Policy Officer, Community Justice
After making links with Scottish Prison Service, Social Security Scotland also reached out to Community Justice Glasgow to make links with our partnership and help increase awareness of their services.
After an initial introduction at our Partnership meeting, our members felt it would be most beneficial to arrange a dedicated information session, open to all of our working group members and partner organisations, to provide an overview of what Social Security Scotland does. Other community justice partnerships were also welcomed to the session and contact details were shared for all of the local Social Security Scotland key contacts across Scotland, providing the opportunity for further events in other localities to help this useful information to be shared as widely as possible.
As this was arranged while lockdown restrictions were in place, the session was carried out virtually rather than in person, but this meant that the number of participants was not constrained by accommodation, and nearly 100 people attended on the day. Participants came from many of our local organisations and partnerships and also from national organisations, reflecting the demand for improved knowledge in this area across all of our partners. Many front-line staff attended and were able to ask specific questions and relate this information to their own role and client group.
After the session, the presentation was shared, so that everyone who attended had easy access to the information outlined in the session, which listed all of the benefits that Social Security Scotland manage and the qualifying criteria. In addition to this valuable resource, it also enabled the staff attending to meet the local Social Security Scotland contacts who they could get in touch with for further support or information.
Available materials include Social Security Scotland’s guidance library and stakeholder resources, available in several languages. The Social Security Scotland Vimeo channel has over 80 videos, including in British Sign Language, CLICK THE LINK BELOW to see the full range of information videos on the payments they manage:
There are also stories from people who have used these payments, including the phone chat with Jack, below:
The session received positive feedback and also provided some much needed experience of managing such virtual sessions with so many attendees for CJG staff!
