Digital technology and care – how do we promote more connected thinking?

The care my parents received in later life was important to me, my family and our friends.I know how much they would have enjoyed finding out about and using digital technology!

I was reminded of this when reading over 65 papers produced by more than 30 organisations exploring ageing, innovation, digital technology and access to information and resources. There is so much potential for digital technology to enable people to make new connections, contribute to person-centred support, develop community networks and new models of care so an obvious question is what is stopping more widespread adoption?

There is no shortage of innovations in digital technology and millions of pounds are being spent supporting further developments. It is less clear about the application, impact and usage of these innovations. One problem is the limited awareness in the sector and amongst the public about what is available and it’s value. I believe that a big deficit is the lack of a strategic approach to embedding digital technology in the range of options to support people to live more fulfilling lives. Most days I am answering questions about suitable technology products and services.(Sadly this is  not a service I am funded to provide so inevitably help is limited by my availability). A major reason why I produced the Click Guide to Digital Technology for Adult Social Care is to forge connections across a seemingly disparate sector which ranges from entrepreneurs, practitioners,  commissioners and self funding customers.

I welcome the Ageing and Innovation programme being developed by Nesta with a focus on innovating across our social institutions. The Living Map of Ageing Innovations highlights many interesting innovations.  #5hrsaday

Sharpening the Care Diamond by Matthew Taylor Chief Executive of the RSA  explores society’s capacity for providing care which comprises the market, the state, close family and the wider community.

David Wilcox and his team have been asking challenging questions in the Nominet Trust exploration  into using technology later in life “We know lots about innovation, digital tech & #socialcare now who will make it useful?” #dtlater

I recommend reading the inspiring approach developed by the Asset Based Community Development  Institute which focus on developing new ideas and strategies which are not needs based and funding-led, but instead use assets more effectively and promote citizen led initiatives. A recent discussion with Cormac Russell a faculty member of the ABCD Institute confirmed the importance of supporting  communities to actively engage in a democratic and inclusive way in co-producing stronger, safer and healthier neighbourhoods.

It is definitely worth following the Kings Fund Time to Think Differently programme aimed at stimulating debate about the changes needed for the NHS and social care to meet the challenges of the future. Excellent infographics and an analysis of future trends. #kfthink

These and many other initiatives are ensuring that technology acts as an enabler; exploring how community support can be developed;  promoting the user perspective in developing technologies and enabling people to live well with long term conditions. But I am most aware that there is a real need to encourage more strategic thinking which promotes collaboration and connected strategies. It is also essential that we can provide evidence of impact and outcomes in the use of digital technology. There are a lot of sceptics to be convinced! Individuals and organisations  need to have confidence in the products and services being provided by digital technology. Whilst many health technologies are possibly over evaluated much of the digital technology being developed for care is under evaluated.

I am concerned about potential duplication with the number of age and innovation projects currently underway. There does seem to be a lack of collaboration amongst organisations, researchers and innovators. How can we encourage the sharing of resources in ways that are discoverable for people requiring care and support, their family and friends and service commissioners?

There are a number of challenges. The care sector is complex and fragmented with a seemingly narrow focus on residential and home care. For me wellbeing comprises all of the services which make each of us feel safe, secure and supported in our community whatever our age or personal circumstances. I really hope the Health and Wellbeing Boards will be a catalyst for connecting key players in local communities  which includes  social services, health, housing, education, leisure services, the police, economic regeneration, charities and social enterprises , private providers and of course the purchasers and recipients of services.

We need to think differently  about how care is provided and there is a critical role for community development in  identifying and supporting  community builders and connectors  who may not be involved with any of the organisations represented on the Health and Wellbeing Boards.

In my paper for the Nominet Trust “Can online innovations enhance social care?” I suggest we explore the potential for developing a Community Wellbeing and Social Technology Innovation Hub. There are many organisations thinking about how care can be delivered more effectively with a focus on the needs and aspirations of the individual requiring support. I believe we need to develop a coherent and independent voice which will facilitate connections and challenge silo thinking amongst the hundreds of potentially competing stakeholders with an interest in this area. Mapping networks and community hubs would be a good start. We also urgently need to create a better shared understanding of technology innovations, the benefits and the limitations.

