October 2024 News
Please scroll down to view upcoming professional learning, updates and resources.
Upcoming Professional Learning
Black History Month webinar on Anti-Racist Education
7 October 2024
As part of CRER’s Black History Month 2024 programme, join us in October for a webinar on anti-racist education in Scotland. Find out why anti-racist education is important in education and explore examples of local and national developments in anti-racist education.
Challenge Poverty & Promote Anti-racism
8 October 2024
The Scottish Refugee Council will give an input on terminology, structures and misconceptions in relation to New Scots who are refugees and asylum seekers living in Scotland. The session will also include the Dundee CLD Team who will highlight how poverty impacts ESOL learners in Dundee from an anti-racist perspective discussing structural inequalities, barriers and areas of exclusion. They will discuss the importance of high quality adult guidance, and clearly defined pathways for ESOL learners, underpinned by strong partnerships at a strategic and locality level.
Challenge Poverty Week Workshop: Communities and Volunteering
11 October 2024
This interactive workshop will provide information about the current policy landscape around CLD, volunteering and poverty, as well as some useful sources of support for volunteer involving organisations in this space It will also offer an insight into how different organisations successfully recruit and support volunteers engaged in anti-poverty roles.
Glasgow Caledonian University: Online Abuse Modules Pilot
12 and/or 19 November 2024
As part of a European-wide project on innovative solutions to eliminate domestic abuse (ISEDA), Glasgow Caledonian University have created an education programme to be delivered in schools to foster healthy and equal relationships between young people. These lessons will be delivered across 7 countries including Scotland. Professor Nancy Lombard and Dr Kate Butterby will deliver the online training sessions consisting of 4 modules (in two parts) on cyberviolence and abuse. All materials are digitally accessible. The training demonstrate the lesson plan and resources. Each module is accessed as a SWAY.
The session will prepare you to deliver at least one modules below to learners in your school/setting.
The modules are:
4.1. What is cyberviolence?
4.2. Impact of cyberviolence on young people
4.3. Understanding the concept of consent in the online world
4.4. Providing online safety tools
LGBT Inclusive Education with TIE
20 November 2024 
LGBT inclusive education is for everyone. It is needed to foster a safe and supportive environment for all children, young people and adult learners, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender.
This webinar will explore:
- the national approach to LGBT inclusive education and how we can enact it in our settings
- the positive impact of LGBT inclusive education
We’re excited to host alongside Time for Inclusive Education (TIE), Scotland’s LGBT Inclusive Education charity. TIE’s goal is for all young people to grow up in a society free from homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. TIE will share the practicalities and impact of their free national programme, ‘Delivering LGBT Inclusive Education’ which provides support for teaching and learning to create an LGBT inclusive curriculum. We will also share the evidence base for this approach and the positive feedback from parents and carers.
IWE PL Framework: New Resources on Religious Literacy
In partnership with Interfaith Scotland, Education Scotland has developed new professional learning resources to help educators develop their religious literacy.
The resources, entitled “Develop your religious literacy” (Parts 1 and 2) can be used to:
- Support an understanding of some of the discrimination related to religion and belief
- Increase awareness of the core beliefs and cultural practices of six main faith communities in the UK
Promote inclusion by outlining ways to support diverse needs of people of different religions and beliefs.
The sets of resources include slides and facilitation notes – perfect for facilitating a training session with colleagues but also great for self-directed professional learning.
IWE PL Framework: Introduction to planning for learners who require additional support
This session aims to provide an overview of the staged level of intervention and signpost to guidance and resources
Updates and Resources
Publication of two National Trauma Transformation Programme reports
This month, the Scottish Government published the following two reports: 
- The Workforce Survey 2024 presents the findings from a survey carried out with the workforce in Scotland exploring awareness and attitudes to psychological trauma and trauma-informed practice.
