Recently we were joined by Senscot and Inspiralba to host an event about experiences of social care in rural areas, especially in response to the COVID 19 pandemic. We talked about what’s working well in rural areas for people around social care, what’s not working so well and what would help make it work better for everyone.

We heard from some inspiring organisations doing really great work. Fiona Page from Takeaway Creative shared the work they do around creative learning. They’re a social enterprise running small group projects, creating access and enabling people who are often excluded to get involved with classes such as songwriting, language exchange and crafts, to inspire them and improve their quality of life. They’ve had to adapt to digital classes during lockdown, but this has meant they’ve had new participants join in from further away, and people are able to find more people who share the same interests.

Maggie Lawson talked about the community transport project in Badenoch and Strathspey.  They’ve also had to adapt over the last year, for example changing from a mini bus service driving people to day trips and activities, to a car service delivering shopping to local residents. Maggie told us about the personal approach a community transport service can provide- they know the people in their community well, so know their individual needs and how best to support them.

Our own Chief Exec, Anne Connor, talked about the Voluntary Pledge for social care, and how it’s supported new groups that have started to respond to the pandemic. The pledge has a series of community care standards that groups could use as a benchmark to work against, and also acted as reassurance for the family and friends of people being supported.

It was a really interesting event with lots of in depth discussion about how communities have responded over the last year. Some of the things people spoke about included how the pandemic shone a light on the aspects of care homes that don’t work so well, along with hope that now they will come out stronger and be more included in the community. People also talked about the need for transformational change across society- particularly for people who were classed as ‘vulnerable’ and were left isolated, with many choices taken away from them. There was a hope that some of the creative projects and partnerships will continue going forward, and that there’s more willingness to try new things. It was also said that more support such as counselling, and better resources are needed for this to work.

Going forward, we’re inspired by the stories we heard from those who spoke at and attended the event. We’re looking forward to more partnership working, and continuing to share what we’ve learned over the last year.

If you’d like to find out more about the event or our work, please contact louise@otbds.org.

This event was organised by Outside the Box, Senscot and Inspiralba. It is part of Community Solutions, a project with Health Improvement Scotland to explore trust based partnerships between the community sector and health and social care partnerships.