Just imagine if there was one trusted source where you could access the latest information about care and support innovations, get advice about selecting hardware and choosing apps, find support to get and stay online and understand which organisations are funding, researching and promoting digital technology across the wider care sector.

The way forward?

Convene a roundtable for all the funders of digital technology to explore   collaboration, sharing practice and a common approach to evaluating and promoting the outcomes and impacts of their investment.

Provide signposts which enable care recipients, their families and carers to find out what technology products and services are available, both through statutory services or to purchase independently.

Create, promote and participate in events that showcase innovations in care which could be adopted by local authorities, the NHS and housing providers.

Map all of the digital community hubs (however defined) which are available to ensure that people have access to local resources.  This would also identify areas where there is currently no support available.

Benchmark levels of awareness about technology innovations across the care sector and work with key players to promote and share the benefits of innovation.

I welcome your thoughts and ideas here or through Twitter @shirleyayres using the hashtag #deukcare

Available now! The Click Guide to Digital Technology for Adult Care

“technology supports the development of solutions that are tailored and accessible to individuals while also enabling their wide distribution at significantly lower cost than traditional services” Annika Small Nominet Trust

“My (printed) copy arrived this morning. Very well researched and informative. Well done Shirley – and thank you for mentioning new electronic version of Whose Shoes? – aligned to TLAP’s ‘Making It Real’. Planning launch programme with TLAP next week! “   Gill Phillips @WhoseShoes

All the information you need in one place

Whether you work in the public, private or not-for-profit sectors (or are a carer or use services), digital technology is transforming the way care services are delivered. It will not, of course, ever replace human contact, kindness, empathy and understanding. But it does allow people to connect in different ways, quickly and easily. Digital technology and social networks provide some of the most powerful tools available today for building a sense of belonging, support and sharing among groups of people who share similar interests and concerns.

The Click Guide to Digital Technology for Adult Social Care has been developed to help professionals, carers and service users make use of the fantastic resources which are already available across the whole spectrum of needs in adult social care today. We believe it is important to bring all of this information together in a single place. The Guide lists more than a hundred resources, spanning the areas of care, health and housing.

The Click Guide to Digital Technology for Adult Social Care can be downloaded instantly as  an eBook at a cost of £3-99 or ordered as a hard copy printed publication.

NB: If you are using a computer you will need the free Adobe Digital programme.  Clicking on the downloaded book should prompt you to install this if you do not have it already.  On a tablet you need to identify the correct app for reading an epub (on an iPad this is iBooks). If you still cannot open the book we advise you to contact the Lulu technical support team

Contact us to find out about the discounts available for bulk orders of the printed publication.

The smartC4RE EU project are looking for UK partners (adjacent to the North Sea)

 An ageing population is growing in all European countries, more specifically in rural areas. This demographic change has been identified as a common challenge. Smart Caring Rural Communities (smartC4RE) is an EU funded project exploring e-health, integrated care, active and healthy ageing and e-learning. The project aims to maintain, enhance and reinforce accessible and affordable social, home and health care systems. The use of digital technologies is an important part of reaching this goal.

smartC4RE is focussed at the needs of people living in the participating regions in the seven countries around the North Sea. The overall target is to enable EU citizens to lead healthy, active and independent lives while ageing. Orkney Island Council is a potential project partner and the partnership is now looking for other UK public project partners adjacent to the North Sea.

Jan Walberg the project manager is prepared to come and visit potential project partners to explain the possibilities and advantages of EU projects. This could be an interesting development for a Health and Wellbeing Board in the right geographical location.

For more information contact Jan bureau.walburg@iaf.nl @BureauWalburg or visit the project’s website www.smartC4RE.eu 

Can online innovations enhance social care?

 Can online innovations enhance social care? My new provocation paper for the Nominet Trust is published today along with the first in a series of posts exploring the challenges.

 

I hope that you will add your thoughts to this important debate! 

Could crowdfunding support new ways of thinking in care?

