AFKA Scotland hosts two Consortia (West & North East) funded by a separate membership fee, providing a local forum for members to hear about and share latest developments in policy, legislation, practice and research.
This localised membership allows us to support you, the workforce, by sharing knowledge and practice in a way which can meet the local needs of members in considering how you develop in your area, share issues that concern you and to discuss what is happening more widely when we meet together across Scotland. The Consortia is a place to build networks of support for Managers and Practitioners which is more important now than ever as many teams are hybrid and dispersed.
Learn more in our Consortia Benefits Sheet 2023-2024
Some testimonials from Consortia members:
The opportunity to meet with other professionals involved in family placement work, to share experiences, ideas and research is very helpful. It is also useful in terms of developing the knowledge base of workers and managers new to family placement work- I found the WOSC very useful when I started as a team manager in fostering and adoption with no prior experience of working in that field.
I have attended one Pan Scotland meeting which was great to attend! all consortia meetings are a great opportunity to have practise discussions which the F and A sub group cannot achieve.
Not attended but managers do and report it is very helpful for local issues and networking.
I see this link as a fundamental life line for practitioners, both in sharing good practice/practice challenges. There is very little practice experience within our SMT and without the link I feel we would be quite directionless and insular. The practice wisdom and legal input offered by AFKA is very valuable, as well as AFKA being the vehicle to gel LA’s meeting together. Each consortia needs to have enough LA representation to make the consortia worthwhile.