Reshaping Care for Older People

The Scottish Government’s programme Reshaping Care for Older People is the single most significant initiative of its kind in a generation. Its purpose is to ensure that the NHS, local authorities and the voluntary and private sectors work in partnership to address the health and care needs of older people in a way that reflects new ways of working, and that sees an increased shift from institutional treatment and care to community-based provision focused on prevention and participation.

A budget of £70m is proposed for 2011–2012 (£6+m of which will come to Edinburgh) and subject to Scottish Parliament approval, the potential of a further £250m over four years will be allocated to this programme.

The Joint Improvement Team hosted an event on Wednesday 2 February focused on preparing local Change Plans. Details of all the presentations can be found on the Joint Improvement Team Scotland website.

Within Edinburgh a cross sectoral group (led by Peter Gabbitas, Director of Health and Social Care, City of Edinburgh Council) has considered where and how to focus the resources. Ella Simpson , Director of Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations' Council, is a member of this group. The meetings she has attended have recognized the expertise, skills and knowledge of the Third Sector and the concept proposals which are currently being worked on. A reference group of Third Sector service providers is currently being formed.

Please keep an eye on upcoming Compact Bulletins for news about further developments.

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Council to consider Grants Proposals

Two key reports of significance to Council-funded Third Sector organisations go before the City of Edinburgh Council on Thursday, 10th February. Visit Council Papers On-Line for full details of the meeting.

The reports relate to Grants to Third Parties and to the Transition from Fairer Scotland Funding to Council funding.

The relevant reports and appendices are available via this item on EdinburghCompact.org and as below. All papers for that meeting of the Council are, of course, available as usual via CPOL.

Grants Overview; Grants Performance; Grants Proposals; and Transition from FSF (to mainstream Council funding.)

Despite very significant pressures on Council budgets, and following a process of engagement with citizens on identifying shared priorities, these reports explicitly attempt to preserve and protect the valuable work done by Third Sector organisations. There is a recognition that not only does the city's Sector deliver excellent services, but it also helps build social capital which enhances the quality of life in Edinburgh.

The reports re-iterate the Council's commitment to the Compact relationship and to Compact principles. Third Sector members of the Compact Partnership will continue to make the case that sustainably funding the city's Third Sector is a wise investment for the future - particularly when resources are stretched.

EVOC (Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations' Council) continues to engage with Council staff and to coordinate regular meetings with Conveners of key Council Committees. To have your say, to share your experiences, or to argue for change, please contact EVOC Director and VSSG chair Ella Simpson.

The Edinburgh Compact Partnership maintains its commitment to tackling inequalities and promoting equality by building strong, resilient, sustainable communities. If the Third Sector members of the Compact Partnership are to be effective advocates on behalf of Edinburgh's Third Sector, they must hear from you. Details are available via EdinburghCompact.org on the Voluntary Sector Strategy Group (which feeds into the Edinburgh Compact Partnership) and of the Compact Partnership itself - its membership, business, strategies and action plans.

If you would like your voice to be heard, please contact Volunteer Centre Edinburgh Director and Compact Chair Harriet Eadie.

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Money can’t buy you love (or well-being)

"Gross National Product,” Robert F. Kennedy famously said, “measures everything, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

Nobel prizewinning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen agree that governments need broader measures of progress than merely economic indicators.

The London School of Economics' Lord Richard Layard argues cogently that policy must be driven by a single overarching measure of progress, that this single measure must be self-evidently good, and that ‘the happiness of the population’ is the only such measure.

Governments including Canada, France and – most recently – the UK have announced their intention to develop measures of well-being to influence policy decisions.

The Compact Partnership has agreed to work with other city interests to develop more meaningful indicators of social progress intended – in tandem with measures of economic progress – to shape and guide policy decisions in the city.

The City of Edinburgh Council has agreed to measure well-being as part of the Council’s budget process.