“Knowledge is useless if it’s exclusive. If you really want change, you really want it to be inclusive, where everyone’s included, otherwise you’re just going to have more of the same in the future.” will.i.am interviewed in the Guardian 15th December 2012 @iamwill

I am fortunate to be connected to over 10,000 people through social networks. If each person in my network invested £7-00 we could produce a weekly Disruptive Social Care podcast throughout 2013. Or if innovative care organisations sponsored a show we would reach our target even more quickly!

The podcasts were developed to promote innovative thinking about care in the 21^st century by bringing people and ideas together. With over 5000 downloads and views of the Disruptive Social Care podcast we have created a unique communications platform.

When Stu and I launched the Disruptive Social Care podcasts we wanted to spread the word about care innovations, share great ideas and promote the value of digital technology to help people and communities connect and collaborate. We recognised the need for digital leadership to drive the adoption of technology in care.

We are passionate about ensuring that good practice in care, health, housing, education, employment and research is promoted and shared. We want Disruptive Social Care to become the benchmark for innovators. To date we have self funded the podcasts. We hope that there are enough innovative individuals and organisations who share our values and will help us to reach a bigger audience.

“The social care sector produces tons of outputs in the forms of papers and reports and so on and I struggle to keep up with a lot of it quite frankly, but I never struggle to find time to listen to your weekly podcast, and I think what is distinctive about it is that you offer a fresh take on a lot of the challenges that we face and I don’t think there’s anything quite like it, so do keep it up, I think it’s a really refreshing contribution, and challenge actually, to the way we do things”

Richard Humphries, Assistant Director of Policy The Kings Fund @richardatkf 

Giving a voice to innovators is essential if we are to develop care services fit for the 21^st century. Dare I suggest that publishing 50 reports will not be as effective as Simone Florio talking about the inspiring Healthy Living Club at Lingham Court @HLCC supporting people living with dementia, Anthony Ribot @RibotMaximus discussing user experience, design and  Threedom the world’s simplest smartphone and Mark Brown @markoneinfour sharing his thoughts about the need for radical changes in mental health services.

We need your help and support to continue to produce our independent, provocative and edgy weekly shows. And a very big thank you to our first friends and supporters! @FOL_LTD @Ermintrude2 @Recovery4_me @BPDFFS @MindingsStu @clarkmike 

How to sponsor the Disruptive Social Care podcast Any questions? Do contact me if you need an invoice before sponsoring the podcasts. @shirleyayres

Will we succeed with our very ambitious vision? If innovation and new ways of thinking about care is part of your DNA we hope you will support us. Only time will tell but do keep  an eye  on how many innovative organisations are prepared to sign up and support us!

Crowdsourcing information on councils, commissioning and innovation

An interesting Twitter discussion prompted by a session at the All Change! 2012:  Reshaping Local Public Services event organised by Improvement and Efficiency East Midlands with the underlying themes of commissioning and new models of service delivery.

Community Catalysts are an innovative social enterprise working to harness the talents of people and communities to provide high quality small scale, local care and support services. @CommCats

Whose Shoes was founded by Gill Phillips who is passionate about personalisation in health and social care. Whose Shoes? is an innovative resource which engages people to deliver public services in more creative ways. @WhoseShoes

#allchange12 market position statements, telecare and much more beckons today at the ICC @IEWM_Pete @TCG_CIC #socialcare #IEWM—
Matt Bowsher (@MattBowsher1) December 07, 2012

@inglisjen @MattBowsher1 I agree we need a different focus for commissioning community wellbeing services—
Shirley Ayres (@shirleyayres) December 07, 2012

@MattBowsher1 Q for debate how many commissioners understand the difference between procurement & commissioning? #allchange12—
Shirley Ayres (@shirleyayres) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres #solacewin hmm that's a hard one – I know a good few who *know* the difference but maybe struggle to *do* the difference!—
Community Catalysts (@CommCats) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres #solacewin …think Leeds are doing some interesting stuff with @TheSocBiz too —
Community Catalysts (@CommCats) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres #solacewin some of the LAs we work with are commissioning the development of the micro market (without procuring anything)…—
Community Catalysts (@CommCats) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres #solacewin would direct you to @nottscc (stars), Newham, Dudley, Wigan, Barking, Walsall, Oldham and Herts for that…—
Community Catalysts (@CommCats) December 07, 2012

