WELCOME BACK!

Dear Members, we hope that you have had a good summer break and for those of you that have been running summer services, we hope you had good fun and enjoyed the hot weather! It's going to be a busy few months for SOSCN, coming next month we have our now fully booked national learning event taking place in Glasgow, and our Creative Computing STEM training starts up again. We also continue to offer physical activity training and will soon be rolling out heart-start training. Contained within this newsletter you will find information on all of the above, as well as everything else we have been doing.

SOSCN NEWS

Creative Computing Training

SOSCN's successful STEM Creative Computing training is running again in 2018 and 2019. We still have a limited number of places available for our course starting in September this year, as well as places in our course starting in Jan 2019. Previous students really enjoyed the course and participants each receive a STEM creative computing kit worth over £400 for their service. For further information please see this link:
soscn.org/participate/stem

Seeing the Whole Child, 22nd Sep - Now Fully Booked

SOSCN's 'Seeing the Whole Child' event is now fully booked. Thanks to those of you who have booked a place. Apologies to those of you who we were unable to offer a place to this time. We are looking into organising a second event, similar in content, at a later date. We will keep you posted with the outcome of this.

Membership Focus - T.A.S.C.

T.A.S.C. based in St Ninian's Primary in Glasgow were successfully awarded funding through the Voluntary Action Fund: Glasgow Children's Summer Food Programme 2018. The service has been operating over summer for a couple of hours, 4 days a week, to provide lunch and family activities to local residents. With the help of social media, the initiative has become very well used and exceeded expectations, so much so that due to the demand they extended the initial 4-week period for an extra week.

Moreover, earlier this year T.A.S.C. were awarded with the Fairer Glasgow Employer Award. This award is made from Glasgow Guarantee and given out to employers who have put in place policies and practices to improve the working lives of their employees in areas such as respect, fulfilment, security, and opportunity.

T.A.S.C. continue to look to improve their service and recently achieved their LGBT Charter Award, presented by LGBT Youth Scotland. Irene Audain from SOSCN went along to their awarding ceremony to lend her congratulations to the service. By achieving the charter an organisation is demonstrating and promoting equality to all services users i.e., children and their families, as well as staff. T.A.S.C. now have policies in place to support the LGBT community and these policies also include a transgender policy that includes looking at practical ways that the service can support transgender staff. To find out more about the award, please see this link: https://www.lgbtyouth.org.uk/lgbt-charter/

Here are some words from their service manager, Christine Gray, on their journey:

LGBT CHARTER - OUR JOURNEY

BACKGROUND

A chance discussion with a staff member from Woman's Aid on LGBT led to me becoming aware of the impact that discrimination towards the LGBT community has on families and children. I learned about their Charter and how by achieving the LGBT Charter we could offer new ways to support our service users. This discussion then led me to make contact with LGBT Scotland and ask them for support to achieve their Charter.

LGBT SCOTLAND AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CHARTER

Through discussion with LGBT Youth we took this forward and all the staff took part in LGBT training. This training highlighted the need to embark on this journey as we learned the impact that non-acceptance due to their LGBT status has on children and that unfortunately for some children discrimination and lack of understanding led to some of them to commit suicide.

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

From the onset it was important that all staff and parents/carers were involved. A survey monkey was completed to enable us to look at the parent's experiences and knowledge of the LGBT community. Discussion groups with parents followed and then we all started to work towards the charter.

GOING FOR GOLD AND OUR EXPERIENCE

Through the enthusiasm and commitment of staff and all the service users it became apparent that we were heading in the direction of a Gold Award. Children were actively involved in a range of activities that encouraged them to respect everyone. Many activities took place around the LGBT theme and around the 'Hate Campaign'. One of our main successes was that some children worked on designing a large banner that was presented to Pride Glasgow for display at the Pride event. Our journey led to other resources becoming available to the children and their families. We purchased a wide range of LGBT child friendly books for the children to access, and also created a 'lending library' for the parents, so that they could freely use this opportunity to open up discussions with their children. The staff all participated in LGBT training initially and this was followed up with Transgender training.

NEXT STEPS

We have now achieved our Gold Charter and I feel proud that my staff and service users have worked alongside us to support this achievement. As an organisation I helped established over 20 years ago I feel proud at the passion that we all share in supporting service users and staff to feel valued, accepted and respected. This award will be proudly accepted alongside recent and previous wards including our Disability Awareness Charter, Our Investors in People Award (2015), Our Investors in Young People Award (2018), Glasgow West Regeneration Agency Social Economy Growth Organisation Of The Year Award and also our Glasgow's Fairer Employer Award (2018). We are also proud to have been shortlisted and a finalist last year for a SSSC Award - Living The Codes (2017).

SOSCN congratulates T.A.S.C. on their innovative work and equalities awareness, and also for their good work within the community, well done to all!

Here are a few snaps from their Summer Food Programme and LGBT award.

