Be Inspired! Shirley Ayres Consulting

Wishing everyone a very happy 2011 and a big thank you to all of my guest bloggers in 2010.

“We have enough people who tell us the way it is – now we need a few more people who can tell us how it can be!”

I really appreciate the wealth of thoughts and ideas shared through the following posts”

How long must black bin liners symbolise how we treat children and young people in care?  by Carolyn Barber (@wayfinder2006)http://www.wayfinderassociates.co.uk

How does a systems understanding help teams and services to change their approach? by Brian Lawson http://www.consilientconsulting.com

Emotional Intelligence Teaches Practical Skills for Anger Management by George Anderson (@geoanderson)  http://www.andersonservices.com

Social work practitioners develop a caseload management system by Biri Yaya and Carolyn CousinsKnowledge Management in Social Care – time to embrace the internet? by Carolyn Barber (@wayfinder2006)  http://www.wayfinderassociates.co.uk

Personalisation – the challenges for social work by Simon Duffy www.centreforwelfarereform.org

Is using social media effectively the big challenge for social work? by Stephen Sloss (@stephensloss) Stephen was formerly Director of Adult Social Care and Health Blackburn with Darwen Council and is now CEO at Salvere Social Enterprise CIC.

Can the public sector be more entrepreneurial? by Bill Liao (@liaonet) http://www.stonesoupway.com, http://www.neo.org, http://www.weforest.com

A simple message about Personalisation “Trust More”  by Simon Duffy www.centreforwelfarereform.org

Social Media and the Case of The Missing Assets by Jon Hardie  http://www.audienceworks.com

Why personalisation can only be achieved through creative engagement by Gill Phillips (@WhoseShoes) www.nutshellcomms.co.uk

Using Social Media to Improve Employee Engagement by Dianne Lowther (@DwellPR) http://www.dwellpr.com

Social Learning through Social Media by Euan Semple (@euan) http://www.euansemple.com

Thoughts from a Student Nurse on #demo2010 by @justa2ndyear

Details will be published here shortly about the topics we will be exploring and discussing in 2011

Tags: be inspired, social learning, social media, social work and social care

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• Social Networking Basics for Social Care
• GuestBlog: Social Learning through Social Media
• Can twitter make our national care organisations more “social”?
• Why social media is important for social care – the challenges and opportunities
• Striking the right chord at #nfpsm

“Social media is a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. All the time online conversations are happening about you, your brand and your organisation. It’s not a choice whether you DO social media, the choice is how well you do it”  Erik Qualman author of socialnomics.

Erik’s video Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh) makes a powerful case for why organisations should have a social media strategy and be actively engaged with social networking. 

Social networking has the potential to put the “social” back into social work and social care. So it is interesting (and depressing) to note how few of our national care organisations are actually engaged and using social media to communicate important messages to an increasingly diverse group of stakeholders.

For me twitter really is the new information network because I am able to share and discover what is happening in the care sector right now. Twitter is a rich source of instantly updated information and it is how I stay updated on an incredibly wide variety of topics.

If you’re wondering what’s the point and how to make the most of twitter a helpful guide from Charles Arthur in the Guardian about the benefits of twitter.

 It is also worth watching The Beginners Guide To Twitter Videofrom Andy Headworth which explains ’What Twitter is’, ‘What Twitter looks like’ and ‘How exactly you get started with Twitter’.

Who is currently on twitter? 

@BASW_UK

@CareQualityComm

@ChildrensComm

@steve_scie

@skillsforcare

Who is not on twitter?

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services

Association of Directors of Adult Social Services

Children’s Workforce Development Council.   

General Social Care Council

National Skills Academy for Social Care

The National Children and Adult Services Conference 3rd – 5th November 2010

Live streaming of keynote presentations, panel discussions and comments tweeted from participants are an increasing feature of conferences. The National Children and Adult Services Conference takes place in Manchester next week. Following the comprehensive spending review this will be an significant event as Directors consider the implications of the budget cuts for front line delivery. This is an ideal opportunity to widen the debate using twitter to encourage comments and questions about the complexity of the care sector.  