@CommCats @shirleyayres I think York is looking into procurement – making it more flexible depending on the size & nature of contract—
Rob Greenland (@TheSocBiz) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres @thesocbiz @commcats @mickmodern NOT the LA of my new follower @sarasiobhan by sound of it! #personalisation #Innovation—
Gill Phillips (@WhoseShoes) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres @whoseshoes @thesocbiz @commcats @mickmodern Not Oxfordshire for sure..—
sara (@sarasiobhan) December 07, 2012

Interesting Q from @dominiccampbell – is adult #socialcare too much of a closed system unwilling to listen & learn from other sectors?—
Shirley Ayres (@shirleyayres) December 07, 2012

.@shirleyayres Definitely @LeicsCountyHall. Just entering Phase 2 of their #innovation challenge – @CommCats to blog in 2013 #socialcare—
Gill Phillips (@WhoseShoes) December 07, 2012

Feels like a lot of innovation in #localgov right now is trendy rather than focused on better cheaper services. Risky path #allchange12—
Dominic Campbell (@dominiccampbell) December 07, 2012

@shirleyayres think there's lots of innovation & progress in different aspects of #personalisation – little bits of bigger national jigsaw?—
Community Catalysts (@CommCats) December 07, 2012

RT @DrNaeemAhmed: Innovators are likely to be found on the shop floor – constrained & not incentivised for innovation. #hsjsummit—
Shirley Ayres (@shirleyayres) November 30, 2012

I always think it is amazing the information that can be collected in a a few tweets!

If your organisation would like help in developing an online survey do get in contact! @shirleyayres 

How the internet and digital technology can combat isolation

In a week that Jeremy Hunt announced a new initiative to combat the isolation and loneliness experienced by millions of people it does seem extraordinary that so few local authorities and Health and Wellbeing Boards are  exploring how digital technology can connect people and communities. With an increasing number of web and mobile based applications from simple information to more complex care management tools digital technology has the potential to transform the delivery of care and support in communities. It is fair to comment that access to high speed broadband will be an essential element to realising the full potential of digital technology for providing.

An impressive amount of research has been undertaken and reports produced to explore the challenges, barriers and opportunities of encouraging older people to use the internet and digital technology to live more independent and fulfilling lives.  The internet and digital technology has a very valuable role to play in providing access to services and support to those who have difficulty accessing them in the offline world.

Recent studies have linked internet use to mental health problems and loneliness among young people but recent research from the University of Alabama shows that older people who utilize the internet for social purposes are less likely to suffer from depression

 “Technology is a vital part of human existence. They show us that the right tools, in the right hands, can help everyone, regardless of our frailties, to achieve our true potential and advance as a civilisation.” Professor Stephen Hawking accepting his  AbilityNet ‘Excellence in Accessibility Award’ at the Technology4Good awards September 2012

I would like to introduce you to just a few examples of exciting and cost effective innovations which could be promoted by local authorities. Many more example are included in my forthcoming eBook “The Click Guide to Digital Technology for Care”

DropBy is an interactive website for people over 60 and their families. It is designed to help keep older people ‘in touch’ by providing a secure place for the over 60s to meet both online and in real life. Joining DropBy can provide a life-line for those who live alone, in residential care or who are feeling isolated. Membership is free and privacy is a priority.  Twitter @MaryBDropBy

Casserole Club is a food sharing network, bringing local communities together around home-cooked food. Currently being piloted in Surry there are plans to extend the service across the country. There are a lot of people cooking food who would be happy to cook a bit extra to share with isolated neighbours who would appreciate a home cooked meal. The goal of Casserole is to connect the two using online and offline connections. This is a great way for local communities to tackle social isolation. Twitter @Casserole_Club

Hear Murtz Abidi founder of the Casserole Club talking about the inspiration behind Casserole on the Disruptive Social Care podcast.

The Good Gym makes it easy for people to combine exercise with doing good in their local community. The Good Gym unlocks volunteering potential by channelling the energy that people spend on exercising and turning it into positive social action. It was set up to connect elderly and isolated local residents with a runner on a mission: to get fit, do something useful and to provide social interaction. The Good Gym currently operates in East London.
Twitter @goodgym

Mindings uses technology and social media to enable people to send personal captioned photos. text messages and calendar reminders to a digital display instantly from a mobile phone. This is especially important when families are widely dispersed and want an easy way of keeping in touch and connected whether they are living at home, in residential care, in hospital or in different parts of the world. Twitter @MindingsStu

Update 3rd December 2012. Delighted to hear that  Mindings has recently  won £100,000 of funding to pilot the service within a local integrated health and social care system in the Midlands and East of England.