AQS NEWS

AWARDS UPDATE

We have recently awarded 2 more services their Achieving Quality Scotland Awards:

• Monkey Puzzle Glasgow Central, Glasgow, has been awarded a GOLD star
• Cumbernauld and Kilsyth Workplace Nursery and Out of School Care, Cumbernauld, has been awarded a BRONZE star

Well done to everybody involved.

Monkey Puzzle Glasgow Central

OTHER NEWS

National Early Learning and Childcare (ELC) Recruitment Campaign

The Scottish Government are looking for workers within out of school care services and nurseries to become Early Learning and Childcare Ambassadors. The Ambassadors will be asked to participate in local roadshows held in schools and to share with young people what it's really like to work in ELC, and to answer any questions. Previous roadshows have found that male school leavers were inspired by male ELC ambassadors.

The roadshows will be held in various local authorities across Scotland in October/November this year and January/February 2019. Ambassadors will be paid expenses (expenses would cover time off work, travel and childcare if needed).

If you, or an employee/colleague, are interested in becoming an Ambassador please in the first instance contact SOSCN - info@soscn.org - detailing name, job title, service name and address, telephone number and email address. Once we have received these we shall pass them on to the relevant contact in the Scottish Government for further follow-up. It would be great to see out of school care Ambassadors across Scotland!

Stalled Spaces Scotland

SOSCN recently met with Architecture and Design Scotland (A+DS) to have a discussion about environment and place, and how this relates to out of school care. We discussed how we (people in general) are often unaware of all that is available to us in our local communities in terms of spaces and resources, and how we should map them and then consider how they could not only benefit our service and children but also the wider community.

The first fully outdoor registered out of school care in Scotland, Off Grid Kids, runs from one such previously neglected urban space.

A+DS has produced a "Stalled Spaces Scotland Toolkit" which provides step-by-step guidance how to go about transforming unloved spaces in our communities- maybe your OSC service could help transform a space locally...

Stalled Spaces Scotland Toolkit:
https://www.ads.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Stalled-Spaces-Scotland_Toolkit.pdf

SOSCN BLOG

Animal Magic- animals in care settings and children in animal settings...

The Care Inspectorate have recently published the document 'Animal Magic. The benefits of being around and caring for animals across care settings'. The document highlights:

“...the ways many people get the most out of life by being around or caring for animals and pets... Animal Magic gives examples of animals enhancing the quality of life of children and adults. People experiencing care have told us that being around animals helps them relax, provides companionship, enhances their relationships, gives them a positive focus to their lives, encourages them to be active and makes them feel happier... Contact with animals can also enhance relationships with their families, their friends and with care professionals.” (p 4)

The benefit to children and additional support needs is also highlighted:

“It can be easier to build up a relationship with an animal than a person. There is warmth, affection and trust.” (p 5)

The document provides examples of care settings where children and adults being cared for come into close contact with animals, including: trainee guide dogs in a nursery; a childminder who is based on a farm; and, inter-generational work between a nursery and adult care home where animals bring the generations together.

Although there is no out of school care example in the document, back in June SOSCN visited a recently opened out of school care service in Aberdeen which is based within a petting zoo and park. Yes, you heard correctly: a petting zoo and park!

Hazelhead Trailblazerz

Hazelhead Trailblazerz is located in Hazelhead Park in Aberdeen, run by Community Link Childcare (CliCC), and has only been open since May this year. CliCC is a local charity which run several out of school care and holiday services across the city. The park and petting zoo are owned and managed by Aberdeen City Council who have enthusiastically supported the development and opening of the service.

The out of school care has access to toilets and indoor space at the petting zoo and aquarium- the education room (which becomes the out of school care room) looks onto the meerkats and giant tortoise enclosure. Some exotic pets for the service!

Outside the children are able to access the green space and play equipment. The plan is that for most of the time children will be based outdoors- this was easy during the great summer weather but may prove a bit more challenging in the dark winter nights. However, there are always the animals to care for...

We watch with interest to see how the service develops and we shall look at ways of spreading this model of outdoor delivery in other urban settings across Scotland.

'Animal Magic':

http://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/4476/Animal%20Magic_2018.pdf

Community Link Childcare

http://www.communitylinkchildcare.org.uk

RESEARCH

Australian Research on Older Children in OSC

“Eat, play, go, repeat”: Researching with older primary-age children to re-theorise School Age Care by Dr Ian Bruce Hurst (PhD thesis)

“This research used a combination of participatory methods and ethnography to gain a deeper insight into older children's experiences of SAC, seeking their views about how to successfully program for this age group.”

Available to download for free: https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/190706

“Children aged nine to twelve years in Outside School Hours Care in Australia” by Ian Bruce Hurst (Masters Research thesis)

“This thesis is a qualitative research project into the experiences of nine older children aged nine to twelve years attending OSHC at one of three research sites in Melbourne, Australia. In OSHC, older children are a minority group that practitioners have long regarded as more challenging than those aged 5 to 8 years. How practitioners currently understand older children appears to be greatly influenced by developmental theory.”

