Who do you know who has made a difference for people in Scotland this year? Maybe someone you know has shown exceptional self management in the face of adversity, or a project has provided exceptional support for you to self manage. Celebrate their achievements at the Self Management Awards by nominating the people and projects you know who have contributed the most to self management in Scotland over the past year.

The nomination form is available to download at the bottom of this page.

Self Management in the Community – in partnership with the ALLIANCE Links Worker Programme.

The shortlist for this award will open to public vote.

Self management is about working in partnership with services that can support individuals to be in the driving seat and have a meaningful role in decisions affecting them. This award is an opportunity to highlight projects, local communities or individuals who have worked to create improvements to support people to live well within their community.

This could be initiatives or activities that encourage community empowerment, grow community capacity or encourage local communities to adopt self management approaches.

This award is open to individuals, public libraries, local groups, organisations, projects and people working across health, social care and the third sector.

Moira Anderson Foundation’s Glasgow Hub project was the 2024 winner of this Award. MAF Glasgow Hub opened in April 2023 following a long working partnership with the Links Worker Programme.  They worked together to develop and deliver trauma informed support, therapy, self-management and peer support services for adults in Glasgow living with long-term health conditions because of childhood sexual abuse. 

Self Management Resource – in partnership with ALISS (A Local Information System for Scotland)

This award recognises the resources (on and offline) that genuinely add value to the lives of individuals, enable staff working in health and social care to deliver services more effectively and provide invaluable information, support and advice on self management.

The 2024 winner was the End of Life Aid Skills for Everyone (EASE) course   from the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care (SPPC).  It is an innovative course enabling people across Scotland to be more comfortable and confident supporting family and community members with issues they face during dying, death and bereavement.

Self Management Digital Innovator – in partnership with the ALLIANCE Digital Hub.

Digital tools have changed the way many people self manage and can provide support that would not be otherwise possible. What have you seen this year that has stood out as an innovative in the use of digital technology?

This award is for individuals or organisations who have found innovative ways of helping people self manage using digital technology. Examples of innovation could be finding new ways of working digitally, creative uses of existing technology, or reaching out to new audiences through digital means.

The Black Door Shop was the winner in 2024.  It is a vibrant charity that thrives on the generosity of the local community, collecting donations of computers/laptops, clothing, books, toys, tools, bedding and household items. These contributions primarily support asylum seekers and refugees, many of whom arrive with few possessions, and often little more than a sense of hope.

Audrey Birt Self Management Champion – in partnership with Humans of Scotland.

This award has been renamed to honour Audrey’s considerable contribution to health and social care in Scotland, following her sad passing in 2024.  It celebrates people who are helping to encourage and inspire others to self manage and spread the self management message, along with anyone who has made positive change to their lives by taking a self management approach; living their life better, on their terms.

Cor Hutton, the founder of Finding Your Feet, was the winner of this award in 2024.  Cor underwent quadruple amputation of her hands and legs below the knee following sepsis in 2013.  Within a year of this life-threatening event, showing unfaltering determination, Cor established a charity to support others to live well despite the challenges of experiencing and living with limb loss. 

Who do you know that encourages individuals to self manage? Who has championed ideas that add value to your work or life? Do they campaign in a way that raises the profile of self management as key role in recovery journeys? Will their story inspire others? 

Empowering Self Management Project – in partnership with the Health and Social Care Academy.

This award aims to highlight the success of any self management project with an empowerment focus in Scotland. 

This award demonstrates the difference such projects make to improve people’s lives, build self management capacity and help to transform health and social care. If your project has empowered individuals, groups or communities to take control over their lives and health, then this is a great way to have it recognised and celebrated alongside the people who made it happen. We want to hear from projects where people felt listened to and been able to change/influence the things that matter most to them! This award recognises projects working in partnership and the role that individuals and communities play in the design and delivery of support and services.  

The Stand by Me project was the 2024 winner. Andrew Doyle is a married man with a learning disability who has a diagnosis of dementia. When he and his wife Lynn looked for support for couples with a learning disability in their situation, there was none. Their experience, and the desire that other couples in the same situation had information to turn to, was the driver for the project.

This award is open to any project which focusses on empowering the people it supports through self management.