I am aware of only one director using twitter and I will be following @stephenslossStrategic Director of Adult Social Care & Health at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council along with @lgaNCAS2010 and @CommunityCare for the latest news at the conference. If you know of any other Directors of Adults or Children’s Services using twitter do let me know!

To provide some encouragement to Social Services Directors you may wish to know about the increasing number of chief executives using  twitter (with thanks to @Council_Chiefs and the Tweetyhall blog Tweeting from the Top)

@johnbarradell  Chief Executive Brighton and Hove

@lwboland  Leo Boland Chief Executive Greater London Authority

@terryhuggins  Chief Executive of Breckland and South Holland Councils

@GibsonGav  Gavin Jones Chief Executive Swindon Borough Council

@ChairSolaceDerek Myers, Chief Executive of Kensington and Chelsea and the Chair of SOLACE

@andrewnorthcbc Chief Executive Cheltenham Borough Council

@martinrreevesof Chief Executive Coventry City Council

@tomriordan Chief Executive Leeds City Council

@DuncanSharkey  Managing Director at Worcester City Council

As a knowledge management and communications consultancy we are committed to empowering people through knowledge and developing skills through communication. About Shirley Ayres Consulting

Tags: ADASS, adcs, be inspired, NCAS2010, social care, social media, social work is complex and challenging, twitter

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• A guide for care organisations developing a social media strategy
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• Should dementia training be compulsory for all staff in adult social care?

Tags: be inspired, health and well being, integrated working, looked after children, shirley ayres consulting

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• 2010 – new decade, new challenges – what needs to change in social work and social care?
• New group launched for professionals working with children and young people in care

Social media has the power to encourage social interaction and build both online and offline communities.  Social media provides a new way to engage, connect and link with people who use and provide social care services.

Coming this week my thoughts about: 

How social media  “savvy” are social care organisations?

Who is blogging, tweeting, connecting through LinkedIn and Facebook and posting YouTube videos?

Twitter – the paradoxical answer to information overload and the secret of paper.li

How public sector workers are responding to the budget cuts and redundancy via blogs and tweets.

Innovative examples of local authorities using social media to connect with their citizens

Using social media to support children in care. The launch of a unique resource ~ the Click Guide to Children’s Services

Tags: be inspired, encouraging innovation, social care, social media, Social Work

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• Guest Blog: Why personalisation can only be achieved through creative engagement

If I ran a charity now our own search engine would be an essential  part of our fundraising toolkit.  Google and Yahoo have made their fortunes through charging for sponsored searches on the internet.  It is simple really, we can all turn our internet searches into charitable donations. If all your supporters use your dedicated search engine you can generate funds. This may only be small amounts but 100 people raising £50 each per year at no cost to themselves soon adds up.    

ClickNow the organisation that helps charities and schools raise money from internet searches was delighted to announce its latest collaboration with Blastbeat Education UK at their ‘Social Enterprise’ and ‘Battle of the Bands’ competition final which featured six new bands playing alongside famous acts like The Saturdays, rapper Tinchy Stryder and X Factor’s Stacey Solomon, on13th July at the O2 Arena, London. 

Recently Nick Hurd, government minister for civil society called for the public to increase their financial support to charities, to help them manage the tough times ahead as a result of cuts in public spending.  Hurd suggests that the public should donate one per cent of their income to charities. Fundraisers that use ClickNow’s innovative search tool could see an increase in donations without increasing the financial burden for their supporters.

ClickNow’s founder, Professor Kevin Morley, is a successful entrepreneur who in 2009 featured in The Secret Millionaire on Channel 4 when he visited Haringey one of the most deprived areas of London and gave away £250,000.

