Scottish Social Services Council.

Sector: Government

Our brief: How can we develop the social services workforce of the future in Scotland?

What we did: 100%Open Jam workshops with leading social services stakeholders in Scotland enabled us to explore some of the most pressing challenges to workforce development, identifying four themes: Demonstrating the difference that social services make; Preventing problems by involving communities; Providing truly person-centred services. We invited an online community of professionals, service-users and Service Design Graduates from Dundee University to develop ideas around these themes.

What happened: Within six weeks the community had almost 1,000 members and 107 potential innovations.

A panel, including a member of the Scottish Government, selected four ideas to be piloted: ‘Dementia Diaries’ to record lives and preferences of people newly diagnosed with dementia for friends, families and carers;

‘Blether-in’ using Skype to link early years workers and to enhance children’s experience at nursery;

‘Positive Wiring Positive People’, an interactive resource developed by and for young people to educate them on the effects of abuse and neglect;

‘Chartermark’, an accreditation to show that organisations are committed to professional development for their staff.

Local councils and regeneration agencies adopted these ideas.