The Mental Health Nursing Forum (MHNF) has opened the nominations to its 2017 Awards, which will be held on 2 November this year.

For further details on these and to access the associated submission forms, please see below.

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The Scottish Social Services Council are looking for someone who is registrant to join their Council. This is a tremendous opportunity for someone with experience of working in the independent sector to join the Council and represent the views of the sector.

Scottish Care members are encouraged to give consideration to applying or passing this information on to someone who might be interested.

Please get further details on the Public Appointments website.

Applications have to be submitted by 16 August 2017

The Infection Prevention Society will hold its annual Scottish Branch National Conference on Wednesday October 25, 2017.

For more details on this event and to register to attend please visit our events page: https://www.scottishcare.org/event/infection-prevention-society-scottish-branch-national-conference/ 

Scottish Care members may be interested in the following opportunity from Comic Relief:  https://www.comicrelief.com/grants/initiatives/care-home-challenge-fund-round-two

There will be 20 grants of between £10,000-£20,000 to care home providers from across the UK. The deadline for applications is midday on 4th August 2017 and applications must be made via the  online system accessible through www.comicrelief.com

Grants will last for between 18-24 months, including time for planning, partnership building and delivery. It is envisaged that each grant will reach a maximum of 4-5 care homes, focusing on quality of delivery led by residents and care home staff rather than volume of people.

Based on learning from Round One, Comic Relief will prioritise applications which:
• Involve residents and staff taking part in meaningful activities together, and protect staff members’ time to ensure their full participation
• Partner with a third-party activity provider which has a good understanding of the care home context and residents’ needs
• Are ‘person-centred’, planning the work in response to residents’ needs and interests, involving residents in co-designing activities, and respecting people’s choice to participate.
• Demonstrate a clear commitment to the proposed activity from the care homes involved, particularly from the managers and activity coordinators.
• Support staff to build skills and confidence so they can facilitate or deliver activities, enabling sustainability beyond the life of the project.
• Show how they are building on the findings from Round One.

Having taken evidence since March this year, the Economy, Jobs and Fair Work Committee at the Scottish Parliament has now published its report on the Gender Pay Gap, ‘No Small Change: The Economic Impact of Closing the Gender Pay Gap.”

Scottish Care was asked to contribute evidence to MSPs sitting on the Holyrood Committee and did so earlier this year.

To view the report, please visit the Scottish Parliament’s website 

It is expected that the Scottish Government will provide a response to this report by the end of the summer.

Following the publication of the Report Scottish Care’s CEO, Dr Donald Macaskill commented:

“Having highlighted to the Committee the issue of gender segregation within the care sector we are particularly pleased to see their report calling for priority to be given to the care sector in Scotland. Scotland’s paid carers play a major part in the Scottish economy and their particular needs require to be recognised and prioritised. We commend the report in its analysis of the role that the social care workforce make to the wider economy and call upon Ministers to respond positively to their call for increased reward and recognition of this workforce. Tackling the gender pay gap in Scotland means tackling the issue of a poorly recognised and valued, female dominated care workforce.”