Care-Experienced Bursary Practice Note published by Scottish Government The Scottish Government has published a practice note, in partnership with CELCIS and COSLA, to clarify issues around the Care-Experienced bursary. This has been distributed to local authority Chief Executives accompanied by a letter from the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Education, John Swinney. You can read this in full here. |
| | Do you want to help shape Staf policy? Staf is delighted to announce the formation of a new Policy Engagement Group to ensure that the voice of our members is at the heart of our political output. Check out our short blog with an overview of the group’s remit, and get in touch if you are interested in getting involved. |
| | | Action required on care leaver poverty This month, we called on the Scottish Government to ensure its new Income Supplement benefit reduced poverty amongst care leavers. You can read our call here.
The details of the new benefit, the Scottish Child Payment, have now been announced. We are pleased that the government has heeded calls for the benefit to be delivered earlier, but will continue to call for more action to tackle care leaver poverty. Read the announcement in full here. |
| | Take our relationships survey for a chance to win a prize |
| | We've launched the Mapping Relationships project to consult all of those who work with care leavers in Scotland to gather opinions and practice examples around relationship-based practice. Take the survey here or sign up to come along to one of our relationships workshops here. |
| | Education Outcomes for Looked After Children 17/18: What do the figures tell us and what is being done to address the attainment gap? The Scottish Government has recently published its Education Outcomes for Looked After Children in 2017/18. In this blog, we take a look at the figures and consider some of the policies being implemented to improve school attainment and access to further and higher education. Read the blog here. |
| | | We Care: Workforce wellbeing and trauma-sensitive care
Tuesday 29th October 2019 | 9am - 5pm | Stirling Court Hotel |
| We are delighted that Tony Bloemendaal, a fellow of the ChildTrauma Academy founded by world-renowned trauma expert Dr Bruce Perry, will join us for this exciting one-day trauma training event. Tony will also be joined by his colleague Dr Roland Verdouw, a Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist and Robin Fancourt Memorial Scholar with the ChildTrauma Academy.
Without adequate support, those caring for young people who have experienced trauma and neglect can be affected by compassion fatigue, burnout and vicarious trauma. This training event will look at how we can support frontline workers through ‘trauma-sensitive caregiving’, where we recognise the impact that our own life history and wellbeing can have on the children and young people we work with.
This learning will be invaluable to anyone with an interest in supporting frontline workers to who want to learn more about the impact of neglect and trauma, as well as improve their professional quality of life. This will, in turn, allow them to bring their ‘whole self’ to work and deliver the relationship-based practice we know is key to healing from trauma for young people.
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| | | Youth Justice Voices
Monday 22nd July 2019 | Glasgow | 5pm - 7pm |
| | In partnership with the Centre for Youth & Criminal Justice (CYCJ), our exciting project to amplify the voices of those with care and justice experience is well underway.
The project's steering group 'Youth Just Us' is open to young people aged 16-25 with care and justice experience, and continues to meet regularly.
In addition to taking part in a range of fun activities, the group have decided to focus on 3 key areas: the Children's Hearing System, the Police; and access to services. The group are also looking forward to participating in the Independent Care Review.
The next session will take place on Monday 22nd July, where we will be sharing our views with the Independent Care Review and discussing the incorporation of the UNCRC. For further info and to get involved, contact Ruth@staf.scot - travel costs will be covered. |
| | | 24th September, Aberdeen | 1st October, Glasgow | 8th October, Online |
| 'Mapping Relationships' is the first stage of a new three-year project to support you, our members, to develop relationship-based practice.
We are now embarking on an extensive consultation to hear your thoughts about how we can improve and evaluate relationship-based practice across Scotland and are delighted to announce a series of upcoming workshops! These workshops are a place to join together and imagine how we can improve relational practice in the care environment.
The key question we will consider is: How do we evaluate relationships and relational practice in the care environment?
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| Mapping Relationships Workshop 1 (Aberdeen)
Date: Tuesday 24th September Location: Aberdeen Foyer, Aberdeen Time: 2pm - 4pm
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| Mapping Relationships Workshop 2 (Glasgow)
Date: Tuesday 1st October Location: Staf Offices, Glasgow Time: 2pm - 4pm
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| Mapping Relationships Workshop 3 (Online)
Date: Tuesday 8th October Location: Online Time: 2pm - 4pm
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| | | Meeting since 2014, the Implications of Continuing Care focus group offers a safe place to discuss issues and practice arising from Part 11 of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014.
The recent work of this group has discussed commissioning placements, fostering fees and payments. Good practice from colleges across Scotland has been shared and we have enjoyed input from CELCIS, Clan ChildLaw and Fife Council.
This meeting will see us engage with colleagues from across Scotland and the Scottish Government.
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| | | Our Care Leavers into Employment focus group tackles the issues faced by young people in both accessing and sustaining employment. This group brings together workers from across the public and third sector to discuss and dissect current practice issues.
Our most recent focus groups meetings have discussed the Scottish Government’s proposed Job Grant, engaged with DWP representatives on issues surrounding care leavers and social security, and shared best practice from around the country. |
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| This event has been created exclusively for local authority managers to give you space to discuss the issues that matter to you, given your unique statutory responsibility in delivering service for care leavers.
We held our inaugural local authority forum in February, where we discussed issues such as Continuing Care, the Care Experienced Bursary and out-of-local authority placements.
Our second local authority members’ forum will focus on the issues that are live for you – and we want to hear from you, our members, in shaping the day’s content. Get in touch with pamela@staf.scot if you have something you wish to add to the agenda. |
| | | | Following from our previous Care Inspectorate Roundtable in February, where we discussed the roll-out of new inspections based on the Health and Social Care Standards, we are delighted to announce a new roundtable event at which we will be joined by Care Inspectorate CEO Peter Macleod.
Peter will talk about his vision for the Care Inspectorate and involve us in a conversation about compassionate care and cultural safety.
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| | Care Leavers' Week Event
Tuesday 22nd October 2019 |
| | We will be running an exciting event on Tuesday 22nd October to celebrate care leavers’ week. Keep an eye out on our website for further information over the coming months! |
| | Save the date - we're bringing Dr Bruce Perry to Scotland!
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| | In partnership with other organisations, we are hosting an International Child Trauma Conference - More than My Trauma - in 2020, featuring world-renowned trauma expert Dr Bruce Perry. Our partners for the event are Kibble, Children in Scotland, Clackmannanshire Educational Psychology Service, Aberlour and Seamab.
Be the first to get the details as they're announced - sign up to the mailing list today.
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| | | If you only have time to read, listen or watch one thing this week, make sure it's one of the below.
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| Read: Louise Wallwein MBE is a renowned and award-winning poet, playwright and performer from Manchester. Brought up in 13 care homes, Louise wrote her first play at 17. Read some of Louise's poetry, 'Dreamriding' and 'Rise', on her website. |
| Listen: Listen as Dr Jaiya John recites his classic spoken word piece 'I Call You Legendary' from his book Legendary at the Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Conference in Lancaster, California (2018). Born into foster care in New Mexico, Jaiya is an internationally recognised humanitarian, author, speaker, poet and youth mentor. |
| Watch: Dr Gabor Maté, physician, bestselling author and expert in childhood trauma, addiction and stress - talks to Rona Dougall on Scotland Tonight. Rona asks Dr Maté about childhood trauma, addiction, the mind-body link, early development, attachment and the importance of human connection. |
| | | © 2019 Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum, All Rights Reserved.
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