Trauma Responsive Social Work Services Partnership Delivery Group: minutes: August 2025

Attendees and apologies

Representatives from the following:

• Children and Young People's Centre for Justice (CYCJ)
• Community Justice Scotland (CJS)
• Improvement Service (IS)
• NHS Education for Scotland (NES)
• Resilience Learning Partnership (RLP)
• Scottish Government Trauma Responsive Social Work Services Programme (TRSWS team)
• Scottish Government National Trauma Transformation Programme (SG NTTP)
• Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC)
• Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare (STAF)
• Social Work Scotland (SWS)
• Social Work Scotland Workforce and Resources Committee
• University of Edinburgh
• University of Stirling

Items and actions

Programme review: what have we learned and key reflections

The TRSWS Programme and Policy Leads provided a summary of feedback on progress, key reflections and future priorities from this group, the TRSWS Expert Advisory Group, and Chief Social Work Officers. Partners reflected on the output:

• University of Stirling expressed concern about professionals’ readiness to deliver trauma responsive approaches if personal trauma is not addressed
  • TRSWS Programme Lead agreed, emphasising the prevalence of trauma and the importance of supervision and wellbeing support, and ensuring readiness is key in identifying trainers
  • NES emphasised the shared responsibility of trauma informed practice and agreed that robust support and supervision is required for delivering

• CJS highlighted work to develop a formal learning pathway for newly qualified social workers (NQSWs), and is currently considering how to align with other workstreams, including TRSWS Programme without creating duplication. They also raised the lack of formal training pathways for train the trainer programmes available for social workers
  • The Chair and TRSWS Programme Lead recognised the opportunity to align these areas of work through the career resource for social work currently being developed (formerly known as the Advanced Practice Framework)
• SWS Workforce and Resources committee reflected on the emphasis placed on training, with many social workers struggling to attend courses or engage meaningfully with the materials due to workplace demands and caseloads. They highlighted the importance of shifting organisational culture to better support workforce wellbeing and learning. They also recognised the great work that has been done to support newly qualified social workers and queried how this can be sustained
  • Resilience Learning Partnership (RLP) echoed the need for a cultural shift, where reflective practice is valued alongside operational demands
  • TRSWS Policy Lead acknowledged the challenges of building sustainability. They expressed their hope that as more people complete the mandatory support year, as well as the continued development and engagement with the career resource, this will help to drive cultural change and build capacity over time

Workplan review

As part of an ongoing review of the Workplan, the TRSWS Policy Lead facilitated a discussion to agree future priorities and activities for the next two years. Partners were asked to provide feedback on the three new proposed priorities as noted below:

1. Further embed trauma knowledge and skills into the career pathway of social workers, by improving access and promoting resources and develop a suitable infrastructure that supports longer term sustainability
2. Continue to develop and deliver a comprehensive programme of implementation support to enable whole system change across social work services
3. Continue to engage with those responsible for social work policy on how to embed trauma responsive approaches into practice, to ensure whole system change

Reflections from partners:

• University of Edinburgh agreed with the ambition of priority one, but reflected on priority two being overwhelming and perhaps not within the gift of PDG members as currently drafted. They queried the potential to break down to more tangible priorities
  • TRSWS Programme Lead shared that this work has been achievable within pilot areas, but recognises the difficulty in ensuring consistency across Scotland
  • TRSWS Policy Lead emphasised the collective influence of the group and suggested that the tone of the second priority could be adjusted to make it more realistic and achievable. They also highlighted the potential role of the National Social Work Agency (NSWA) in addressing these challenges through a more collaborative and coordinated approach
  • Programme management colleague within Scottish Government reflected that tightening of the language could help make priorities more actionable and realistic
• SWS Workforce and Resources committee queried whether this focus of whole system change is solely within social work or whether this includes the wider organsiation. They highlighted the importance of collaboration with other sectors, such as housing and education, noting that significant progress is being made in these areas. They suggested that a broader, more integrated approach is necessary to achieve meaningful change
  • University of Edinburgh agreed with this idea of cross-sector collaboration
  • TRSWS Programme Lead acknowledged the positive work that is being done by Trauma Lead Officers across Scotland, as well as efforts to align social work training and implementation with Education Scotland. They also highlighted that the TRSWS team are actively exploring what trauma-enhanced practice looks like in day-to-day social work across various services, including children and families, justice, and adult mental health. With over 600 staff engaged in the pilot sites, they recognised that significant learning is underway which will be shared with stakeholders in the future
• Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare (STAF) raised they required further clarity on work underway to better understand where STAF can contribute and support. They also highlighted the need for clarity around intended outcomes and accountability, particularly in relation to the role of the NSWA
  • TRSWS Policy Lead offered to meet with STAF
  • The Chair suggested that to include an in depth discussion on the NSWA and the Scottish Social Work Partnership at a future meeting.