There is broad agreement that increasing wealth – in and of itself – does not improve social outcomes, and indeed that when increasing wealth is accompanied by growing inequalities (as it often is) all of society is harmed.

The task for the Compact Partnership therefore, is to develop a basket of indicators which taken together could meaningfully track progress towards a more equal, more cohesive Edinburgh where individual and community well-being, resilience and sustainability improves.

This project is likely to be complex and will take effort. A great deal of work has been done across the world, which gives you something to build on. The task now is to find a way to act on the theory, to give the aspiration to enhance well-being practical expression, and to develop a set of measures which will gain the broad support of citizens, communities, the city’s Third Sector, and Public Agency partners.

In this process it is vital that Community Planning partners, the city’s Third Sector, and – most importantly – the communities we serve support the process and the expected outcomes.

If you’d like to know more about this work, would like to share your expertise, or would like to bring people together to explore some of the ideas behind ‘measuring well-being,’ please contact Milind Kolhatkar at EVOC on (0131) 555 9100.

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Compact partner news

City of Edinburgh Council

What are your priorities for improving the City Centre? Tell us what you think

Everyone who lives, works, studies, or visits the city centre is invited to share their views on what the City Centre Neighbourhood Partnership can best do to improve the area over the next three years, 2011-2014. The Partnership is comprised of representatives from City of Edinburgh Council, Lothian and Borders Police , NHS Lothian, the voluntary sector and the local community.

What do you think can be done to make the city centre:

• cleaner
• greener
• safer
• better

Partners are developing a new Community Plan which will prioritise the main issues you tell them are important to you. To help them do this, please take a few minutes to complete this online survey.

Your responses will help them to improve the City Centre for everyone.

The closing date for the survey is Monday 14 February.

If you have any queries, require further information or have any problems with accessing the survey then please contact Alan Dean, Partnership Development Officer (City Centre) on 0131 529 7519.

Creative Scotland

Creative Scotland has moved! From 31 January the Edinburgh Office of Creative Scotland will be located at Waverley Gate, 2-4 Waterloo Place, Edinburgh EH1 3EG. The Glasgow Office remains at West George Street.

Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations' Council

Grants available to help you prepare your service users for digital switchover

Does your organisation work with elderly people or vulnerable groups? EVOC has free training to help prepare people for the switchover to digital television in June – as well as access all the support and assistance they are eligible for.

We can also support you with grants if you pass this information on to your service users in simple ways. The first deadline for grant applications is 8 February.

Please contact Sophie Unwin to hear more about the opportunity.

Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service

Home fire safety visits save money as well as lives

A community safety initiative aimed at ensuring residents have a working smoke alarm in their home saves the taxpayer money as well as protecting them from fire.

Home safety visits, carried out by firefighters, can be booked free of charge by anyone living in the Lothian and Borders area. A new study has shown that they save the public and private sector more than £11.5 million a year. The details were revealed in a recent report presented to the Scrutiny Committee of the Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Board.

In 2010, the amount of money saved from potential injury and damage through installing smoke alarms and educating residents about fire safety in the home jumped from £8.4m to £11.6m.

The financial savings are based on assessing the benefit of the programme from the reduced number of injuries and deaths and damage from fires in the home.

The evaluation uses a method designed by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) and is based on a variety of different measures including the potential cost of hospital and medical bills after a fire, call-out costs, absence from work and insurance payouts for injuries, loss of life and damage to property.

The report was submitted to demonstrate the value of the home safety visit programme at a time when the Service needs to consider ways to cut £1.1m from its budget for the financial year 2011/12.

In addition to the financial benefits to society, the report shows that the measures have resulted in 16 per cent fewer accidental fires, 17 per cent fewer casualties and 56 per cent fewer fire fatalities in the past two years.

Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service spends around £680,000 on the programme annually. To date firefighters from the Service have completed more than 95,000 home safety visits and fitted more than 104,000 smoke detectors.

David Mallin, Head of Community Safety, said:

"The 2.6 per cent decrease in the budget means we are going to be affected, but we will continue to offer the service free of charge.