Opening the Blastbeat social enterprise fair and judging the student’s business skills. Kevin said “I’m delighted that Blastbeat has joined with ClickNow. In this current climate where there are many economic pressures, Blastbeat supporters now have a free and easy way of raising much needed funds through Blastbeat’s own search engine. In linking-up with ClickNow, Blastbeat joins over 500 other charities and schools who are now raising money for free through their own search engine.”  www.clicknow.org.uk/Blastbeat

Robert Stephenson, Blastbeat founder and chief executive commented “ Like many small charities we are always looking for innovative and sustainable ways of funding the Blastbeat charity. ClickNow is a free and easy useful tool which will help our efforts to empower young people as social entrepreneurs and music artists.”

Blastbeat Education UK has developed a fun and exciting Music and Multimedia Business / social enterprise progamme offered to young people and schools around the world. This innovative and dynamic schools-based programme teaches teenagers how to set up and run music and performance-based social enterprises. Blastbeat has engaged otherwise disaffected teenagers in the learning process and supported their transition from school to work.  www.uk.blastbeat.org 

In addition to Blastbeat, ClickNow has helped charities raise over £200,000 of income  simply by switching to ClickNow at no cost to the charity or their supporters. ClickNow has developed an internet search facility that provides search results from several of the major search engines in a clear and simple format. Whenever someone searches the internet using the ClickNow search facility, ClickNow receives money from the search engines and donates 50 per cent of this gross revenue to the participating charity. www.clicknow.org.uk

Does your charity have a search engine which allows you to turn your internet searches into charitable donations - if not, why not?

Tags: be inspired, charity fundraising, power of the internet

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 The very act of leadership is making something happen. Are you ready to be the difference you want to see in the world?  

An innovative and groundbreaking development in leadership learning has just been launched by the Leaders Café 2020 which allows you to share the best ‘leadership thoughts’ across the world.

Leaders Cafe is a social enterprise that helps to reduce inequalities in leadership learning in the economy and society. This doesn’t mean reducing the quality of the learning. Their mission is to enable 20 million people at all levels of society to use their leadership potential to lead themselves and others by 2020. This will be achieved by providing access to compelling, world class and low cost learning through the innovative online Leaders Café. Experiential learning is conveyed via webcast technology. These webinars (web seminars) typically last no longer than 60 minutes and provide compelling learning through insightful storytelling rather than through models and methodology.

The Leaders Cafe Promise:

1. You get remarkable interactive leadership webinar learning at a price sustainable to you and us.
2. Invest as little as one hour a week in our interactive webinars, and you will think and lead like a pioneer.
3. As a social enterprise with no owners, profits are reinvested in YOU; to continue to give you more for less.
4. Your membership contributes directly towards learning chances for all.
5. Your membership helps positively to reduce learning inequalities for 20 million people by 2020.

The central ethos of the Leaders Café learning portfolio is that of Pioneering Leadership. The outcomes from participating in Leaders Café’s learning are people who understand what it means to collaborate with others, have an ethos of knowledge sharing and are co-builders of a better world. The cost of membership is kept low to widen participation and is sustainable to both the learners and to Leaders Café. Strategic partnerships – including coffee bar chains and international organisations. – will support the delivery of leadership development for millions of leaders and change agents globally.

You can join for free as an Associate Learner. Premium membership is just £100 per year. Apply the code BEINSPIRED when you check out from joining and you will pay just £80.

Welcome to the Leaders Café 2020

Where is the professional leadership in social work?

The Really Big Question – what makes an effective manager?

Tags: be inspired, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, Social Work

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• London Looked After Children’s Nurse wins top award

The 4th National Continuing Professional Development Conference for Social Workers on the theme of ‘Integrated   Practice’ will be held at the Institute of Psychiatry on 14th September 2010.

 The conference features prominent keynote speakers, engaging workshops and a unique opportunity to network with professional colleagues from across the country.

Camila Batmanghelidjh from Kids Company http://www.kidsco.org.uk will be talking about the need for new paradigms of care.

