Scottish Government Public Health Blether

The Scottish Government is delivering a Public Health Blether facilitated by Education Scotland on Wednesday, 06 October 2021 at 6pm for practitioners and staff across all sectors who are involved in providing early learning and childcare and other registered childcare to children and families. This session will provide the sector with the opportunity to engage with clinicians and public health experts on the current COVID-19 risk mitigations. There will be a particular focus on vaccination and how it’s helping to reduce the health harms associated with COVID. For those with any concerns about vaccine safety, this is an opportunity to put your questions directly to an expert panel, including Professor Jason Leitch, National Clinical Director, and Dr Syed Ahmed, Senior Medical Officer.

Further information and booking details:

https://education.gov.scot/education-scotland/news-and-events/events/public-health-blether-for-early-learning-and-childcare-providers/

Free Acas e-learning

Acas Learning Online is a package of free e-learning modules. They cover a range of employment, management and HR issues, including: Covid-19 vaccinations in the workplace (new), Flexible working, mental health in the workplace, change management, contracts of employment, recruitment and induction, discipline and grievance, handling redundancies, managing absence.

Further information:

https://elearning.acas.org.uk/

Early Learning and Childcare COVID-19 Update - September 2021

Download here:

https://soscn.org/downloads/news/scottish-government-early-learning-and-childcare-COVID-19-update-september-2021.pdf

Updated Guidance for School Age Childcare Services

The guidance for school age childcare services has been updated:

https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-school-age-childcare-services/

Updated 23rd September 2021, with the following:

This is version 14.2 of the guidance published on 23 September. Updates in this version:

note that at their meeting on 7th September, the Advisory Sub-group on Education and Children's Issues recommended retaining the mitigations set out in this guidance until at least the October half term break

add a new section on identifying contacts, that includes a definition of higher risk contacts

include new ‘Warn and Inform’ letters that should be issued to parent/carers and staff when a setting is informed of a positive case

provide a link to a flowchart that summarises what action to take when a child or member of staff tests positive

include at Annexe A, a list local authority contacts that settings can use to help access CO2 monitors: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-early-learning-and-childcare-services/pages/co2-monitors-local-authority-contacts/

SOSCN Members Online Network Meetings - October

Tuesday 5th October, 10.30am – 12pm

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/soscn-members-online-network-meetings-tickets-169852518455

Thursday 7th October, 10.30am – 12pm

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/soscn-members-online-network-meetings-tickets-169859015889

In these meetings we shall share the results of our sustainability survey as well as our forthcoming work plans and any general sector-relevant updates. We also hope to have input from a couple of services sharing their experience of the summer and the return to school.

Each meeting will contain mostly the same content, therefore individuals should only book one session.

Cost: £6 per place

SOSCN Business/Financial Planning Training Sessions

Back to basics- financial planning in OSC - £10

Wednesday 27th October, 10.00am – 12.00pm

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/back-to-basics-financial-planning-in-osc-tickets-169859172357

Tuesday 2nd November, 10.00am – 12.00pm

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/back-to-basics-financial-planning-in-osc-tickets-169859318795

The past year has been difficult in so many ways, not least in terms of financial sustainability. Whilst sustainability is not wholly dependent on financial planning, services do need to be ‘on top’ of their finances and have a clear picture of their income and expenditure across the year in order to better navigate uncertainties. It is more than just knowing how much money is in the bank- it is also about planning for those 'what if' scenarios.

In this session we shall cover the importance of budgets, projecting income and expenditure, knowing your service’s cost per place and your weekly and monthly ‘break-even’ points, and how to calculate these. In addition, we shall share sample annual financial spreadsheets as well as a simple tool to calculate break-even points.

NB Each meeting will contain the same content.

Snapshot Sustainability Survey

Thanks also to everyone who has already completed our snapshot sustainability survey. We would be very grateful for more responses so please do complete the survey if you can.

https://freeonlinesurveys.com/s/HMBlVJyH#/0

The survey closes on Tuesday 28th September. We plan on sharing the results of the survey at our networking meetings the following week.