21 June 2024

Community of support and advocate for change: celebrating CCPS on its anniversary

What’s been the organisation’s contribution since 1999? Marking our quarter century, five Board members give their views

This year CCPS celebrates its 25th anniversary as a registered charity. To mark the milestone, members of our Board have given us their perspectives on our contribution since 1999 – and why the organisation matters.

C-Change CEO Sam Smith reflected on our unique role and what she’s gained from being a Board member, commenting:

“CCPS is a membership organisation that helps not for profit social care providers do their best to support our citizens and communities to thrive. It provides a community of support and learning that ensures civil society organisations can evolve and develop to meet the changing needs of Scotland’s population.

“Through CCPS my colleagues have a network of similarly committed professionals to learn and grow with. And for me as a leader, it is a place where I am supported and challenged to do and be better.”

Richmond Fellowship Scotland Chief Executive Austen Smyth, the longest serving member of our Board, said:

“I have been an active CCPS board member for over 18 years. During that time I’ve seen CCPS grow, develop and extend its reach and influence.

“The organisation plays a pivotal role in amplifying the issues and voices of the third sector social care and support sector. It advocates for providers as an important agent for change.”

Viv Dickenson, CEO of CrossReach, told us about the value of CCPS as a collective voice:

“The voluntary sector plays a critical role in delivering social care to thousands of people across Scotland. Providers can see ways to improve the system we operate within, both for supported people and for the workforce, but individually our voices are often not heard.

“Being a CCPS member gives us the opportunity to get together, explore the big issues in social care, and collectively advocate for positive change. It has been a force for good for 25 years, and Scotland would be the poorer without it.”

VSA’s Chief Executive Sue Freeth highlighted our role in influencing and collaborating with government, stating:

“VSA is proud to be a member of CCPS. Scotland’s third sector needs a strong voice to improve the lives of people VSA and other members exist to support.

“CCPS enables us to escalate concerns, become a better networked sector, to share new approaches and provides the platform to collaborate with government on practice based policy.

Finally, Doug Moyes, Director of Customer Service at Blackwood, highlighted CCPS’s pivotal role during the pandemic:

“CCPS has been a consistent voice and support for Scotland’s care sector over the last 25 years. While care providers face incredible challenges year on year there has never been such a significant contribution than CCPS support and guidance during the Covid pandemic.

“CCPS united providers across the country, supporting us to navigate new legislation and infection control measures and raised our collective issues and concerns on behalf of our customers and staff with government.”

Thanks to all Board members who contributed their views.

 

 

 

Back

20 June 2024

“A collective voice of people and organisations who all share a common vision”

As CCPS marks its 25th anniversary, Andrea Wood, Chief Executive of Key and Convener of our Board, reflects on the organisation’s contribution since 1999

This summer CCPS celebrates its 25th anniversary as a registered charity, and 27 years since it was founded.

To mark the milestone and share CCPS’s new Priorities, the organisation recently held a special event in the Scottish Parliament. Staff and members were joined by MSPs including Clare Haughey, Convener of the parliament’s Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, Neil Gray,  Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care and Maree Todd, Minister for Social Care, Mental Wellbeing and Sport.

It was a chance to acknowledge three decades of CCPS’ contribution, ranging from its origins as an early, urgent voice for community care providers, with 23 members, to its profile now, representing 89 not-for-profit social care providers across Scotland. A rich diversity of organisations who do vital work, supporting
good lives for Scotland’s people and communities in a way that respects and
values individual choice and control.

Below, members gather at our parliamentary reception at Holyrood on 28 May. Above, CCPS Convener, Chief Executive of Key and blog author Andrea Wood.

 

Guests at the reception reflected on what it means to be part of a collective voice of people and organisations who all share a common vision of a rights and relationship-based approach to social care and support. It’s a vision that, in essence, has not changed over CCPS’s quarter century as a charity, and has at its heart our members’ commitment to ensuring that not-for-profit providers and their staff are recognised and valued as they should be. That’s meant championing the right for people to do a job that they love, but also to be respected, valued and rewarded for the vital work that they do.

Guests filled out cards at the event telling us why they valued social care and support:

After 25 years, CCPS continues to be a respected, influential and authentic organisation, with a reputation based on its values: Creative, Collaborative, Credible, Courageous and Kind. It couldn’t have sustained that reputation without such a talented staff team, now led by Rachel Cackett, and previously by Annie Gunner Logan, who was CEO until 2022.

Through its work CCPS has played a role in the implementation of some of the most ground-breaking developments in social care throughout the years. Changing Lives, Self-Directed Support, the Promise and the Review of Adult Social Care are just a few examples.

All of those achievements have been shaped by the views, experiences and wisdom of CCPS’s members. They wouldn’t have been possible otherwise, and I know that at this important point in its history, its right  that  we celebrate the strength of CCPS’s relationship and dialogue with its membership.

Thinking about the future and how CCPS will play its part, that collective voice of CCPS’s members will continue to be vital in communicating to everyone across Scotland the true value of social care and support.

Members of  the CCPS staff team pictured at the event. From left, Chris Small, Anna Tully, Alison Christie, Rachel Cackett, Nadine Cassidy, Eilidh Shearer, Emma Mathews, Kyle Hylan-Corcoran, Megan Williams and Simon Webster:

Photographs by Andrzej Majdanik. www.haicoo.co.uk LinkedIn: @haicoo_media

Back

29 May 2024

“Our new priorities will define how we tune our collective voice for the next 18 months”

Rachel Cackett marks 25 years since CCPS became a registered charity – and says that continuing to be a successful membership body means being creative, focused and holding on to hope

We are the organisation we are today because for over a quarter of a century we have built on the strength and passion of our membership and our staff. I’d like to thank all those who have made CCPS – past and present – and a particular shout-out to the legendary CCPS powerhouse and rockstar, our former CEO Annie-Gunner Logan.

But in the here and now, times are tough for our members, for the people they support, for CCPS. Already in the last 18 months we have had to pivot this organisation from Covid crisis response to a sustainability crisis response to address the reality our members face. It’s not always been a comfortable ride.

Lurching from crisis to crisis without seeing the hope is not a place for any of us to effect good change. It’s been time to take stock.

For the last year we have been working with our members, our stakeholders, and our staff to hear how CCPS can best support our membership and change social care and support for the better. What you want of us, where we can have biggest impact, how we can rekindle hope.

Given that we are small team and we are not rich I need us to be incredibly focused and creative. That’s how we will continue to be a successful membership body.

CCPS priorities reflect what we have heard and define how we will tune our collective voice for the next 18 months – a deliberately short time for a song in a tumultuous world.

We will take stock again and refresh our priorities with you before the Holyrood elections where we hope that all parties will present manifestos that demonstrate their commitment to the true value of social care.

Read our Priorities for 2024-25

Back