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

04 November 2024

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 over the past two months.

Evidence Community

Our Evidence Community came together in September for a ‘Reflecting on Evidence’ session about our new evidence summary on supporting people to make decisions about their care.

The feedback on the session was very positive, with lots of people saying they'd now share the evidence summary with colleagues, and some saying they’d use it as part of a review of policies and training packages.

In October, the community held three ‘Research Conversations’ workshops on the themes of working together in safeguarding, social work with older people, and child criminal exploitation.

These sessions invited researchers from Cardiff University and the University of Sunderland to share their findings with the community.

An interesting new blog about avoiding some of the potential negative side-effects of co-production was published on the community’s online platform, along with a number of other blogs and news items.

A new discussion also took place on the platform about the impact of climate change on social care. Members shared some of the resources they’re working on in their different organisations to try and tackle the issue.

Join the Evidence Community

Responsible Individuals Community

After the summer, the Responsible Individuals Community started a new diary marker system to help improve attendance at the monthly gatherings and safeguard members’ time. This has been well received given people’s time constraints and busy schedules.

The community now holds a monthly gathering every second Friday of the month.

The September gathering was an opportunity for Responsible Individuals to meet Mathew Morgan, who is overseeing the community until next summer.

Members reflected on the insights shared from August’s gathering, and together started to develop themes for the next Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) inspector and Responsible Individual joint dialogue event.

These events bring CIW inspectors and Responsible Individuals together to discuss different topics and follow a successful pilot event that took place earlier in the year. We work with Nick Andrews from Developing Evidence Enriched Practice (DEEP) to deliver these sessions.

In October, the community gathering focused on strengths-based practice, with guest speakers Jessica Matthews and Jay Goulding from Social Care Wales. The group had a rich and insightful discussion around managing relationships as leaders, how to invest in new Responsible Individuals, and how to increase access to critical friends.

New Models of Children's Residential Care Community

Community members joined more than 100 other attendees for the Residential Childcare Conference, which was held in Cardiff and Llandudno in September. During the day, they reflected on our new evidence summary about supporting positive outcomes in children’s residential care, and heard from Flintshire County Council, Action for Children and Amberleigh Care about how they’ve implemented and sustained models of care. The day ended with DEEP leading a ‘magic moments’ exercise, while the highlight for many was hearing from Children's Commissioning Consortium Cymru's (4Cs) young commissioners about their experiences of care and what good care looks like to them.

In October, Dr Lisa Holmes came to speak to the community about the international ACORES 2024 conference, which she helped put together. She provided a summary of the presentations on the different models of care that were featured at the conference. Presentations from the conference will soon be made available on the Association of Children’s Residential & Community Services (ACRC) website, along with upcoming events, policy groups and webinars.

Place-Based Care Community

Despite unfortunately having to cancel a scheduled event in September, the Place-Based Care Community continued to bring members together through its ‘Coffee and Connect’ sessions.

Recent topics covered in these sessions have included events, new initiatives, transport in rural areas, and well-being.

Join the Place-Based Care Community

What’s coming up?

The Place-Based Care Community hosts an event on 4 November to discuss our evidence summary around supporting people to make decisions about their care. The discussion will cover areas such as agency, capacity and positive risk taking. This event follows a member’s suggestion around experimenting with new ways of bringing interesting information to the community in a concise way. Book your place.
The Place-Based Care Community will also be holding a session about Human Learning Systems on 19 November, where you can hear from people who’ve been thinking about the approach in relation to place-based approaches. This event was also suggested by members, while some will be on the panel. Book your place.
The Evidence Community will hold its next ‘Reflecting on Evidence’ session on 7 November, this time focusing on our evidence summary about supporting neurodivergent people and their families. Book your place.
The Evidence Community is also holding a community of enquiry on the subject of supervision in child and family social work on 20 November. This event is fully booked, but please contact rhiannon.wright@socialcare.wales if you’d like to be added to the reserve list.
The next meeting of the Responsible Individuals Community is on 8 November. This is a safe space for Responsible Individuals and those who'll soon take up the role. To find out more about the event, join the community.
The Responsible Individuals Commmunity's CIW inspector joint dialogue event on 27 November will focus on the theme of 'Finding the balance - exploring the complexities of relationship-centred practice and professional boundaries'. This event is fully booked.

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.