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March 2010

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Sustaining tenancies, preventing evictions and allocating homes: the new Housing Bill?

3 March
Glasgow

The long awaited Housing Bill is now being considered by the Scottish Parliament. Potential future proposals include strengthening the provision of housing support; preventing evictions more effectively; and improving the way that homelessness referrals between local authorities and registered social landlords work. Controversially, local connection and allocations may also be more explicitly linked in the future.

This Shelter Scotland event is a chance to learn more about the Bill as it goes through Parliament and, most importantly, give your views about what is in the Bill and what might be added to it.

Speakers will include representatives from the Scottish Government, the voluntary sector and the Scottish Housing Regulator.

This event is for:

Frontline staff in housing support, advice and management
Senior managers in RSLs and local authorities
Staff in policy and strategy roles in local authorities and RSLs
Academics, researchers and consultants
Staff in voluntary sector and advice organisations with an interest in housing or social policy

To find out more and book a place see Link opens in new window Shelter website

Working with Survivors of Sexual Violence with Addiction Issues

Day 1 – 10th February 2010
Day 2 – 4th March 2010
Glasgow

This two day course is funded through the Fairer Scotland fund is open free of charge to any worker in East Glasgow Community Planning Partnership area supporting survivors with substance misuse issues.

The aim is to increase understanding of the complex relationship between substance use and childhood sexual abuse. It is being offered in association with STRADA and Say Women.

Learning Outcomes:

To understand the effects of childhood sexual abuse
To explore and understand the relationships between substance use and sexual abuse
To recognise opportunities to support changes in substance use for survivors
To develop skills and confidence around support pathways
To provide opportunities to explore implications and models of practice.

Contact: Dawn Fyfe on 0141 552 5803, email training@say-women.co.uk.

CHT (Community Housing and Therapy) conference: Psychosis and substance misuse

5 March
London

The high prevalence of problematic alcohol and drug misuse in those with psychiatric illness is apparent to all who work within adult psychiatry.

Traditionally, mental health and addiction services have operated in parallel. Differences between the two services in terms of organisation, geographical location and philosophy of care have often meant that patients have fallen between the two, leading to frustration for patients, families and staff.

The past 10 years have seen increased understanding of the reasons for this co-morbidity, the development of innovative integrated treatment services and the introduction of new treatments for substance use problems.

This conference explores current thinking in this important area of work.

For more information and booking form, see Link opens in new window

Pavpub.com

Engagement, Intervention and Development in Early Years

16 March
Edinburgh

The Scottish Government launched their Early Years Framework (EYF) on the 10th December 2008 in response to work carried out by the Government and other organisations into early years and early intervention.

Setting out a national commitment to break intergenerational cycles of poverty and inequality to give every child in Scotland the best start to life, the Framework identified 4 key themes as crucial in taking forward the early years agenda – parenting, communities, services and workforce – pulled together under the context of early intervention

Passing the one year mark of the Framework’s publication, how have the recommendations impacted on service provision, as well as local and national approaches to delivery, for Scotland’s youngest cohort and where do we go next?

This conference will look at the current early years landscape and where the need for more information and action lies; how to create and develop a strong parenting capacity; the importance of early intervention for positive development and finally, how to drive forward the early years agenda through linking key developmental strategies and learning from abroad.

Key topics will include:

Evidence based learning through Scottish projects and studies into the early years cohort and their families
Scottish Government initiatives and funding for early years programmes, including an update on the Early Years Framework (EYF) and the newly launched Play, Talk Read Campaign
Building parenting capacity in early years
Early intervention – the need for more input in the first year of life
Early intervention – to tackle problem behaviours
Early years and education, specifically the planned introduction of a Curriculum for Excellence into nurseries
Multi agency and partnership working in times of tightened budgets and limited resources
Linking the 3 key developmental strategies Achieving Potential, Equally Well and Early Years Framework
Learning lessons from the delivery of early years services and strategies outside Scotland

Conference chair:

Stella Perrott, Writer and Independent Consultant

Keynote speakers:

Paul Bradshaw, Research Director, Scottish Centre for Social Research
Adam Ingram MSP, Minister for Children and Early Years, The Scottish Government
Dr Majella Murphy-Brennan, Head of International Programme Dissemination, Triple P International
Dr Teodora Gliga, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development, Birkbeck, University of London
Jean Carwood Edwards, Early Years Team Leader, Learning and Teaching Scotland

For more details and booking form, see Link opens in new window Holyrood.com

Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Drugs & Alcohol Meeting

17 March 2 - 4pm
Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh

The next meeting of the Cross Party Group on drugs and alcohol will look at the findings from the Scottish Youth Commission on Alcohol, who have been examining Scotland's relationship with alcohol for the past year.

The group was established by Young Scot and the recommendations will be presented following a year of meetings with many different groups, individuals, medics, treatment agencies, the alcohol industry and politicians as well as collecting views from 1200 young people from across Scotland.

If you would like to attend this meeting please register with diane.thomson@alcohol-focus-scotland.org.uk

Implementing Prison Reform - Beyond McLeish

17 March
Edinburgh

With Scotland’s prison population over capacity and rates of re-offending refusing to go down despite government investment, it is clear that Scotland’s prison system is struggling to accommodate the consistently high number of offenders given custodial sentences.

