The SCMA Community Childminding Service in Aberdeen has won a prestigious Quality Improvement Award for its services to help benefit families in the city, and the Family Support Team attended the awards ceremony in Glasgow on Tuesday evening.
Co-ordinated by Integrated Children's and Family Services at Aberdeen City Council, the Family Support Team has been named as ‘Top Team’ for 2018 and multi-agency team includes Home-Start Aberdeen, The Family Learning Team, Health Visiting Teams, the Family Information Service, Peep and SCMA.
The Quality Improvement Awards were established to showcase the fantastic range of quality improvement practice taking place across Scotland, celebrating the services being the best they can be for our babies, children, young people and their families in all aspects of their lives.
Quality Improvement is helping to strengthen services and to give children the best start in life, with equal opportunities to thrive, learn and succeed. All of the improvement work aims to make services the best they possibly can be so as to reduce inequalities and get it right for every child.
Loraine Duncan, SCMA Childminding Development Officer in Aberdeen City, who co-ordinates the city’s Community Childminding Service said: “This is such a huge achievement for the Community Childminders and we are delighted to be recognised with this award.
“As a team, we have achieved so much - working collaboratively to test different approaches, processing referrals and collectively supporting families both effectively and in a timely manner, whilst reducing waiting times.
“The Service is unique and now more people are aware what Community Childminders do and the Family Support Team as a whole. This has been a great opportunity for the Scottish Childminding Association and the childminding sector as a whole, as we continue to promote the true value of childminders in Scotland.
“I’ll soon be taking the award to our next Network Meeting event where I’ll be able to thank them for all for their hard work and commitment to the Service and celebrate the achievement.
“We have a very positive working relationship with Aberdeen City Council, which will grow stronger as we move towards 2020 and the expansion of funded Early Learning and Childcare.”
Congratulating the team on their award, Maggie Simpson, Chief Executive of SCMA said: “This partnership group is well established and work to ensure that in times of need each key area of children and young people’s wellbeing is addressed through a multi-agency approach.
“SCMA is proud to be a key part of this team which delivers early interventions for these families through a comprehensive and co-ordinated suite of services developed around wellbeing needs.”
Read more about the Quality Improvement Awards