26 September 2024

Not-for-profit social care sector united at CCPS AGM

The event brought together social care and support organisations to talk about challenges facing the sector

A photograph taken outside at the 2024 CCPS AGM, showing CCPS CEO Rachel Cackett meeting with Neil Gray MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care.

Last week we hosted our AGM, bringing representatives from more than 30 of our member organisations together in the same room.

For many, this was a rare and welcome opportunity to connect with other social care and support providers in person, and reflect on recent experiences and challenges.

Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care joined us and presented on the Scottish Government’s commitments to social care. He then fielded questions from members on various challenges the sector is currently facing.

During the session, members raised a number of points, including:

  • Staff wellbeing
  • Capacity and sustainability
  • Tensions in the current culture around commissioning
  • Managing risk
  • The NCS and sector reform

Board Convener Andrea Wood took the opportunity to recognise the honest conversations facilitated by CCPS with membership organisations. Andrea thanked members, the CCPS Board and staff for their work across this last year.

Looking to the future for our sector, CEO Rachel Cackett focused on the CCPS priorities launched in May, and how we will need to think differently about our tactics to implement our strategic goals in the current climate.

Reflecting on the day, Rachel said:

“It was great to see so many familiar faces in person at our AGM, and to hear members’ thoughtful contributions, ideas and challenges when things are so tough.

“We represent such a fantastic community of not-for-profit providers, and the team at CCPS left feeling energised to continue our collective work with our members across Scotland. We know there is much to do.”

CCPS CEO Rachel Cackett addresses members gathered in Edinburgh for the AGM:

A photograph taken at the 2024 CCPS AGM, showing CCPS CEO Rachel Cackett addressing members. A slide projected on a screen reads: "It is not difference which immobilises us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken." This quote is attributed to Audre Lorde.

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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

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