Welcome to the first TRIC newsletter for 2019. As we approach the end of our first year, it is a good time to look back at all of the great work that has been done so far by the five Priority Groups and to update you all on where we are with delivering our objectives.
Additional funding
TRIC was successful in its bid to Scottish Government for Confirmation up to £592,550 of funding. This will be used for increasing our capacity in key areas. For example, we will recruit a Welfare Rights Officer to help support families experiencing financial hardship, and we will also be able to backfill teachers, freeing them up to participate in development and training.
Some of this funding will go towards seconding colleagues as implementation officers to drive the work of the learning and attainment group (priority group 2). The intention is to build a small team of implementation officers who are seconded from their existing roles for part of each week to work together to support Tayside schools to implement, sustain and evaluate change. We will include details of who is taking up these posts in the next newsletter.
Group 1: Pre-Birth and Early Years
We are collaborating on the development of a consistent approach to working with children and families using the Solihull Approach.
Funding has been received from the Scottish Government to support this work, which will encompass staff from midwifery, health visiting, allied health professionals, early years educators, third sector and children and families teams.
Funding has also been received as part of our RIC bid from the Scottish Government to support the work of CELCIS, NHS Tayside and Perth and Kinross Council in helping women who are in the Family Nurse Programme in PKC. A welfare worker will be employed to improve the outcomes for these women, and the impact of that work will be conducted as a test of change, and shared across the collaborative.
Group 2: Learning and Attainment
This group has set up six workstreams:
(1) Learning and teaching, led by Michelle Lewis, Dundee, is supporting individual schools. Over the next 12 months this work will be formally evaluated, and the support extended to a second phase of schools.
(2) Numeracy, led by Carol Lyon, Angus, is supporting selected schools and has already seen changes to practice having an impact. A maths conference is planned for 23 March 2019.
(3) Leadership, led by Donald MacLeod, Perth & Kinross, has implemented a collaborative Head Teacher induction, with positive feedback. In future, we will offer this to all new Tayside school leaders.
(4) School Improvement, led by Kim Ramsay, Perth & Kinross, has developed a Collaborative Directory so that schools across Tayside can share their expertise. Individual schools are also being provided with bespoke support.
(5) Curriculum Leadership, led by Patricia Watson, Education Scotland, is designing a programme with middle leaders for middle leaders in effective curriculum design.
(6) Building system capacity, led by Jeremy Morris, Angus, is a new workstream and an action plan is in development.
Seeking, listening to and using learner voice is a central theme in all our workstreams.
Group 3: Health and Well-Being
The work of this group, has led to the production of, and consultation on, a draft Tayside Parenting Strategy, an agreed Tayside-wide approach to implementation of the national Pregnancy and Parenthood in Young People Strategy and the early stage developments towards a Tayside Mental Health Strategy.
In addition, in August 2018, a pan-Tayside multi-agency, multi-stakeholder engagement event on childhood obesity was held, which yielded many useful ideas to inform the development of the Tayside Child Healthy Weight strategy, and progress on a new Tayside Substance Use Prevention framework is underway, led by the Lead Officer for the three local Alcohol and Drug Partnerships.
Group 4: Looked After Children, Care Leavers and Young Carers
Over the past year, all three local authority areas have developed Corporate Parenting Plans and each area also now has a Young Carers’ Strategy. We have started to develop strategies on short breaks, accessibility, mediation, speech and language therapy and engagement and participation with care experienced children and young people.
We are also now exploring how we can improve respite services and advocacy services. In addition, we are exploring how we might develop joint approaches towards priority crimes and a shared risk assessment framework. The group will be involving children, young people, families and staff in this work.
Group 5: Safeguarding and Child Protection
This group continues to work towards developing the workforce in relation to the Inter-Agency Referral Discussions (IRD) process. A Tayside wide Connect with Neglect conference was held in November which proved most successful for participants in areas such as identifying the signs of neglect, assessing the impact of neglect on young people and in responding with families where neglect is a factor. It was commented on as being a ‘real collaborative approach.’
Work is ongoing with this group to finalise action plans, establish measures/data requirements and links to ongoing work with other priority groups.
