Some of the current work undertaken by the Academy can be found below, along with links to publications that the team has produced in conjunction with our partners.

Climate action and social care-The Academy in partnership with Scottish Care held a series of roundtable events which explored social care in a changing environment. These events recognised that the social care sector needs to be involved in supporting sustainability efforts as it is both affected by and contributes to climate change. Following each event  Hot Reports were published which captured key learning and insights from the series. A final report ‘Climate Action and the Social Care Collective’ has been published which includes key principles and recommendations.

20-minute neighbourhoods- Throughout 2021 the Academy, in partnership with Disability Equality Scotland and Mobility and Access Committee for Scotland, ran a series of events on ‘Exploring Scotland’s 20-minute neighbourhoods’. Following the series the Academy published a report which shares key findings including the benefits and challenges of a 20-minute neighbourhood through the lens of inclusivity, diversity, and accessibility.

Reducing Stigma, Emphasising Humanity-

The ‘Reducing Stigma, Emphasising Humanity’ involved a series of three events to bring together policy, practice and people with lived experience to explore the societal barriers people face because of stigma. Events have focused on key themes including the links between stigma and trauma, poverty and anti-stigma campaigns through the lens of lived experience.

The Academy has also been exploring what a transformational approach to tackling weight stigma in health and social care might look like. We produced a provocation paper Weight Stigma: the last socially acceptable prejudice? and hosted an event to provide discussion and debate. You can read the Event Report: Weight Stigma

The Academy is also part of Public Health Scotland’s Weight Bias and Obesity Strategy Short Life Working Group looking at wider messaging and awareness around weight bias and obesity stigma.

Open Dialogue – Open Dialogue is a potentially transformational approach to supporting people experiencing mental distress. The Academy is exploring how this person-centred approach could be beneficial in Scotland and hosted an event to bring interested people together from across Scotland. The Academy has also published a paper on this, Emphasising Humanity: Open Dialogue.

The Academy is involved in the Early Intervention in Psychosis Lived Experience Reference Group which is part of the Early Intervention in Psychosis Improvement Network. The Academy works to ensure that people with lived experience are heard and help shape early intervention services.

Adverse Childhood Experiences – Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are harmful events that negatively impact a child’s mental, physical, or emotional wellbeing and can have a detrimental affect on your health as an adult. Our paper explores the research surrounding adverse childhood experiences, and Scotland’s response to this concept. It examines how ACEs could transform health and social care and identifies some challenges. We have been running screenings of the film Resilience which looks at the effects that toxic stress can have on children’s brains, putting them at risk of ill health and how adverse childhood experiences can be prevented.

Suicide Prevention Strategy – The Academy has worked alongside The Samaritans, NHS Scotland to support the Scottish Government and to produce this Suicide Prevention Action Plan Report. 

Budgeting – We have produced three short videos examining more progressive styles of budgeting, in particular human rights budgeting, gender budgeting and participatory budgeting. As part of the Academy’s work exploring the transformative value in ceding power, participatory budgeting has been examined and supported and we published a paper, Ceding Power: Participatory Budgeting. The Academy also published a 2nd edition of our insight paper looking at the emphasising humanity and human rights aspect of basic income ‘Emphasising humanity transforming livelihoods: basic income’. 

If you have any questions about our ongoing projects or would like to work with the Academy, please email academy@alliance-scotland.org.uk or call 0141 404 0231.

The Academy’s work is driven by the Five Provocations, and we aim to embody these in our work. These are intended to focus transformation on key areas where radical change can make a difference to the wellbeing of Scottish people. The Five Provocations are:

• Courageous leadership – Ambitious, focused and inspiring leadership to transform and develop support and services and create the conditions for everyone to thrive.
• Nurturing transformation – Transformation requires patience: it takes time to forge relationships, to embed change and to realise long term benefits.
• Emphasising humanity – We need to emphasise the humanity and human rights of the people accessing and providing support and services, to create relationships that enable people to flourish.
• Target culture – The meaning of this is two-fold: we need to challenge the target culture in health and social care and we need to foster a cultural shift across society towards more active engagement in health and wellbeing.
• Ceding power – Statutory bodies need to cede power to the community, individuals and the third sector and embrace cross-sector collaboration.

The Provocations shape the Academy’s future work as we seek to promote them throughout Scotland and develop Insight Papers to model transformational change. They are not easy themes to tackle, but we believe that they will inspire not only transformative thinking, but action too.

The Five Provocations can be seen in action on our Working for change page.

The transformation of health and social care requires people with lived experience to be at the heart of it.  The Academy works to support people to be involved through sharing their learning, connecting with others and ensuring that as many stakeholders as possible are viewing challenges through the lens of lived experience.

The Academy’s work is driven by the Five Provocations for the Future of Health and Social Care. These are areas that leaders from across Scotland identified as being important elements to create the conditions needed for positive and significant change across health and social care.

The Academy works co-productively with individuals and organisations who are working and supporting transformational change in health and social care.

Details of the Academy’s work can be found on the Working for change page.

We are always keen to explore partnership working and discuss potentially transformational ideas. If you have questions or want to get involved with the Academy, please email via academy@alliance-scotland.org.uk or call 0141 404 0231.