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Social Care Ireland Annual Conference 2025
April 2, 2025 @ 8:30 am - April 3, 2025 @ 5:00 pm
The theme of this years conference is,
‘Creativity, Innovation and play in Social Care – The Power of Possibility in an era of regulation’
Date: 2nd & 3rd of April 2025
Venue: The Fairways Hotel Dublin Road, Haggardstown, Dundalk, Co. Louth, A91 E6KC. Email: reception@fairwayshotel.ie/ Phone: +353 42 934 3910
Please book accommodation directly with the hotel
When booking online enter the code “SCI2025” into the promo code section. You will automatically receive the Social Care Ireland discounted rate.
Social care practice often requires thinking and acting creatively and innovatively in complex and sometimes ambiguous contexts which are now increasingly bounded by regulation. While standards, regulations and legislation provide essential benchmarks, recognition, promotion and support for creative, innovative and playful practice is central to bringing about positive change for individuals and communities, and within cultures of care. It is widely recognised that creativity and innovation are essential 21st century skills. However, with the professionalisation of the social care sector the importance of creativity and innovation in being an effective social care worker may have diminished. The Standards of Proficiency for Social Care Workers, for example, contains just one reference to creativity (SP 5.16). With so many regulatory bodies overseeing social care services (e.g. Tusla, HIQA, CORU) staff teams may find it more difficult to think laterally, problem solve and collaborate while respecting regulatory parameters. Thinking and acting creatively and collaboratively can often provide innovative solutions and challenges to existing systems. The 2025 annual conference will focus on the power of possibility in adopting and enhancing creative, innovative and playful practice in such contexts.
Call for Abstracts:
This two-day event will bring together practitioners, educators, leaders and researchers to explore what it means to practice creatively, innovatively and playfully in social care, to share best practice and showcase what works to enhance these core dimensions of professional practice. In a context shaped by registration as well as legal and regulatory systems we hope the conference will enhance the possibilities for acting creatively and innovatively to build meaningful relationships for positive change and improved service delivery. The Social Care Ireland conference committee invite social care workers and managers, social care educators, service users and researchers and other professionals working in the field of social care to submit abstracts under three categories. Please refer to the abstract guidance document and submit an abstract coversheet. Abstract deadline for 2025 conference – 5pm, Friday 6th December 2024. For any queries relating to the conference please contact socialcareirelandcon@gmail.com
Keynote: Dr. Neil Maiden
Theme: Embracing creativity and creative thinking in social care
Creative thinking is a skill that employers are increasingly seeking from their employers. In 2024 the World Economic Forum reported it is the fastest-growing skill demanded by organisations across professions. Social care is no different. Not only can creative skills encourage people in care to engage more in artistic activities, but also creative thinking is essential to overcome everyday care challenges and seize new opportunities. This keynote will define creative thinking in the context of social care work, and frame it is a skill can that be relearned by professionals in the form of specific techniques and more general good practices. Moreover, it will present how emerging digital technologies, and in particular Artificial Intelligence can be used in simple and secure ways to augment this creative thinking, as one means of broadening our understanding of the social care profession.
Biography: Neil Maiden is Professor of Digital Creativity at the Bayes Business School at City St George’s, University of London, and Director of the Centre for Creativity enabled by AI funded by Research England. His research interests include uses of artificial intelligence to augment human creativity. He is and has been a principal and co-investigator on numerous EPSRC- and EU-funded research projects with a total value of over £64 million. He has published over 220 peer-reviewed papers in academic journals and conferences. He chaired the Steering Committee for the IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering series 2009-2012, and was Editor of the IEEE Software’s Requirements column 2005-2013. His details are available at https://www.city.ac.uk/people/academics/neil-maiden.