“I’m thrilled that the potential of Mindings has been recognised. My co-developer Ian Pleasance and I are incredibly excited about working with DACS, Age UK and the East of England local authorities to connect families and help combat loneliness and social isolation!”  Stuart Arnott Mindings Founder

I understand that accessing and learning about the digital world can be a challenge for many individuals. Research shows that learning in the later stages of life can boost confidence, give residents a more positive outlook on life and delay the onset of dementia. While some older people have a good grasp of how to use computers already, many lack confidence in their ability to learn something new.

Gen2Gen is an intergenerational  IT mentoring scheme, which involves young people working on a one to one basis with Abbeyfield residents to help  them access digital technology and social media. UK Youth is providing training for young volunteers.  These young volunteers will then support older people in Abbeyfield to use the internet, continue their hobbies and interests and stay in contact with friends and family. Twitter @ukyv   and @TheAbbeyfield

Alive is using digital technology to help older people in residential care to re-live a wealth of experiences and achievements and reinvigorate past interests. Identifying shared experiences and interests creates a focus for conversation, helping introverted, isolated people to join in and connect with both care home staff and other residents. Twitter @aliveactivities

Chill4usCarers provides a support forum run by volunteer family carers and ex carers. Social media is used very actively to raise awareness and support for carers. The Carers’ forum offers information, news and views and the  online chat room is open 24 hours a day. Chill4usCarers organises Computers4carers which provides free computers for carers. Twitter @Chill4usCarers

Quite simply what people need are signposts to help them explore what technology products and services are available, both through statutory services or to purchase independently. A critical factor for organisations is ensuring that internal structures and culture are designed to embrace change and foster a willingness to learn new skills and engage with digital technology. The many innovations being supported by funders suggest there is no shortage of ideas for applying digital technology to the challenging problems confronting society including isolation.

We have developed the Care in a Digital Age programme to help public sector bodies explore the potential of the internet and digital technology to join up all of the different innovations which have the potential to transform lives. Do contact me if you would like your local authority or Health and Wellbeing Board to be involved in this exciting initiative.

Introducing the NHS Social Care Portal and PQP

Guest post by Mark Chapman Founder of The BetterCare Guide a site which allows the public to search for care and comment on care providers.  It is the only site of its kind that is open source and covers the UK. Mark runs reallycare CIC a social enterprise on a mission: to promote  transparency, standards and open source software in social care. Mark tweets as @reallycare_mark

The Department of Health (DH) have recently announced something that they currently refer to simply as “the portal” which they see as being the definitive online advice and information site for social care in England.  I have been at a few meetings and conferences where it has been discussed and prepared this short introduction.

It appears that the portal will be part of the NHS Choices site, building on the current social care section.  The advice section will contain an explanation of the care system, with content around  financial planning (long term and crisis), prevention and rehabilitation.  There will also be information about providers.  At this point you may be thinking so why is this worth doing?  What will this site offer that is not already available in whole or in part from a confusingly large (and growing) number of charity, private and not for profit sites? It is estimated that there are now at least 30 care quality rating websites.

The USP is the Provider Quality Profile (PQP).  This will collate information about providers from a variety of sources – Care Quality Commission (CQC), public feedback (which may be collated from other sites), Healthwatch, Skills for Care and the providers themselves.  Skills for Care will provide data about staff turnover and levels of qualification. The providers will have an opportunity to market their services and they will be requested (but not required) to provide metrics about various aspects of their performance.  For instance residential care providers might report on the numbers of falls, and domiciliary care providers on the numbers of missed visits.  Full details are being discussed between the Department of Health and social care bodies. The PQP is seen as a means of informing the public about quality in a meaningful way and consequently improving quality of provision.

However, much of this information will not be available for personal assistants, who are now thought to be in the majority in the social care workforce.