Keynote papers will be given by:

Professor Peter Huxley ( Swansea University ) – Integration of health and social care in mental health services

Professor Nick Frost ( Leeds Metropolitan University ) – Integrated working in frontline children’s services: research, policy and practice

Professor Marian Barnes ( University of Brighton ) – Ethics of care in promoting effective dialogue between workers, service users and carers.

The conference will also feature an interactive plenary session on the theme: “Are families becoming more dangerous?”

Professor Colin Pritchard ( Bournemouth University ) will address the issue of ‘Who kills children?’, based on data presented in his recent British Journal of Social Work paper that hit the headlines.

Attendance at the conference will count towards your GSCC post registration training and learning requirements.

Further information and the online booking form can be found at www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/annualsocialworkconference. Early bird bookings are available until 31^st July. All Making Research Count bookings should be made by Learning and Development Managers to janet.noble@kcl.ac.uk.

Abstracts for parallel workshops throughout the day are still being received . If you or a colleague are interested in leading a workshop of relevance to the conference theme, please submit your abstract by 25^th June. Full information and an online abstract submission form are available from: www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/annualsocialworkconference.

Any questions? Contact Julie Smith, the conference organiser julie.smith@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Tags: advanced social work practice, be inspired, institute of psychiatry, integrated working, professional practice, Social Work

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I first met Simon when he accepted an invitation to speak at the Social Workers Educational Trust conference. “Being Inspired by Social Work”. A big thank you to Simon for sharing his thoughts following the Personalisation Conference held in London on the 21^st May 2010.

“If we can each work together, accepting our weaknesses, we can make things happen.”

Thus spoke the social worker, reflecting on the tensions that can flare up between those who want to help other people and those they are trying to help. These words beautifully captured the spirit of Friday’s conference, at the Tavistock, on personalisation and social work. The conference organised by Skills for Care, in partnership with the Department of Health and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Foundation, focused on exploring changes in the role and responsibilities of the social work practitioner within transformed adult services. 

The event had “hope and purpose”, but it also revealed an array of challenges that face social workers who try to make sense of ‘personalisation’ – a word which is full of meaning and unmeaning. It is hard to remember the purpose of all these personalisation ‘technologies’ (direct payments, individual budgets, self-directed support, peer support etc.). It is very hard to recall, amidst the consultants, government milestones, and official guidance, that these ideas didn’t start in government. These new ways of working were developed by disabled people and by social workers. And they were developed in order to take forward the ambition of social work – to achieve social justice.

Keeping a focus on social justice is hard, but it is essential when it comes to making sense of all the new processes associated with personalisation. Many social workers described the insanity they face working in a system which asks them to keep running the old bureaucratic system, while also setting up and running the new system. Processes are becoming more confused and over elaborate, and they are damaging our ability to respond quickly and sensitively to people’s needs. Sometimes ‘personalisation’ is leading to less personalisation.

Senior managers need to protect their staff from this chaos; but they are struggling to make sense of the overall policy direction. How deep and serious is the government’s commitment to personalisation when these new systems are developed in ways which lack any legal, financial and policy coherence. It is easy to suspect that a system which is being developed without any clear and rational plan will, in time, fade away.

But progress is being made, despite the madness, and we must be optimistic – not because we can expect things to get better – but because we can each take responsibility for making the most of this opportunity to build a fairer world.

Simon Duffy Director of The Centre for Welfare Reform

There are a number of interesting publications which can be downloaded at www.centreforwelfarereform.org

About the author

Dr Simon Duffy is Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform. Simon created Individual Budgets, Self-Directed Support and the Citizenship Model and put these ideas into practice at Inclusion Glasgow and In Control. He was awarded the RSA’s 2008 Prince Albert Medal for his work on personalisation.