Sensory Loss: Positive Self Management – in partnership with the Scottish Sensory Hub.

This award aims to raise the profile of the good self management work being done in the sensory impairment sector throughout Scotland. Do you know someone who is supporting people with sensory impairment to positively self manage? Someone who has challenged and changed disabling barriers to inclusion of, and participation by, people with sensory impairment in various aspects of everyday life? Someone who is managing their own sensory impairment exceptionally well and deserves to be celebrated?

Deaf Links, based in Dundee won the 2024 award in particular for two partnership projects to support Deaf women to self manage and live well. These are the Deaf Women’s Health Project (with support from local healthcare practitioners) and the Violence Against Deaf Women Project (in partnership with Angus Women’s Aid, Dundee Women’s Aid and Perth’s Women’s Aid).

This award is open to anyone with personal and/or professional involvement in the sensory impairment sector across Scotland.

Self Management through the Arts – in partnership with ALLIANCE Live.

This award celebrates people or projects who support people, to take part in, watch or otherwise use the arts to support self management.

Do you know a person or project that puts on musical theatre performances? Teaches music? Created a space for people to express themselves through drawing and painting or crafts? We want to celebrate all the work being done to bring people to the arts and bring the arts to people.

The 2024 winner of this award was Art in Healthcare who were nominated for their art workshops which included three main strands; ‘Caring Spaces’; a project throughout Lothian working with adult unpaid carers, ‘Taking Art Home’; Scotland wide online workshops for those that due to health, find it very difficult to leave the house and their largest project ‘Room for Art’, a social prescription project across Edinburgh. 

This award is open to any people or projects using the arts (including visual arts, theatre, music) to support self management.

The Self Management Awards 2025 are open for nominations from 7 May until 10am, 11 June.

Over three Learning Day events, the funded projects within the 2018 Working Together to Strengthen Integration round worked together to come up with the best advice they would give to any new self management projects starting out. These are:

• Learn
  • One of the strongest themes that came through in the advice for new projects was to keep learning throughout the project – learn from what works and what doesn’t, learn from the people you work with, learn from colleagues and partner organisations.
  • When starting out, use the experience of partners to help you shape your plan, but make space in your plan to make changes as you learn and let the people guide you.
• Be Flexible
  • Being flexible in your approach allows you to implement learning as you go along, correct mistakes and make improvements. If you allow for movement in ideas and direction then you can pivot effectively if needed. Allowing the project to develop organically can take it in the direction it is most needed.
• Communicate
  • Take time to build relationships with partners, and make the most of their local expertise and knowledge to build a strong foundation for the project. Communicate with the people you work with, and trust the process of listening and responding to what people tell you they need.
• Check Outcomes
  • Try new things and learn from what works and what doesn’t, review your objectives regularly to ensure that they are still fit for purpose and that your project is progressing suitably. You shouldn’t be afraid to acknowledge what is not working as this is part of the process of learning from it.
• Take Time
  • Take your time to plan the project properly, but allow time for the project to develop organically – you cannot rush any part of it! Spend time building relationships with partners and grow at an achievable pace.

You can find reports related to this event along with other Self Management Fund learning towards the bottom of this page.

Self Management Fund funded projects regularly showcase their learning and impact through ALLIANCE Live Project Insights. These short, informative videos raise awareness, share good practice and distribute knowledge to strengthen good health and social care policy and practice across Scotland.

A full report on the learning days is available to download below.

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The Self Management Fund: Resilience, Recovery and Development Round One projects began on 1 June 2021, Round Two projects on 1 October 2022, with Round Three projects beginning on 1 October 2023 Flash reports on the first two rounds are available below.

In general, the funded projects:

• Strengthen the resilience of the people they work with and the organisations
• Increase the opportunities for recovery in communities and the third sector
• Develop the services that have been identified as required for the future
• Contribute to the purpose of the Scottish Government’s Framework for supporting people through Recovery and Rehabilitation during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic (this link will take you away from our website) this link will take you away from The Alliance website
• Contribute to the resilience, recovery and development of people, communities and the third sector through and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic

In Round One, two grant types were offered, designed to:

• Test or investigate an idea
• Build on or develop existing work or knowledge
• Establish a service that is new to your organisation

In Round Two, grants were offered to projects to:

• Provide support to people experiencing multiple forms of marginalisation, including people with sensory loss; ethnic minority communities; disabled children and young people; people with learning and intellectual disabilities; people experiencing economic deprivation; and unpaid carers
• Focus on a hybrid way of working and supporting digital inclusion for those who have been excluded from the move to digital services.

