Adult Protection Scotland Website
The National Adult Protection Coordinator for Scotland has launched a website on which all adult protection documents distributed to the network regarding COVID-19 have been uploaded.
The site will be updated as new information becomes available and can be accessed here: https://napc.scot/
Shielding Team
Our shielding team continue to ensure the most vulnerable people across the region have the support they require. They are assisting in delivering food and medical supplies. Recently the team were contacted by a man living in Canada who wanted to double check that his mother who lives in Dumfries and Galloway was staying safe while shielding. Providing reassurance to relatives who live far away is another benefit of the shielding team and this now shows the international reach that they have.
In addition to this, Age Scotland has called all the shielding lines that have been set up right across the country. After talking to one of the team in Dumfries and Galloway they believe that we have one of the most comprehensive services in Scotland and thanked the staff involved for all their hard work.
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Journalists Posing as The Care Inspectorate
The Care Inspectorate has advised that they have been alerted of instances where journalists have telephoned services posing as a Care Inspectorate employee in order to obtain information about COVID-19 within the service. Please share this alert with all your staff. If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from the Care Inspectorate employees and you don’t already know them, you can ask the caller to email you. Their staff email addresses end with @careinspectorate.gov.scot Any email not ending with this is not from a Care Inspectorate email account.
Scottish Government Guidance
The Scottish Government has issued guidance for managers and field social workers in adult, justice and children’s services, and mental health officers, regarding home visits and other face-to-face direct contact with service users: https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-social-worker-guidance-on-safe-contact/
Children’s Services Development and Assurance Team
During Covid the DAT has moved from a focus on strategic planning to a supportive and enabling role. This has meant a lot of spreadsheet development and inputting of data and hopefully supporting other teams in their need to produce information and manage data. We are playing a small but crucial role for the Shielding team by maintaining the master spreadsheet, setting up call lists and doing the daily upload of call lists. DAT are supporting Children and Families Social Work by uploading all the emergency review forms and yes we are the ones chasing social workers up to complete these forms – so sorry about that when we know you are busy with other things which must seem more important.
We continue to have a role through the GIRFEC Leadership Group and GIRFEC Practice Log to support the ongoing multi-agency working and we have recently shared all the emergency processes so that all agencies have a better idea of how each service is responding so we can be consistent with families. We have managed to set up a number of virtual meetings through Microsoft Teams and continue to produce performance data and support the development of the Public Protection Business Plan. By the end of lockdown, the Learning and Development database should be pristine, and an adult Learning and Development database should be ready to go. No mention of Children’s Services Plan but lockdown has provided breathing space to finalise this ready for implementation.
Staff Working from Home
We have been hearing from some of our Social Work staff who are usually office based but are working at home in response to Covid-19.
Claire Paterson is an Administrative Officer and is working at home focussing on file reading. This involves looking at files right back to the 1950s for the National Child Abuse Enquiry which is proving to be very interesting. She is rising to the challenge of using new technology to keep in touch with colleagues, attending virtual meetings through Microsoft Teams and taking the minutes. Claire is finding this new way of working rewarding and acknowledges that lock down has encouraged us to make more use of the technology available. She hopes that we will continue to utilise this in the future as it is a lot more convenient and cuts down on travel for many people.
Lauren Taylor works for the Children and Families Stewartry team as a Locality Support Admin Assistant. She too has been involved in file reading and has found it interesting to see how the work of social services has changed over time. Lauren is now assisting the Access Team, taking calls from the public relating to adults and children which is highly rewarding. Lauren is finding working from home full time a little bizarre as she misses seeing her colleagues each day but added that the support from her management has been exceptional.
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Learning Disability Service
Staff across the Learning Disability Service have been working in a number of different ways to ensure people with a Learning Disability continue to have support and reassurance during this national crisis.
Staff have been working hard to minimise the impact of the temporary closures of the ARCs. The Learning Disability service has dynamic support processes in place to ensure those most in need receive support. Working closely with colleagues in locality Social Work and health teams this has allowed deployment of staff to areas of critical need such as Dryfemount Care Home.
People with a Learning Disability, like many of us, have been struggling to understand and accept changes to daily life. The Learning Disability staff are working to support, reassure and provide guidance to people with Learning Disabilities, providing information on keeping safe in accessible format's such as easy read guidance on social distancing and PPE.
Staff at Dunmuir Park continue to provide a high quality of care and support during the pandemic. They have minimised the impact of day centre closures by introducing a varied activity programme including exercise classes outside and various gardening activities.
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Cyber Security
The National Cyber Security Centre has launched the new Cyber Aware campaign promoting behaviours to mitigate cyber threat. The cross-governmental ‘Cyber Aware’ campaign, offers actionable advice for people to protect passwords, accounts and devices. You can find out more about what NCSC have launched recently here. This includes new guidance for individuals and organisations using online video conferencing.
As part of NCSC’s Cyber Aware campaign, NCSC launched their new Suspicious Email Reporting Service. The new Suspicious Email Reporting Service will offer an automated service for people to highlight what they think to be a suspicious email. This will build on the organisation’s existing takedown services, which have already removed more than 2,000 online scams related to coronavirus in the last month.
Please forward any dubious emails – including those claiming to offer support related to COVID-19 – to report@phishing.gov.uk, the NCSC’s automated programme will immediately test the validity of the site. You will receive an email acknowledging your report. Any sites found to be phishing scams will be removed immediately.
If people have lost money, they should tell their bank and report it as a crime to Police Scotland.
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