Hello, my name is Susan Maguire. I'm the Independent Chair of the East Ayrshire Adult Protection Committee (APC).

I joined the APC in May 2021 having retired from front line social work services. It's a broad multi-agency partnership which brings together people who all have a role in ensuring that adults at risk of harm are safeguarded, protected and supported.

Improving and responding

When our committee gets together we are always looking at ways to improve how we respond to people who are vulnerable and at risk and need support to keep safe.

Our lively conversations can range from how to improve the skills knowledge and confidence of front line staff to how we can better engage with people who are involved in Adult Support and Protection; what we now call the “Lived Experience”.  We are committed to understanding what the “Lived Experience” is for people so that we can learn and improve how we connect with people at often very challenging times for them.

Doggy therapy

On a lighter note and what keeps me grounded: I have taken up walking my niece’s dogs Marley and Ollie which definitely lightens my mood and often makes me laugh out loud which is good for the soul and helps me keep perspective!

Good day to you all, my name is Donna Sinforiani (for the curious among you, yes I am a distant relative of the local Kilmarnock newsagent….always the first question I am asked!).

As a member of the Protection & Learning Team, I am also the strategic lead for adult support and protection for the East Ayrshire Adult Protection Committee (APC).

40 years of experience

I find it hard to believe that 40 years in public service has taken me on a journey from Registered Mental Nurse to Mental Health Officer, from residential to day centre manager and to my current job since 2008.

Changing roles...

The role has changed so much but the diversity is fantastic and I highly recommend it for those of you who relish the challenge of change. You can be talking to a family about a Learning Review one day, delivering workshops to the community the next and supporting the multi-agency workforce to work together to improve and influence national and local policy and practice on another day.  As a line manager the opportunity to nurture the skills and knowledge of people within and across the team is a source of great satisfaction.

When our Public Protection leads meet up, we always find a connection and common purpose for the simple fact adult support and protection covers the lifespan as well as the factors and risks associated with health and social inequalities. I have always found that the driving force behind us is the desire to promote the human aspect to what we do. This is why we all adopted what we call the Protecting People approach to our work. Another reason I continue to work and live in East Ayrshire.

My balance...

So what balances me? Spending time with my grown up daughters, good friends and being able to indulge my passion for theatre and live music.

Any fans of Beth Hart or Blackberry Smoke.... see you in Glasgow my friends.

My love for my wee dog Maya and her brother McCloud the latest feline addition to the family and lots of seaside walks in Bute. I also volunteer for No One Dies Alone and find great peace and solace in supporting those who may be alone at the end of life to be at home and die with dignity. I would recommend making good use of the Volunteer policy to reach out try something different, it can really reinvigorate you.

An Initial Referral Discussion (IRD) is where agencies come together to discuss the risks an adult may be facing.  This will then allow for a decision to be made as to whether Adult Protection is the best way forward to protect the adult. 

We asked a group of professionals to explore whether we, in East Ayrshire felt it would be beneficial to implement this step in the adult protection process. Following the group recommending that the current process of an ASP Planning Meeting would be sufficient, alongside the developing escalating concerns model; we were then told that 75 – 80% of partnerships do now undertake IRD’s for adults.

Developing guidance

We have requested that the group undertake an audit of ASP Planning Meetings and develop a guidance for our multi-agency partners.  The outcome of this audit to be brought back to us at our August meeting.  This will allow us to be fully reassured that the processes in place are sufficient to protect adults who may be at risk of harm or indeed whether IRD’s could potentially add value around our decision making.

As many of you will know we had a multi-agency Inspection of our Adult Protection practice in 2021.  Following this we developed our first East Ayrshire Adult Protection Committee Improvement Plan. 

I am delighted to report that this Plan is now 100% complete and a big thank you to all those involved in achieving this.  We have now moved onto the 2023 – 2024 Improvement Plan and will be working our way through this over the next 2 years.  Look out for more updates on this in coming newsletters.

We wish to thank Ewan McGill, Communication Programme Officer who joined East Ayrshire H&SCP on 5 January 2021.  Ewan has been instrumental in our recent ASP Week.

He's worked tirelessly to make sure we've had the best all round awareness activity since  National ASP Day started 3 years ago. 

Ewan was also a great help to us during our Inspection in 2021, he was the lead for communication around the Inspection and we valued his input greatly.

Great achievements

One of Ewan’s biggest achievements is the development of the Partnership Living Well website, which was formally launched in February 2022.  A Partnership website had been proposed during 2020, and from joining Ewan was instrumental in progressing this work to completion, producing a website which is user friendly and engaging and has proven to be an excellent public facing support to the wellbeing plan.  Ewan oversaw the revamping and rebranding of the Partnership’s newsletter bringing a fresh, new feel and combining articles and good news stories from across the Partnership as well as wider, third sector partners. 

Over the past two years Ewan had been involved in numerous campaigns but of particular note are the Naloxone, Violence Against Women Partnership, and Care Opinion campaigns, all of which required significant involvement from Ewan in promoting. 

Other campaigns and events include:

• Adult Protection Day/Week
• Bright Spots
• Analogue to Digital
• Children’s Wellbeing Model
• OOH Social Work Service
• vacancy advertising
• promotion of SG campaign against Alcohol and Drug stigma
• supporting Ayrshire Recording Services for the Blind to advertise for volunteers
• promoting funding for unpaid carers
• Wellbeing EA move and meditate
• Care at Home recruitment
• Social Care Learning Hub

All of the work he's done aligns to one of the strategic priorities.

Ewan has also supported Protection & Learning team with communication planning skills, which we found extremely useful.

Thanks Ewan - we think you're a star!