"We will target resources most effectively, making sure to help those at high risk. We plan to prioritise help for those who need it most using consumer data. For example, we won't just knock on doors from now on, we'll identify those with a risk profile from data that lets us know if a resident is living alone, is elderly, has special needs or perhaps a chaotic lifestyle which may put them more at risk."

He added: "The case for maintaining the programme is clear. This doesn't just benefit the fire service or the individual; it benefits everybody from the NHS to social services and prevents a lot of misery.

"Anybody who doesn't have a fire alarm can get in touch with us and we'll visit them for free."

A fire service spokeswoman said: "The home safety visit programme has been hugely beneficial. It's a free service available to everyone living in our area. We believe every home should have a working smoke detector, it gives vital protection by giving people early warning if fire breaks out.

"Firefighters can also help prepare an escape plan and help people identify and remedy particular fire risks in their own home. We would encourage people to call and book a visit on 0800 169 0320."

NHS Lothian

NHS Lothian invites you to submit your details for its Participation Database

NHS Lothian is currently updating its records of public bodies and voluntary organisations throughout the Lothians.

This is being done with the intention of creating a Participation Database, which will include all such organisations as well as keeping their records accurate. This database will allow NHS Lothian to contact you with any changes to their services that they feel you might be interested in and also allowing you to easily give comment on the services they provide.

Any information supplied will be electronic as they have no desire to create an unnecessary paper trail, and will be specific to services provided by your organisation. They will not supply information about children’s services to care homes for the elderly and vice-versa.

For more information please see the NHS Lothian website.

If you would like to join the project please email your contact details as below to David Carr at NHS Lothian and you will be included on the database.

• Contact Name
• Organisation
• Address inc. Postcode
• Work Phone Number
• E-Mail

For further details please contact David Carr at NHS Lothian on 0131 465 5699.

Volunteer Centre Edinburgh

Gold star stamp of approval for Volunteer Centre Employment Mentoring Project

Volunteer Centre Edinburgh is delighted to have been awarded the Approved Provider Standard (APS) by the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation. This is a national benchmark for organisations running mentoring and befriending projects and shows that we operate a nationally approved standard for safe and effective practice. The Employment Mentoring project matches unemployed individuals with a volunteer employment mentor who is trained and supported by VCE. The pair work together to improve the employability of the individual. For example providing support in moving on from volunteering into education, training or employment and working on confidence building and communication skills.

Training: Change Management – essential skills for managers of volunteers

A key role for managers of volunteers is helping volunteers cope with change, whether it’s implementing a new policy or changing the whole emphasis of the volunteering programme you run. This half day course considers essential knowledge and skills around change management for managers of volunteers. It looks at planning for change, how to support changing unhelpful behaviour and dealing with a range of common real life barriers to change. Book online here.

Wednesday 9 March from 9.30am to 12.30pm at Volunteer Centre Edinburgh. Cost: £45 per person.

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News

What a co-producing community might look like – an invitation to imagineer

Our society is in turmoil. Facing reducing public spending, anticipating increasing needs as capacity shrinks, we need a new model of service design and delivery – a ‘re-imagining of our society.’

EVOC is hosting this hands-on opportunity to imagineer such a society. A society which sees us as reservoirs of value, not bundles of needs. Where the traditional, transactional approach to services – with its tired ‘us versus them’ model – gives way to a model which builds on our capacity to care. A Co-producing Society.

Got an idea? Share it! You bring imagination, we’ll bring a framework for visioning the future.

Over 90 minutes we will work together, using creative tools, to develop poems, songs, or even a manifesto for change.

If we began to see each other as resources to share - instead of problems to fix - how would that feel?

Imagine a society built of active citizens – each of whom is a net gain, not a net drain – what would that look like?

When Co-production shifts from the margins to the mainstream – unlocking vast untapped pools of human potential – will any of us remain untouched?

Join this workshop in a creative envisioning of a co-producing community. Surprise yourselves!

