International seminar: good practice - April 2009

Introduction

International visitors

SCIE is leading worldwide research and development institutes in developing good practice and were proud to welcome international social care research specialists during a recent trip to London. They arrived from Sweden, Germany, Canada, France and Finland. SCIE hosted a two day event which focused on addressing the big issues such as how to capture knowledge about developing practice in a fast moving sector; through to translating that into realistic, practical guidance for the workforce. 

Topics for discussion

The delegation agreed that the foundations upon which to meet these challenges both nationally and internationally are a strong evidence base and the raising the status of social care. Prior to the event the following questions were posed to the delegates:

1. Is there a sufficiently robust evidence base to identify good practice?
2. What are the political issues that need to be addressed in developing good practice?
3. What are the practical delivery mechanisms to promote the adoption of good practice?

Discussions also included how to make sure that health and welfare systems collaborate to improve practice, and how best to deliver the messages to the grass roots level: in Sweden alone, social services are delivered by over 290 municipalities.

Looking to the future

There was a sense of optimism and enthusiasm throughout the 2 day event as everyone seemed to be singing from the same song sheet, despite the wide range of accents!   Here are some areas people agreed to work on:   Standards of knowledge for defining good practice

• Transferability of evidence between countries & continents
• Dialogue/engagement with policymakers, practitioners, users, regulators
• Embedding good practice in everyday services
• Evaluating the outcomes of good practice projects

The seminar

• View the galley of photographs from the event