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The ALLIANCE SDS/Social Care team reviews work in 2020

  • Area of Work: The ALLIANCE
  • Type: News Item
  • Published: 14th January 2021
Logo saying my support my choice in speech bubble

Vital research, 'My Support, My Choice', was published on people’s experiences of SDS/social care in Scotland.

During 2020, the ALLIANCE and our partners, Self Directed Support Scotland, published a series of reports from our My Support My Choice (MSMC) research on people’s experience of Self-directed Support (SDS)/social care in Scotland. The aim is to fill a data gap and better understand how SDS works for people.

As the most comprehensive research project of its kind, MSMC provides vital evidence and analysis of good practice and areas for improvement in the review and reform of social care in the aftermath of COVID-19, based on people’s lived experiences.

The national MSMC report contains a wealth of evidence from the experiences of 637 people who use SDS/social care for a range of different reasons across Scotland. Based on this information, there are over 60 recommendations for action to continue good practice or make necessary change and improvements.

Separate MSMC thematic reports explore the experiences of specific population groups, including women, people with learning difficulties, Black and minority ethnic people, blind and partially sighted people, and those with mental health problems.

We presented the MSMC findings at various events during the year, and received good media coverage (this link will take you away from our website). We will continue sharing the research findings and our recommendations into 2021 and publish further MSMC reports about people’s experiences of SDS/social care in specific local authority areas.

The SDS/Social Care team were also involved in other work during 2020. We wrote several policy briefings on COVID-19 and social care (emergency powers, assessments, staff support funding, and reopening day centres).

Having previously been instrumental in the founding and ongoing work of the SDS Collective, which launched in 2019, we contributed to the Collective’s ‘Call to Action during COVID-19’, which was appended to the official Guidance on SDS Option 1 and 2 during COVID-19, and a briefing paper on worrying examples of local authorities seeking the return of unspent SDS budgets during the pandemic. Other partnership work included support to Oxfam Scotland in their work on unpaid care (this link will take you away from our website).

Further activity intended to help improve SDS/social care across Scotland included contributing to the development of a new set of national SDS standards, submitting evidence to the Health and Sport Committee’s inquiry on the future of social care in Scotland, and commenting on the independent Review of Adult Social Care, led by Derek Feeley. This was backed up with articles for the Scotsman (this link will take you away from our website) and Third Force News (think link will take you away from our website), and external talks (this link will take you away from our website).

Reports of other ALLIANCE programme activities during 2020 can be found in our News section.

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