Thursday 24 February from 12noon to 1.30pm at the Gathering at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC).

This is a FREE event, but please book online.

“Big Society” – good, bad or indifferent?

Volunteer Centre Edinburgh is hosting this event to mark “European Year of Volunteering 2011”, and we hope that it will attract a lot of interest, and contribute to the debate on the role of volunteering in the current economic climate. The Gathering is Scotland’s biggest voluntary sector fair – with around 3,000 visitors expected over two days, making it the largest event of its kind in the UK.

The debate will be chaired by Councillor Paul Edie. Confirmed panelists to date include: Harriet Eadie, Director of Volunteer Centre Edinburgh; Miles Briggs, Conservative party candidate; and Dave Moxham, Scottish Trade Union Congress (STUC).

Volunteering in the United Kingdom is at an interesting junction. The benefits of volunteering to the individual are plentiful and well recorded. The positive impacts of volunteerism in building social capital; more engaged and sustainable communities are also well recognised. As a country we are broadly in accord: volunteering and volunteerism is a good thing.

Traditionally, since the advent of the welfare state, volunteering has been used to provide added value and where required, fill the gap left by a Government backed support structure. In a fiscally challenged UK the current coalition government has laid out its stall and placed volunteerism and community activism at the heart of its Big Society concept.

Standing at the junction if we look west to our distant neighbours in the USA, we see a different landscape where volunteerism is ingrained in society. From Schools to Corporations community activism, philanthropy and volunteerism is widely promoted and undertaken. The US may be a rich country but it is also a country with many pressing social needs and with little or no state support for those that are in need – and it is here that the volunteer is the one who stands up and fills the vacuum.

Here in the UK, in the current environment we face many challenges. With public sector funding being reduced at national and local level, existing public services will become more stretched and indeed some will be withdrawn. With a third sector still largely dependent on public funding this sector may also increasingly struggle to meet society’s needs.

Come along and join the debate!

Thursday 24 February from 2.30pm-4pm, at  the Gathering at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC). This is a FREE event, but please book online.

The Gathering – Scotland’s voluntary sector fair

The 2011 Gathering is fast approaching. The Gathering is Scotland’s voluntary sector fair. With 3000 visitors over two days this is the largest event of its kind in the UK. This year it takes place on Wednesday 23 February and Thursday 24 February at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC.)  See the website for details about sessions.

Last chance to run an event or exhibit in the marketplace

If you are quick there's a chance you won't miss the opportunity to take part!

Sixty organisations have already secured their chance to reach over 3000 people in two days, at the only event that brings together people from across the whole of Scotland's third sector! If you're quick you could join them by running an event or taking part in the exhibition and marketplace on Wednesday 23 and Thursday 24 February. You can find more details on the booking form or from the website, or by contacting Alex Thomson.

Scottish Third Sector Research Conference

Postponed from 3 December 2010 the Scottish Third Sector Research Conference will now take place on Thursday 31 March 2011 at the Playfair Library, Old College.

The Scottish Third Sector Research Conference will be co-hosted by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) and the Centres for Public Services Research (CPSR) and Charitable Giving and Philanthropy (CGAP) at Edinburgh University Business School. The conference will bring together Scottish Government, local government, third sector and academic researchers, as well as policy-makers and third sector practitioners from across Scotland. In addition to providing a platform for researchers to showcase their work, the event will also provide a forum for delegates to discuss a range of findings of relevance to public policy in Scotland.

The keynote speaker will be Robert Black, Auditor General for Scotland.

Before booking please make a note of the breakout sessions that you would like to attend.

To register for the conference please complete the online booking or contact Helen Swatton on 0141 225 8019.

Commissioning Strategy for Care and Support Services 2011-2016

The draft Edinburgh Commissioning Strategy for Care and Support Services 2011-2016

This draft strategy is a guide for how the Council commissions services over the next five years. It can provide the best possible care and support for each individual by planning services over this longer period.

