Clare Haughey MSP, Minister for Mental Health has written to health and social care staff with information and resources to help look after their mental health and wellbeing while dealing with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

With the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic across the country, it will be necessary for health and social care staff to be deployed to work in frontline care services they may be unfamiliar with. Temporary workers and volunteers are also being recruited to support services.

The UK and Scottish coronavirus legislation include some important changes for social service regulation so we can support the workforce to keep on delivering high quality services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To help focus resources on supporting the social service sector during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic we’re making changes to fitness to practise.

The Open University’s Early Childhood team and the Scottish Government have developed a free online course, Identifying and supporting additional support needs in early learning and childcare, for early learning and childcare (ELC) practitioners.  

We’ve been receiving lots of enquiries from workers and employers. Our FAQs answer some of the most common ones. We’ll keep this information up to date as new guidance and information is available. (last update 5 May 2020, added social work student hardship fund)

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has created uncertainty for social work students so we’ve agreed contingency plans with the Heads of Social Work Programmes in Scotland to help mitigate the impact on them.

We recognise that the social service sector is on the frontline of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and we want to support you to continue to deliver your vital work during this challenging time. As you need to change your services to meet demand, we’ve agreed regulatory changes with Scottish Government to enable an effective response by services. These are effective from today (18 March 2020).

Our Chief Executive Lorraine Gray has a message of support for social service workers dealing with the current pandemic.

National guidance and advice for the sector is available so we've pulled some of the key links together to help you. This guidance is being constantly updated so please check it regularly. 

Another 98 Dementia Champions and 45 Dementia Specialist Improvement Leads (DSIL) will graduate today from specialist dementia training programmes aimed at improving the care and support for people living with dementia in Scottish hospitals, care homes and community settings.

From this autumn universities will be embedding the revised Standards in Social Work Education in their social work programmes.