Download here: https://minerva-access.unimelb.edu.au/handle/11343/38136

'A New Deal for Children?' – what happened next: a cross-national study of transferring early childhood services into education

Bronwen Cohen, Peter Moss, Pat Petrie & Jennifer Wallace (2018)

Early Years - An International Research Journal

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ceye20

TRAINING

SOSCN Physical Activity and Wellbeing Training

We continue to offer our free to members 'Physical Activity and Wellbeing' training. There are 2 sessions in the series that set out to give participants an understanding of the importance of physical activity, as well as provide them with skills for getting children of all abilities to take part in, and overcome the barriers to, getting active. The second session looks further at the benefits of physical activity in terms of developing children's s kills and attributes, and looks in more detail at resources and activities promoting inclusion, self-awareness and goal-directed behaviour. For further information please see this link: soscn.org/participate/active-training

Free Online Training from NHS Health Scotland

NHS Health Scotland are here to provide workers and volunteers in the NHS, wider public sector, private and third sectors across Scotland with the knowledge and skills to help tackle a range of health inequalities issues.

Whether you'd like to find the right approach to mitigating health inequalities in areas such as alcohol and drugs, healthy weight or suicide prevention - or if you want to understand more about preventing health inequalities - these learning opportunities will give you the confidence to take the right action within your own area of work.

Their resources are developed with experts from across Scotland's learning, healthcare and third sectors.

Many of the learning resources can be used flexibly to fit around you and your working day.

Develop your skills, enhance your practice and improve the health of others- have a look at the training brochure:

http://www.healthscotland.scot/media/1252/learning-opportunities-to-reduce-health-inequalities-nov2016-english.pdf

SSSC Child Development App

The SSSC have an app aimed at early learning and childcare workers which covers the key aspects of child development and learning. Although primarily focused on the earliest years it does provide information about development milestones for 4 and 5 year olds. That said to be able to support older children as workers we should know and understand their development in earlier years- this app provides a useful overview.

The questions and prompts for reflective practice can also be applied to working with older children.

On completion of this app you can apply for a SSSC open badge so is also a good PRTL opportunity.

http://learn.sssc.uk.com/apps/development/#/reader/chapter/0

SSSC Mentoring for Early Learning and Childcare Services App

This app from the SSSC provides a framework and guidance as to how best support staff through effective mentoring.

This app is also part of the SSSC open badge system.

http://learn.sssc.uk.com/apps/mentoring/#/reader/chapter/0

NHS Education Scotland E-Learning

NHS Education for Scotland have launched their first free e-learning module. This module will help you to identify what to measure, what data to collect, how to interpret the data and tell your quality improvement story.

https://learn.nes.nhs.scot/3870/quality-improvement-zone/elearning

Free E-learning courses with ACS

ACAS have a number of free e-learning courses available online, including Conflict resolution, Contracts of Employment, Handling Redundancy, Managing Absence, and many more.

Find out more here: http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=2113

Upcoming free training with future learn

Communicating Effectively with Vulnerable Children and Young People

Discover tools and techniques to engage effectively with vulnerable children and young people.

Starts 1st October 2018 | https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/communicating-with-vulnerable-children

Care Inspectorate and SSSC

Scotland's Health and Social Care Standards

The Care Inspectorate has recently published an academic paper titled 'Scotland's Health and Social Care Standards' which examines the factors that influenced the development of the Scottish model and explores the implications for the future of care and care scrutiny.

Authored by Henry Mathias this paper follows previous academic papers that have been published, which contribute to the body of specialist knowledge regarding care scrutiny and will be included in reading materials for the Care Inspectorate's Professional Development Award.

Read more here: http://www.careinspectorate.com/index.php/news/4480-scotland-s-health-and-social-care-standards

Guidance for Care Providers in Scotland Using CCTV

Download the guidance here: http://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/4412/CCTV%20guidance%20v2.pdf

Use of Social Media as a Social Care Worker

Do you know about the SSSC's guidance on using social media?

The SSSC's social media guidance for social service workers provides general advice, however workers should always refer to their own employer's policies or guidance on the use of social media as it will be particular to the service where you work.

Code 5.8 of the Code of Practice for Social Service Workers says:

“I will not behave, while in or outside work, in a way which would bring my suitability to work in social services into question.”

This includes using social media as the important thing is how you behave online, not the fact you use social media.

How you behave on social media should be at the same high standard as your day-to-day behaviour and you must maintain professional boundaries at all times.

Find out more: http://www.sssc.uk.com/registration/registrant-responsibilities/social-media-guidance-for-social-service-workers

Improving Gender Balance in Scotland - Action Guide

This action guide is aimed at early learning and childcare practitioners and provides some practical ideas how to challenge gender stereotypes without losing the child-centred approach.

Download the guide here: http://learn.sssc.uk.com/observing/downloads/igbs.pdf

Chidcare Careers Website

The SSSC has launched a new website for childcare careers, including information for how to get started in the sector and gaining qualifications, as well promoting the benefits and rewards to working in childcare.

http://learn.sssc.uk.com/childcarecareers/

New SSSC learning resources to support early learning workforce

Observing Children helps you gain an understanding of recording observations of children's development.

Find out more here: http://learn.sssc.uk.com/observing/