About SCIE

• Our mission
• Our role
• Our principles
• What do we do?
• Who do we help?
• How do we help?
• Our partners
• Our Board and staff
• The role of people who use services and carers
• Equality and diversity

Our mission

The Social Care Institute for Excellence’s (SCIE) mission is to identify and spread knowledge about good practice to the large and diverse social care workforce and support the delivery of transformed, personalised social care services. We aim to reach and influence practitioners, managers and the sector leadership who have responsibility for service delivery in adults’ and children’s services. We recognise the central role of people who use services, children, young people, their families and their carers, and we aim to ensure their experience and expertise is reflected in all aspects of our work.

Our role

SCIE is an independent charity, funded by the Department of Health and the devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland. SCIE identifies and disseminates the knowledge base for good practice in all aspects of social care throughout the United Kingdom. Only by understanding what works in practice - and what does not - can services be improved, and the status of the workforce be raised.

SCIE holds a unique and important remit for the sector, and like the sector itself, is entering a transitional phase. The coming changes in adult social care and embedding of changes envisaged in the Children Act 2004 will herald a critical new stage in SCIE’s development, as we go about reshaping our organisation to support the transformation of social care.

SCIE will become an increasingly influential and authoritative voice, recognised by the Government, opinion formers and the public as a champion not just for high-quality social care but also for service innovation. When people want to know what already works in social care, and what might work in the future, they will come to SCIE as their first port of call.

See SCIE's Strategy 2008-11 booklet in the Corporate publications section for further details.

Our principles

SCIE strives to be:

• Authoritative: we ensure that there is good evidence from research and other reliable sources for what we say
• Responsive: we work nationally and regionally with partners to understand the sector’s needs and to respond effectively
• People-centred: we involve service users, children, parents and carers in designing the services we provide; we test our products with our end-users, including employers in all parts of the workforce
• Accessible: we reflect the diversity of the United Kingdom in our work and strive to make our resources accessible to our stakeholders.
• Transparent: we are open and accountable to our sponsors and our stakeholders
• Impartial: we express our judgement independently and with integrity
• Collaborative: we seek out and promote partnerships with other organisations in the sector to realise our joint objectives for social care
• Confident: we are confident when we communicate our work.

What do we do?

• capture and co-produce knowledge about good practice
• communicate knowledge, evidence and innovation.

SCIE aims to:

• capture and co-produce knowledge about good practice. We carry out and commission research and work with other leading organisations to produce information and practical guidance about what works in social care
• communicate knowledge, evidence and innovation. We share our knowledge about what works in partnership with sector partners including improvement agencies, networks of providers, groups of people who use services, including children, young people, their families and carers, regulators and government departments.

Ultimately SCIE aims to be a catalyst for transformation of care services. We believe that the knowledge and guidance we provide will inspire and inform improvement.

During 2008-11 we will develop a new, more robust, framework for the identification, and dissemination of knowledge. This new framework will improve how we capture and communicate the messages from research and practice.

For further details see Capture, communicate, catalyse.

We publish a wide range of resources which are all available on the resources section of this website. These include:

• online practice guides for social care managers and workers
• practical tools to improve the way organisations manage and support their staff
• e-learning tools on key subjects for students, teachers, lecturers and trainers
• a comprehensive online database of social care (Social Care Online)
• discussion papers and position papers outlining the views of SCIE or other partners
• brief summaries of existing research
• guides to existing resources or information
• detailed reviews of existing knowledge.

We also carry out regional and international work.

Who do we help?

We help the 1.6 million people working in social care, as they support the 2.8 million people using social care services in the UK.

This includes managers and workers of social care providers of all sizes across children’s and adults’ services within the statutory, voluntary and private sectors.

It also includes planners, funders and inspectors of social care services; those responsible for educating and developing social care workers; social care students; researchers and academics.

And of course it includes people who use social care services, children and young people, the family members and friends who care for them, and the organisations that support them.

Our work supports the whole range of social care services for both children and adults. It covers physical, sensory and learning disabilities, older people's services, fostering and adoption, substance misuse and mental health.

