Why choose SCIE?

Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) commissioned SCIE to support them to understand and develop co-production. SCIE has held three half day training sessions for commissioners, engagement team staff, people who use services and carers.  A final session will be held on 6th June. The sessions have worked through some difficult territory as OCC in common with other local authorities is in the midst of budget cuts. Introducing co-production in this context is especially challenging. However over the three sessions participants have worked really hard.  There is now a really good shared understanding of co-production among commissioners and local residents who attended the training. More importantly there is a strong commitment to move from engagement toward co-production.  The key product of the sessions is a draft road map for co-production developed by staff, users and carers. A meeting has been set up later in June to present the strategy to the lead council member for social care.

“We were nervous about how to approach co-production but SCIE’s engaging and positive approach has helped us make excellent progress.”

Lisa Gregory, Head of Engagement Oxfordshire County Council

SCIE delivered training to Kirklees Council supporting staff over the Care Act. The emphasis was on behaviours and culture change and the role of champions. Now the council has commissioned SCIE to develop further learning and development. This will assist staff within adult social care teams to adopt an asset-based (or strengths-based) approach to any intervention, particularly to assessments. A strengths- based approach is one of the critical principles underpinning the Care Act, and a key element of six key behaviours identified by Kirklees which each member of staff can expect from each other when at work. SCIE worked with the council to identify priorities to ensure that the strengths-based approach is embedded throughout the organisation at all levels and in all areas. As a result we developed the following programme of learning: First half-day session:

• Brief presentation of tools and techniques
• Exercises to understand how to apply the tools and techniques in practice

Followed by a period where staff put into practice the tools and techniques learnt. Second half-day session:

• Sharing experiences of using tools and techniques
• Conclusions and summary of do’s and don’ts

Followed by identification and collation of case studies and practice examples The training provides participants with methodologies, tools and techniques including:

• Practical tools and techniques to undertake asset-based assessments
• Strengths based techniques including motivational interviewing
• Working positively with complex needs
• Working with people to change the mind-set of dependency.