This conference will be a opportunity to hear from the newly appointed Chief Inspector of Prisons, Brigadier Hugh Monro and to hear his priorities going forward.

The challenging programme will engage a wide range of partners, practitioners and stakeholders to consider the evidence and debate the future.

With Scotland’s prison population currently sitting just below 8,000 and almost two thirds of Scottish prisoners having problems with substance use there remains a real impetus to seek new ways to punish, rehabilitate and treat offenders across Scotland.

This event will bring together key representatives from all Scotland’s major parties to discuss practical changes that need to be made to change the upward trend in prison numbers.

Keynote speakers include Scottish Drugs Forum Director David Liddell and:

The Rt. Hon. Henry McLeish, Chair, Scottish Prisons Commission
Brigadier Hugh Monro CBE, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
Tom Halpin, Chief Executive, Sacro
Bill Aitken MSP, Justice Spokesperson, Scottish Conservatives
Richard Baker MSP, Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Justice, Scottish Labour
Robert Brown MSP, Justice Spokesperson, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Debbie Ryan, Director of Market Development, Working Links
Dr Susan Young, Chartered Clinical and Forensic Psychologist, The Institute of Psychiatry

Key questions to be debated:

How will the proposals made in The Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill impact on Scotland’s prison system?
Since the McLeish Report was published in September 2008, what progress has been made and what impact has there been on prison numbers?
What does the evidence indicate and what is the political aversion to scrapping short sentences?
What do Scotland’s sentencers want from changes in legislation?
What is the role of rehabilitation in community sentencing?
What long-term treatments and programmes are getting results tackling offending trends?
How do we challenge the public perception of a ‘soft touch’ criminal justice system?

For more information and booking form, see Link opens in new window Holyrood.com

Be careful what you wish for:
Families, drugs and alcohol: involvement or support?

23 March
London

Aims of the conference

The Government’s drugs strategy 2008, emphasised the importance of support for families. But whilst recognition in policy is to be welcomed, challenges to delivering a cohesive and universal service still remain. The overall purpose of this conference is to present and debate the key issues for the future of family support, informed by intelligence collected from Adfam’s series of consultations.

To launch the Adfam manifesto for families
To present new research about families and substance misuse
To present and offer an opportunity to debate the issues facing family support
To consider what family support and involvement looks like

The following issues will be considered:

Families and workforce development
Families’ involvement in treatment
Support and interventions for families in their own right
The cost of caring for a drug user
Families and primary care
Think Family: the DCSF perspective

For more details, programme and booking form, see Link opens in new window

www.pavpub.com

SURF Annual Conference 2010: Sustaining and Reinventing Community Regeneration

24 and 25 March
Edinburgh

In a time of economic inactivity, dramatic reductions in public spending, and rising levels of unemployment and poverty, the focus of all our regeneration efforts should be on practical, pro-active and cooperative responses to the very real threat of substantial degeneration across the board, according to SURF, Scotland’s Independent Regeneration Network.

This key Scottish regeneration event will look squarely at the challenges ahead; but its concentrated and constructive focus will be on linking people, projects and practice across the SURF network to examine the real opportunities for supporting more sustainable community regeneration in this time of change.

In cooperation with the Public Policy Network of the University of Edinburgh, the first day of the conference will link Scotland’s extensive regeneration oriented academic resources with the practical challenges at hand for practitioners and policy-makers.

The second day will focus on cooperation in policy and practice. Key speakers, debates, presentations and panel sessions will link the policy process to the realities of delivering positive change in Scotland’s most disadvantaged communities. In doing so, we will showcase the assets and resources that are at hand to support and sustain regeneration, despite the increasingly difficult economic climate and related challenges.

Key speakers confirmed so far include:

Alex Neil MSP, Scottish Government Minister for Housing & Communities
Prof. Duncan MacLennan, International expert on housing & regeneration (University of St. Andrews
Prof. Greg Lloyd, Professor of Urban Planning, University of Belfast
Jim McFarlane, Managing Director of Operations, Scottish Enterprise
Dominic Munro, Head of Communities Analytical Services, Scottish Government

A full programme and details of how to book are available on the Link opens in new window SURF website.

Protecting Families and Communities: Working Together to Tackle Drugs

25 March
London

This is a Westminster Briefing Policy and Practice Briefing, hosted by The House Magazine.

Two years on from the publication of the UK Government’s latest 10 year drug strategy, key questions to be addressed include:

What is the future for the Drug Intervention Programme (DIP)?
How can drug education and awareness programmes for young people be expanded?
How can enforcement be better tailored to reduce reoffending?
What are the key components of a successful local drug strategy?
How local delivery partners can better integrate services and responses to protect both families and the community at large?

Participants will discuss the progress of the 10 year drug strategy and consider latest government actions in the fight against drugs. Through looking at case study examples, the afternoon will allow delegates the opportunity to examine examples of good practice, identifying the common themes in successful local actions.
For more information see Link opens in new window westminster-briefing website PDF.