- The Local Authority Delivery Trials: Follow-Up Evaluation – Final Report highlights the progress in three delivery trial sites Argyll and Bute, Glasgow and Midlothian since the interim 2021 evaluation. This report identifies challenges and enablers across the local delivery sites, and captures learning and reflections.
The Improvement Service has also recently published their Embedding trauma-informed and responsive organisations, systems and workforces: National Learning Report 2024 on the progress that has been across local areas in terms of embedding a trauma-informed and responsive approach.
Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund – opened 30 September
The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for adults will be open for applications on Monday 30 September 2024. Applications for funding should be made via regional Third Sector Interfaces (TSIs) – if you or a stakeholder organisation is interested in applying, you can find the contact details for your local TSI on the TSI Scotland Network website. Please share widely with any stakeholders who might be interested.
The Communities Mental Health and Wellbeing Fund for Adults was established in October 2021 and to date has distributed around £51 million with more than 4700 grants made to local projects across Scotland. A further £15 million is available to community organisations for 2024/25. The Fund has a strong focus on prevention and early intervention and aims to build and develop capacity within community organisations to support the mental health and wellbeing of individuals. It aims to help tackle the impact of social isolation, loneliness and mental health inequalities made worse by the cost-of-living crisis.
You can find further background information on the Fund on the Scottish Government’s Wellbeing and Prevention webpages along with a recent report on year 3 of the Fund.
Animation for the Trauma-Informed Justice Knowledge and Skills Framework
NHS Education for Scotland (NES) has recently produced a short explainer animation (4:06) to introduce the Trauma-Informed Justice Knowledge and Skills Framework for working with Victims and Witnesses, which was developed by NES and launched in 2023 by the Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs.
The framework was developed in recognition of the considerable and multiple ways in which victims and witnesses can experience the criminal justice system as making their previous experiences of trauma worse, and the negative impact this has on their ability to effectively engage in the process, and to recover.
New Learning for Sustainability Resource 
The new resource explores and celebrates the work of learners from across Scotland. Find things to inspire you and others, as we work together to improve our world now and in the future.
Cabinet Secretary Statement on Tackling Racism
On 6 September, the Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Mr Neil Gray, made a public statement to affirm his commitment to tackling racism in Scotland.
The Cabinet Secretary states racism persists in society and as such, we recognise it as a significant public health challenge and a key cause of health inequalities. He is clear that a firm anti-racism approach is needed to tackle the impacts of racism on staff and patients and improve our services across the NHS, social care and social work. He is calling on everyone in health and social care in Scotland to harness the power our services have to transform people’s lives in becoming leading anti-racism organisations. His statement follows the Programme for Government 2024/25 which includes a commitment to embedding anti-racism across the public and third sectors. NHS anti-racism plan guidance has also been published following the statement.
Exploring Children’s Rights and AI (Children’s Parliament resource)
Children’s Parliament have launched their project’s Stage 2 film and report. Both tell the story of the work that our MCPs, aged 8-12, have done over the past year to promote children’s human rights when it comes to decision-making on AI in Scotland, as summarised in the children’s 12 Calls to Action.
Scottish Dyslexia Awareness week (30 September – 6 October)
Dyslexia Awareness Week 2024 in Scotland is this week. Lots of information is available on the Dyslexia Scotland website with ideas and resources of how you can help ‘spread the word’ this year.
Dyslexia: Early Identification Guidance
The Addressing Dyslexia Toolkit has provided further advice and guidance on the identification of dyslexia to help educators and local authorities ensure they are providing identifications at an early and appropriate time.
Challenge Poverty Week (7-13 October)
Why we want to get everyone talking about poverty
Last year, over 5000 children and young people shared their views in the Cost of the School Day Big Question. They said that it’s important we talk more about poverty to help remove stigma and raise awareness of help that’s available at school.
The cost of the School Day team have put together ideas and activities that can be used to open that discussion within schools.
A new resource for early career teachers that makes links between maths and equalities.