The Council will work with those who use services to look at the choice available, to consider the best way to provide services and to review services to make sure they are working well. It is very important that throughout the process the Council does this by working closely with the person who needs care and support and the people and organisations who provide the care and support.

Read the draft strategy.

The draft Commissioning Plan for Adult Care and Support Services

This covers the six care groups of people:
* older people
* mental health and wellbeing
* learning disability
* physical disability
* drug and alcohol addictions
* HIV/AIDS.

The plan also looks at the support given to carers and how they can be more involved in planning care packages.

Read the draft plan.

Who can comment?

Anyone who receives care and support, their family members, carers, the organisations that support them and the wider community can comment on the proposals.

Key dates

From now until Friday 18 February, you can comment on the draft strategy and the draft plan for adult care and support services.

The Council will use the feedback you give to finalise the strategy and the adult plan and let you know the outcome by May 2011.

Later in 2011, the Council will tell you more about the draft commissioning plans for children and families and housing and homelessness.

How to give your views

Complete the online questionnaire where you can also get copies of the full commissioning strategy and the plan for adults.

If you would prefer to have a printed copy of the consultation questionnaire, call 0131 553 8314 or email. 

A number of consultation meetings are being held. For more information call 0131 553 8314 or go to the website. You could also talk to your carer or care provider.

Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty

Registrations are now open for the second Scottish Assembly for Tackling Poverty, which will take place in Glasgow on the Thursday 17 and Friday 18 February. This a free event aimed at bringing together all those concerned about poverty in Scotland. Please note that Day 2 Friday 18 February is now fully booked and the waiting list has closed.

Bookings are still being accepted for Day 1:

Thursday 17 February is a half day event, focusing on research and knowledge about poverty and will include presentations and discussions on the latest trends in poverty, participatory research and turning evidence into action. New research findings will be launched from two participatory research projects carried out over the last year.

Both days are free and open to all. Travel and child care costs for representatives of community and voluntary organisations in Scotland will be covered. If you wish to claim childcare expenses please let the organisers know in the additional info section of the registration form. To register please visit the Poverty Alliance website or call Kathryn Collins on 0141 353 0440.

Charities hit by job losses as cuts bite

“Three leading charities have announced swingeing job losses, as the scale of the impact of central and local government cutbacks on Scotland’s voluntary sector begins to become clear,” writes Stephen Naysmith in the Sunday Herald on 31 January. He points out that “The numbers affected in individual charities may be small compared with those threatened at some local authorities, but the proportion of staff affected will send a chill through the voluntary sector, reinforcing fears that charities are set to face the brunt of the cuts as central government axes funding and local authorities attempt to preserve and protect in-house services.” See the full article online.

Workshop: Outcomes focused partnerships

This is the second in a series of workshops delivered under the Improvement Service / SCR project, ‘Embedding an Outcomes Approach in Tackling Poverty & working Regeneration’. The public sector needs to focus on the achievement of priority outcomes, delivered in more innovative and cost effective ways. Central to this is the need to re-assess traditional approaches to partnership working.

This practical workshop aims to:

• Provide insights that will help participants think through the key issues relating to effective, outcomes-focused partnership working; and
• Point participants towards practical tools that they can use to help review the ‘fitness for purpose’ of their own partnerships and how those partnerships could be further strengthened.

For more information and to book please see the flyer.

The workshop will take place on Thursday 24 February from 9.30 to 13.30pm at Teacher’s Building, Glasgow.

Workshop: poverty sensitive decision making and budgeting

This is an introductory workshop to Poverty Sensitive Decision Making and Budgeting. It will be run by Dr John McKendrick of Glasgow Caledonian University and will provide participants with an opportunity to review the prospects for making poverty more central to their service delivery and planning. It will draw on the latest thinking from within and beyond Scotland and will offer an opportunity to appraise some tools that could be used to realise the potential of poverty informed decision-making.

For more information and to book please see the flyer. Please state while booking whether you wish to attend either the Monday or the Wednesday workshop.

