Communities digest: Find out what’s been happening in our communities

01 April 2025

We believe creating spaces to connect and develop relationships will lead to lasting, positive change.

Our communities bring together social care practitioners, innovators and people with lived experience to create the energy and momentum for change.

They’re spaces for people to share their knowledge and ideas and to learn from others, creating relationships across different sectors and across Wales.

The communities meet both online and in person, while members can also connect through an online platform.

Here, the Insight Collective brings you some of the highlights of what’s been happening in our communities since the start of the year.

Launching a new support service

In March we launched our new communities of practice support and development service.

Our community managers want to share their knowledge and experience with others who think bringing people together could help them tackle a social care challenge.

That’s why we’ve created this service, to support people who might benefit from using a community approach. The service is open to people who are interested in exploring a community approach and those who’ve already started bringing people together.

By offering this support, we aim to help make sure that communities are planned and run in a way that gives them the best chance of achieving their goals.

To find out more about the service, whether you’re eligible and how to apply, visit our communities of practice support and development service page. Or register to join our next open information session.

Evidence Community 

Between January and March, the Evidence Community came together for three Reflecting on Evidence sessions. They looked at different journal articles on the themes of professional curiosity, fabricated or induced illness, and explored whether it’s ethical to tell lies to people with dementia.

A community of enquiry was held on the topic of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. This was facilitated by Nick Andrews from Developing Evidence Enriched Practice (DEEP) and Rebecca Govan from Birmingham City University.

The community also held its quarterly core group meeting. The Evidence Community core group is open to anyone who wants to have more of a say in the direction the community takes. If you’d like to become a member of this group, please contact rhiannon.wright@socialcare.wales. 

Several new blogs were published on the community’s online platform. Themes covered included celebrating social work with older people, anti-racist practice, supervision in child and family social work, strengths-based approaches in adult social care, and communication at end of life.

There were news articles shared about new practice guides for embedding evidence in children’s social care, recent autism and parental blame research, and new evidence-based guidance on the topic of parenting through adversity.

Join the Evidence Community 

What’s coming up?

The Place-Based Care Community will hold the next event in its ‘In the Loop’ series online on 29 April from 10am to 11am. The session will focus on guidance around creating trauma and adverse childhood experiences (TrACE) informed physical environments and feature a small group discussion. Sign up here.
The Place-Based Care Community will also hold an online event from 10.30am to 12pm on 8 May, where the focus will be an evidence summary around building trust with marginalised families. The session will look at some key concepts around the topic. Sign up here.
We've developed a series of online webinars in partnership with Traumatic Stress Wales and others, which take place between May 15 and July 2. The webinars focus on approaches to trauma in different circumstances and are open to anyone working in residential children's care. You can register for the webinars through the Social Care Wales events page.

Meet our community managers

Rhiannon Wright

Evidence Community

I’m passionate about making social care research and evidence accessible and easier to use in practice. I’m a qualified social worker and have a background in local authority children’s services. I also spent many years in the third sector working therapeutically with children, focussing on the topics of sexual exploitation, harmful sexual behaviour and developmental trauma. Just before joining Social Care Wales, I worked for a regional safeguarding board, coordinating adult and child practice reviews and developing their quality assurance strategy.

Lilla Vér

Place-Based Care Community

I look after our Place-Based Care Community. My role is to create and nurture a space for people to learn together, connect and support each other. My previous experiences include developing support pathways in the criminal justice and substance misuse systems and project management.

Mathew Morgan

Responsible Individuals Community

I've recently joined as the community manager for the Responsible Individuals (RI) Community. Before this, I worked within the fitness to practise hearings team. Prior to joining Social Care Wales I worked as an RI at the Swansea-based housing charity Goleudy. The charity specialises in supporting adults in transitional supported living settings. I oversaw the establishment of the RI role, the re-registration of services with Care Inspectorate Wales, the registration of domiciliary care staff with Social Care Wales and led the response to COVID-19.