The site will go live in April 2013 and is expected to iterate rapidly through the next year.  The 111 telephone service will offer something approaching equivalent functionality for people the wrong side of the digital divide.

I am not closely involved with this project and if there are inaccuracies and omissions in the information provided please don’t hesitate to comment.

 

Can Social Media be taught?

I have been on the periphery of a few conversations and discussions about the use of social media both for teaching and learning and about use of social media more formally in training and learning. Some partly alluded to in this post.

I am generally of the mind that use of  social media are best considered broadly within communication skills and that there may be some forms of guidance that can be offered, mostly in terms of modelling behaviours, it isn’t a subject that either can or should be taught as a distinct subject matter.

These are my reasons

1) We are still at the early stages of knowing, learning and understanding the possibilities, format and etiquette of interactions which take place online. By ‘teaching’ we codify a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way where the right and wrong should merely be an extension of what we consider to be ethical practice and conduct in all spheres of life and communication.

2) We are confusing the tools and the medium for the content. Platforms come and go – from Usenet, bulletin boards, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs – the media can, does and will change. Teaching someone the basic IT skills to set up a WordPress blog is one thing and can be enormously helpful but teaching them what they should or should not put on it?

I think that’s better left to the community around them. Yes, mistakes will be made but that’s how learning grows. If someone doesn’t realise that disclosing details of a visit on their own blog is counter to professional codes of ethics, it isn’t because they don’t ‘get’ social media, it’s because they don’t ‘get’ professional codes of confidentiality.

3) Identifying self-appointed ‘experts’ who do the ‘teaching’ is a tricky area. What makes someone an ‘expert’ in social media? Is it someone with 5,000 followers on Twitter? Numbers are meaningless – followers can be bought and it’s more important who those followers are. Is an expert someone with a blog that has a following? Well, they might be an expert in writing a particular blog about a particular subject but I don’t think that gives them an authority globally. Or is it an academic that has written extensively on and about social media?Perhaps but it is a sector where the learning by doing is particularly prominent.

Learning about the theory of social networks is fascinating but does it help with the practical implementation? And what is ‘good use’ of social media anyway? Building a supportive network of people who think in the same way? Extending ideas and focus of knowledge? Learning about new research? We have different and fluid outcomes that are personal and individual – so how can a syllabus capture that? I’m not sure. Should it try? That’s a really key question.  If there’s one area that self-directed learning and understanding really should flourish, I suspect it may well be this area.

4) Social Media is about building relationships and trust. No one can teach you to be authentic if you aren’t. No one can build an authority for you. You live or die on the content, information and relationships you build.

5) I worry that by creating a culture of ‘learning’ and ‘teaching’ we are imposing a hierarchy of a system of ‘people who know’ and ‘people who don’t’ into an area that thrives particularly because it is able to break things down.

So how do we learn and ensure that people learn to use these networks safely?

I say by relying on just diving in and perhaps modelling some behaviour around ‘mentors’ – asking and helping as we go. Perhaps when we see people new to these networks we all take a responsibility to offer suggestions and advice.  When I helped someone set up their facebook account, I went straight into the privacy settings with them and explained them.

Sometimes people need to be guided around the etiquette within different networks and forums and a gentle guiding hand can be useful.

My worry is that more formal teaching/learning will lose the instinctive learning-by-doing and learning-by-experimenting which have led to some amazing opportunities.

I’d be really interested in the views of others about this though. After all, we are all still learning. I don’t have the answers and I am willing to be swayed on this as it’s based pretty much on my own experiences and thoughts. So please do feel free to persuade me otherwise!

Reflections from #localgovcamp

I spent Saturday in Birmingham, attending ‘LocalGovCamp’ an ‘unconference for local government’.  I want to share some of my initial thoughts, impressions and reactions and look at ways forward particularly for the social care sector where I work.

This was the third ‘unconference’ I’ve been to but I’ve not been specifically to LocalGovCamp before. As it’s my third, I feel almost like I’m beginning to understand the process but each have their own flavours and soon I realised that the melding of blogging/tweeting anonymously and turning up at events which have an underlying assumption of openness don’t always meld!