The workshop will take place on Monday 7 March from 1.00 to 4:15pm at Queen’s Hotel, Nethergate, Dundee or on Wednesday 9 March from 1.00 to 4:15pm at Highlander House, 58 Waterloo St, Glasgow.

Free training session on VOiCE (Visioning Outcomes in Community Engagement)

VOiCE is a planning and recording software tool that assists individuals, organisations and partnerships to design and deliver effective community engagement. It can be used to support a range of participation from overall area regeneration to specific concerns of users of particular services. It enables all users to employ a common system for analysing, planning, monitoring, evaluating and recording their community engagement. It has been published by the Scottish Government as part of its support for the implementation of the National Standards for Community Engagement.

VOiCE supports engagement initiatives by enabling you to:
• reflect on what you are trying to achieve;
• develop plans that relate to your purpose;
• monitor progress in implementing your plan;
• evaluate the process and outcomes; and
• learn lessons for future activity.

Users of VOiCE have identified a wide range of applications and benefits from adopting the tool. It is easy and efficient to use. It provides a very thorough approach to the engagement of communities whilst also providing a common language for describing community engagement and offering a straightforward way of understanding the requirements of best practice. In turn these characteristics enable better co-ordination and consistency to be achieved.

VOiCE is considered to be a robust tool for the practice of engagement not only by individuals but also for teams, intra and inter-agency partnerships. It allows those conducting the engagement to produce clear and accurate records in a focused and efficient manner and in turn enables efficient and informed production of clear evidence based evaluative reports.

VOiCE places emphasis on clarity of purpose through the setting of clear and measurable outcomes. It therefore enables an approach to engagement that can be integrated into wider outcome based vision and planning statements such as the Single Outcome Agreements between Councils and their community planning partners.

VOICE is accessible on line, which means that work can be shared easily with partners and across Scotland. You can choose the level of access you give people to your work, right up to editor control.

If you are interested in finding out more about VOiCE you can enrol for one of three hands on training sessions. The sessions are free and running on the following dates:
• Thursday 17 February from 9 to 12.30 pm in South Bridge Resource Centre
• Thursday 17 February from 1 to 4.30 pm in South Bridge Resource Centre
• Tuesday 22 February from 1 to 4.30 pm in Fountainbridge Library

To book a place please contact the Workforce Learning and Development booking line on 469 3227 between 12.30 and 16.00 (Mon-Thurs) and 12.00 and 15.30 (Fri) or by emailing. More information on this and other training is available on the Upskilling website.

Or for further information visit the VOiCE website.

For further details please contact David Carr at NHS Lothian on 0131 465 5699.

Better community engagement programme: Improving performance, practice and process

This national conference will take place on Wednesday 9 March from 10 am until 4pm (registration from 9.15am) at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh.

The aim of the Better Community Engagement Programme is to develop a national level coherent resource to enhance and complement training and learning provision in community engagement, for staff and volunteers, at a local level.

The purpose of the conference is to:

•Showcase the resources developed through the Programme
•Discuss how the resources can be incorporated into training and learning provision within organisations to improve performance in community engagement
•Explore how sustainable training and learning provision impacts on the practice and processes of community engagement

The conference is open to all public, third and community sector organisations with a role and interest in community engagement.

The event is FREE but places must be booked in advance.

To register for a place, please complete the registration form.

The closing date for bookings is Friday 18 February.

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What are the Compact Principles?

The Compact says that public agencies will work with third sector bodies 'In Equal Respect' and employing the Compact Principles of transparency, accountability, clear communication, equity and respect.

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Introduce Me to the Compact Family of Strategies!

The following Compact Strategies are available to download:

In Equal Respect: A Shared Vision

City Funding Strategy

Social Enterprise Strategy

Volunteering Strategy

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Send us your news

The next issue of the Compact Bulletin will be published in spring 2011. Please send your news and announcements to Julia by no later than Friday 29 April.

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