How do we help?

Whatever your role, you want to ensure that your work is based on good practice and the best available knowledge.

SCIE provides you with reliable, up-to-date and thoroughly-researched guidance and practical tools on the big issues in social care. And it’s all free!

• Frontline workers and managers of social care and children’s services will find our online practice guides particularly valuable as they provide detailed guidance on how to deliver and manage good care services. They also include examples of existing practice and related legislation
• Managers of services can use our people management resources to establish or improve their existing policies and practices
• Commissioners can use our guides and research reviews to help set priorities and assess whether their contractors are acting in accordance with good practice
• Social care educators and trainers can use our education and research resources, such as Social Care Online, to develop their education and training programmes
• Policy makers can find up-to-date, reliable and evidence-based research on which to formulate policy, and our discussion papers and position papers can stimulate debate
• Social care students can use all our resources to ensure that their essays, practice reports and case studies are up to date with current practice and policy.
• People who use services, their families, carers and their representative bodies can use all our resources to become informed partners in their care. All of our resources refer to the importance of service user and carer participation.

For examples of how social care staff are using our resources to improve practice, read our recent annual review in the Corporate publications section.

Our partners

We work very closely with the national organisations involved in regulation, inspection and raising standards in social care and children’s services. SCIE also works closely with many organisations in the independent sector, from small scale private and voluntary services to national associations.

Our work is supported and guided by two key networks: The Partners’ Council and the Practice Partners’ Network.

The Partners’ Council advises us on our priorities, programme and performance. Its purpose is to ensure that SCIE’s work reflects the needs of people in the social care sector, especially those of adults, children and young people who use services, their parents, families and carers. It is made up of representatives from more than 40 organisations including service user and carer organisations, children’s and young people’s organisations, service providers, professional bodies, universities, trainers and inspectors.

The Practice Partners’ Network is made up of representatives from statutory, voluntary and private sector organisations that run social care and children’s services. It helps us to identify, develop, share and support good practice.

See also:

• SCIE's networks and partners
• Other key social care organisations

Our Board and staff

SCIE is an independent charity, registered as a company limited by guarantee. The Board of Trustees is responsible for the governance of the organisation.

SCIE may have up to 15 trustees. Three trustees are nominated to the board by the Secretary of State for Health (including the current Chair). One trustee is nominated by the Welsh Assembly Government and one by the Northern Ireland Assembly. The Board of Trustees is responsible for appointing trustees.

The Board currently meets in London about six times a year. Board members are appointed for three years.

Click here for information about current Board members and the executive management team.

Many of SCIE’s staff have experience of working in social care, so bring first-hand knowledge to their work on the research and development of SCIE’s resources.

The role of people who use services and carers

User and carer participation is central to SCIE’s work. All of our projects include the views of users and carers, whether we are working with adults or children and their families. We also produce practice guides that advise others on how to successfully include the voices of users and carers in the development and improvement of their own services.

SCIE promises to:

• Seek new ways of involving people who use services, children, young people, their families and their carers to ensure that a truly diverse range of people make a meaningful contribution to our work
• Build on its reputation for both rigour and inclusiveness in the production of knowledge about participation and aim to identify innovation and best practice, which we will communicate to our stakeholders
• Maintain its leadership role in user and carer participation by continuing to maintain the highest standards in our own practices
• Develop SCIE Partners’ Council model - a unique model of stakeholder participation, which we believe is of international significance.

Equality and diversity

SCIE aims to improve care services for all. It is therefore essential that it maintains and strengthens its capacity to identify and meet the needs of a diverse range of people who use and work in care services.

SCIE will:

• Achieve greater representation in everything we do of the UK’s increasingly diverse population
• Work with organisations such as the Race Equality Foundation and Equalities National Council to proactively seek engagement with seldom heard groups, and rigorously monitor and assess the impact of our work in this area 
• Use the Equality and Diversity Development Forum as the main vehicle that ensures that equality and diversity issues are embedded in SCIE’s policies and operations.