There are a lot of people with a lot of confidence, experience and knowledge and they actively want to share. I felt that at times I had to stop and absorb in order to learn and the live tweeting tailed off as I found it difficult to think, tweet and reflect simultaneously. As someone who is a bit ‘arms length’ from my employers, it was good to feel a part of the ‘local government’ community and I think it’s really important that people like me (not necessarily me personally, I’m probably less confident at these things than I should be) who are on the frontline of practice and service delivery attend as we can add something to the mix – I think!  It’s easy to be a bit intimidated around impressive and confident people but everyone was very kind, warm and welcoming.

I attended a number of sessions including one specifically about social care. I was able to get a broader idea and impression of the place of social work within social care and the place of social care within local authority services.

I want to reflect particularly on that for a moment.

The broad theme of social care drew more interest than I’d expected. I think I always assume that there’s little interest in our work in the ‘town hall’ because we don’t get much feedback and feel a bit distant – especially as I’m seconded into a Mental Health team and can’t get my intranet/email from my local authority employers, let alone accessing any of their databases!

I kind of suspect that they forget we exist so even by proxy turning up at broad ‘local government’ themed events maybe tips a few people off that we are out there, visiting people in their homes every day and actively conducting local authority business, implementing the  policy decided in offices and being a crucial contact between the citizen and the organisation.

A lot of opportunities exist at present in the context  of the recently published Adult Care White Paper which pushes a ‘digital by default’ agenda to local authorities in terms of ensuring information is well propagated beyond those who are ‘eligible’ for care services. There are also increasingly going to be stronger pushes forward to ‘ratings’ sites and responses being collated into information that is vibrate and responsive rather than static.

So where is this work going to fall? Will it be a task given within a back office in commissioning or communication departments? Probably.  I made a plea that there is some involvement from the frontline services that currently exist and hope at least that will be considered in parts.

In some ways health are further ahead with more useful information sites and some of those will be rolled out into social care including 111 telephone response services  – I wonder if local authorities really know what they have been tasked to provide at this point.

Social care is an area where work and progress can make an immediate and active positive impact on the lives of those who might not be those who are shouting loudest.  Broadening commissioning will help, as explained in the White Paper and that will be done by broadening conversations about commissioning and honestly about what is working badly as well as what is working well.

One day, I’d love to see some more  senior people within my own council attending events like this.

Could there be a similar event specifically around social care? I’d like to see it. There are a lot of people who have great passion for the sector but the true value in these unconferences, particularly those outside working hours, are that the people who attend are those who choose to and who want to make things better, differently.

It isn’t all about new technology and new media. It’s sometimes about those meetings, those one to one conversations and discussions by people who can inspire and jog each other to promote change in the areas they work in.

A last thought, which is to mention #lgovsm . I attended the session discussing the community that meets ‘on Twitter’ between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on Tuesdays and provides an opportunity to build discussions outside our specific areas of specialism and expertise across local government as a sector.  It was great to meet some of the people behind the conversations and I’m enthused to follow and attend these chats more regularly.

Top down and bottom up conversations are becoming more common as some of the ‘traditional hierarchies’ are being challenged by new ways of communicating–  let’s have more of the cross-sector horizontal conversations. Let’s learn in social care from health, housing, environmental health and street cleaning about ways to engage and grasp the imagination of the public and the sector in terms of promoting new ways of doing things. Let’s learn from our comms teams about how they work and operate and the stories they want to hear from us.  Let’s not hide in a ‘social care’ silo when there is so much information, knowledge, sharing and desire to share with us. Those are opportunities and they should be grasped in any and every way possible.

Let’s make social care and social work work better, but let’s also make local government and local government provided services work better all round. The two are inherently linked and I am passionately committed to being a part of a local authority that delivers the best services it can for all the citizens for whom it works – yes, my ‘specialism’ may well be social care and health but my interest is in involvement and participation at a fair broader level. Thinking ‘holistically’ needs thinking beyond the sector and that’s the joy of these events.

That’s what I learned.  That wasn’t bad for one Saturday in July. I’ll take that.

Thanks to those who organised, coordinated and sponsored this event. It was a pleasure to attend and be a part of it and like a slow cooker, I’m germinating a lot of ideas that I expect will take a good few months to bubble to the top.