Tags: be inspired, empowerment, Learning and Development, personalisation, post qualifying awards, professional practice, simon duffy, Social Work

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• Leadership Learning for the 21st Century
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Index on Censorship and English PEN have raised serious concerns that English libel law and the use of ‘super-injunctions’ are having a profoundly negative impact on freedom of expression, both in the UK and abroad. Writers such as Simon Singh, and respected current affairs programme Newsnight, have found themselves facing defamation suits, whilst human rights campaigners are often forced to edit and retract articles in the face of potential libel action. We need to persuade politicians from all of the political parties to commit to reform of these unjust libel laws.

Britain’s archaic libel laws are a serious threat to freedom of expression. But this isn’t just a UK matter. They are increasingly used by a global constituency who come to the UK as ‘libel tourists’ in the attempt to gag dissenting voices – often the vital ‘whistleblowing’ of responsible journalism.

One way to achieve this reform is for 100,000 people to sign the petition for libel reform before the political parties write their manifestos for the election. The Libel Reform campaign now has 26,000 signatures ~ will you support the campaign and make it 100,000 signatures?

Libel reform is essential. We know to our cost what happens to the most vulnerable people in our society when people are fearful about speaking out and exposing bad, incompetent and dangerous practices. English libel laws have been condemned by the UN Human Rights Committee. These laws gag scientists, bloggers and journalists who want to discuss matters of genuine public interest (and public health). Sense About Science has shown that the threat of libel action leads to self-censorship in scientific and medical writing.

Our laws give rise to libel tourism, whereby the rich and the powerful (Saudi billionaires, Russian oligarchs and overseas corporations) come to London to sue writers because English libel laws are so hostile to responsible journalism. (In fact, it is exactly because English libel laws have this global impact that signatories to the petition from around the world are welcome.)

Vested interests can use their resources to bully and intimidate those who seek to question them. The cost of a libel trial in England is 100 times more expensive than the European average and typically runs to over £1 million.

There are three separate ongoing libel cases involving Simon Singh and two medical researchers who raised concerns about medical treatments. They face costs of £1 million each. In future, why would anyone else raise similar concerns? If these health matters are not reported, then the public is put at risk. Read more about the case here http://libelreform.org/who-is-silenced

Freedom to criticise and question, in strong terms and without malice, is the cornerstone of argument and debate, whether in academic journals, on websites, in newspapers or elsewhere. Libel Reform campaign

Tags: academc freedom, be inspired, campaigning journalism, empowerment, freedom of expression, Libel Reform, Simon Singh

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• New online Guide demystifies children’s services

What a powerful and independent voice this would give social work in the UK. With 82,875 social workers and 16,174 students on the GSCC Social Care Register this could happen in 2010.

“Do not wait for leaders. do it alone, person to person.”  ~ Mother Teresa

Help to make it happen
It is free to join LinkedIn. Promote the group by encouraging your friends and colleagues to join the Advanced Social Work Practice Network on LinkedIn. Start discussions and contribute your thoughts and ideas, share your research and examples of good practice, post interesting events locally, nationally and internationally. Suggest sub groups for special interests.

LinkedIn is a professional networking tool whose purpose is to provide its members with a a way to search and connect with other people. Unlike the social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, LinkedIn is primarily focused on professional communities of interest.

“The insurmountable difficulties of today are the solved problems of tomorrow.”  Cardinal Heenan

The Social Work Task Force called for a a new programme of action on public understanding of social work. The phenomenal growth of social media and LinkedIn over the last few months offers us unprecedented opportunities to engage with the public debate today. Over 15 million people worldwide log on to LinkedIn every day! If you are new to LinkedIn this brief guide provides a useful overview . LinkedIn for beginners I look forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn!  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/shirleyayres

If you work with children and young people in care you may wish to join this group on LinkedIn

Interesting Resources
Managing on the front-line
Social Work Focus 
Supporting and Promoting Advanced Social Work
Social Work Task Force

Tags: a new voice for social work, advanced social work practice, be inspired, leadership, linkedin, Social Work

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