Additional activities for new workplan

The Chair facilitated a discussion on what additional activities partners could undertake individually or collectively to achieve our join aims and advance our priorities. Key reflections noted below:

• TRSWS Programme Lead highlighted several different activities that the team will undertake to help meet priorities, including but not limited to reviewing all programme components, testing of standalone learning packages, delivering trauma skilled training to social work students etc

• RLP shared work they are doing with the Robertson Trust, focusing on power sharing with those with lived experience. While not specific to social work, they feel this will be relevant and useful for the sector. They welcomed any input from partners that would help enhance this work
• CJS highlighted that his team are currently reaching out to NQSWs to set up focus groups that will help identify gaps in current training and inform future development. They acknowledged that the biggest challenge will be exploring how this dovetails with other existing work
• STAF provided some context about the dual nature of their work, supporting both young people and practitioners. They highlighted several key developments, including refresh of resources and launch of free online course with the Open University, titled Foundations of Trauma-Informed and Relationship-Based Practice. They also noted the completion of a year long delivery of supervision residentials for the throughcare and aftercare workforce, with learning and findings soon to be shared. Following this work, they highlighted plans to continue to explore communities of interest. They recently developed a postgraduate certificate for the throughcare and aftercare workforce, incorporating trauma informed and relationship-based practice alongside relevant legislation. They concluded by expressing their concerns about gaps in NQSW knowledge of throughcare and aftercare, highlighting their interest in collaborating with others to address this
• CYCJ highlighted that their work spans a broad range of justice services for children and young people, beyond just social work. They highlighted the launch of a new e-learning platform which will host a variety of resources aimed at making practice more trauma informed. They highlighted recent funding from the Promise Scotland to create a developmental intervention approach for supporting practitioners to respond to distressing or harmful behaviours in children. This work has recently been piloted and is now being refined for a second pilot, with the aim of embedding across entire teams. To help support implementation, they are also offering ongoing support forums to help practitioners reflect and learn collaboratively
• University of Stirling highlighted early work to develop a new skills module within the applied professional studies that will incorporate trauma informed approaches
• Improvement Service highlighted that their organsiation is primarily focused on supporting local authorities and community planning partners to build infrastructure for embedding trauma informed and responsive change. Shared intentions to develop guidance and quality standards to help local authorities embed this work more strategically. They also noted they are refreshing guidance for trauma champions, and have formalised Trauma Lead Officers Network. They emphasised the importance of aligning this work with the wider NTTP programme to ensure cohesion

• TRSWS Programme Lead highlighted the opportunity for collaboration across partners, expressing interest in connecting CYCJ and HEI colleagues to align trauma training efforts. They also shared insights from ongoing work with pilot sites around power sharing. Resources have been developed and positively received, and the next steps will be to explore how this is delivered within a safe and supportive infrastructure, with access to supervision and wellbeing support for trainers and leaders
• NES welcomed any opportunities to help support collaborative work, encouraging partners to reach out. They highlighted that work around Victims and Witness has now resumed following a brief pause. They also noted ongoing collaboration on trauma informed resources for foster, adoptive and kinship carers
• SWS Workforce and Resources committee raised concern about the availability and accessibility of clinical supervision for staff. They felt that as supervisors become more skilled there is a need for trauma enhanced level supervision, and queried how and where local authorities can access this training whilst also being mindful of budget constraints
  • TRSWS Programme Lead shared that a supervision model is currently being tested across the four pilot sites. This model includes training supervisors to supervise trauma enhanced practice. To support its delivery, local psychology colleagues have committed to providing trauma enhanced supervision to team leaders and supervisors within each area
• SG NTTP highlighted their role in supporting the universal offer of the NTTP  which brings a solid foundation and clear understanding of what is psychological trauma
• SSSC highlighted the importance of having a coordinated and system-wide approach to social work education and career progression. From a SSSC perspective, they felt it would be valuable to establish a clear and consistent framework that outlines expectations at each stage of a social worker’s career journey
• TRSWS Practitioners shared that the themes discussed within this meeting strongly reflect what is consistently being feedback within training and planning meetings with pilot sites

Next steps and actions

• TRSWS secretariat to share presentation slides and meeting note
• Partners to review draft priorities and activities and share any reflections with TRSWS team via email by 23 September
• Partners to provide additional draft content for any specific activities they or their organisation will commit to for the Workplan to meet our shared priorities
• TRSWS team to organise individual meetings with partners to discuss additional activities
• TRSWS team to meet with CYCJ to discuss both pilot programmes and consider alignment
• TRSWS team to meet with STAF to discuss potential collaborations
• TRSWS team to meet with Stirling University colleagues to discuss new skills module
• TRSWS team to link in with SSSC and HEI colleagues to discuss arranging a potential shared learning event on trauma with social work course provider, potentially linking into learning summary from pilots of trauma skilled training
• Secretariat to send partners link to MS availability form to identify next 3 meeting dates
• Secretariat to include discussion on NSWA and Scottish Social Work Partnership at next meeting.