In Round Three, grants were offered to projects to:

• Provide support for disabled people and people living with long term conditions and/or unpaid carers who experience disrupted care
• Address the wider determinants of health so that individuals are supported to live their lives better on their own terms, progress to employment, create and develop sustainable communities, and take a leadership role in preventing ill-health.

The majority of RRD grantees are still working to deliver activities and we will share more learning as projects continue to develop.

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The Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland (the ALLIANCE) administers the Self Management Fund on behalf of the Scottish Government, supporting third sector and community based organisations across Scotland to develop self management activities. Since 2009, The ALLIANCE has awarded over £28 million in funds to 464 projects. More information on the projects can be found in our Funded Projects section.

The Self Management Fund was created by the Scottish Government in response to recommendations made in the Gaun Yersel: the Self Management Strategy for Scotland (link will open in a new page). It was set up to support the development of co-produced, person centred, self management activity across Scotland. Learning from the experience of people living with long term conditions, and their unpaid carers, is central to the ethos of the fund.

Across all rounds of the Self Management Fund projects must show that:

• Work is new for the applicant organisation, or present a development of an existing idea.
• The idea has come from the people it is designed to benefit.
• Disabled people, individuals living with long term conditions and/or unpaid carers will be enabled to take a leadership role in the design, delivery and evaluation of the project.
• The capacity of disabled people, individuals living with long term conditions and/or unpaid carers to effectively self manage will be enhanced .
• The principles of self management identified in Gaun’ Yersel’: the Self Management Strategy for Scotland are at the heart of the project.

Alongside these core criteria each funding round has a specific focus, the priorities of Self Management for Life, Round 2 are below. Projects must demonstrate their project supports, guides and enables self management in one of the following ways:

1. Supporting people at an early stage in their journey with a long term condition, disability or unpaid caring responsibility, to develop their ability to self manage.
2. Reducing barriers to accessing health and social care support and services, to enable self management for people living with long term conditions, disabilities and/or unpaid carers.
3. Developing the self management capacity of people living with long term conditions, and/or their unpaid carers, while they wait for a specialist health or social care intervention.

Applications for Self Management for Life are now closed.

The fund aims to develop practice and share learning, this is done in a number of ways though our partners in the Scottish Government and through our own Self Management Network. You can find out more about our learning by clicking the learning tab in the sidebar.

Below is an overview of the projects which the ALLIANCE funded for five years. To find out more about any of these projects, simply select, click or tap on one of them.

The ALLIANCE published a podcast discussing the learnings from the Self Management Fund: Transforming Self Management in Scotland – you can learn more by visiting the ALLIANCE Live Roundtable post, or listening directly from ourAnchor.FM page. A flash report is available to download below.

View a list of the projects currently in receipt of a grant from the Self Management Fund (link will open in a new page).

Self Management is a way of living and working that means people living with long term conditions feel more in control of their own health and wellbeing. It supports people to live their lives better, on their terms.

Self management supports and encourages people living with long term conditions to access information and to develop skills to find out what’s right for their condition and, most importantly, right for them. Gaun Yersel: The Self Management Strategy for Scotland, was developed by the ALLIANCE with support from people with lived experience, and aims to work towards a situation in which everyone in Scotland living with long term conditions has access to the support they need to successfully manage their condition.

Together with health professionals and with those who provide support, self management can help people to make decisions that are right for their life.

Self management can mean people being:

• better informed about their condition(s)
• better prepared for everyday challenges
• better supported when they need it

The ALLIANCE works to embed this approach across Scotland through our self management work:

• The Self Management Fund for Scotland
• The Self Management Network Scotland, a network of over 900 organisations and individuals
• Delivering events to explore and support self management

To find out how to support your health and wellbeing through self management, speak to your GP or health professional or visit A Local Information System for Scotland (ALISS) to search for health and wellbeing resources in your area.

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