Elevating ambitions through co-production at NCASC 2023

It’s that time of the year again; time for the largest gathering of social care leaders at the National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC). Following the success of last year’s event, we are delighted to be the lead sponsor at the conference again, with a strong focus on elevating ambitions and delivering better outcomes through co-production.

Working closely with the Local Government Association (LGA), Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), and Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), we have carefully curated the following programme of events:

• Five ‘Big Chats’, developed in collaboration with Think Local Act Personal and Social Care Future, will lead conversations about the importance of co-production, through a series of short interviews highlighting local areas and their unique journeys, within the exhibition space. Each session will be led by people with relevant lived experience. They are scattered through the event, with the first one at 9am on Wednesday 29 November.
• Our plenary session, ‘Four steps to translating an “inclusive system ambition” into transformed lives’, at 11.50am on Thursday 30 November, will focus on the possibility of setting and achieving bigger ambitions for effective adult and children’s services. Colleagues from Derby City Council and Norfolk County Council, joined by a parent who has been part of and seen the change, will share their stories across social care and SEND. The session will be interactive, using voting and questions to generate and share more practical examples.
• Our breakfast fringe session, ‘Intermediate Care – the reset’, at 8.20am on Thursday 30 November, will launch a key report published by ADASS and IMPOWER. It will propose rethinking and raising ambitions in intermediate care.

Due to popular demand, we are also bringing back the feedback wall for attendees to share their successes, challenges and experiences of co-production.

We look forward to releasing and highlighting our latest reports at NCASC.

• The first, developed in partnership with ADASS, Intermediate Care – The Reset, will be launched at the breakfast session.
• Our new High Hopes for High Needs report, which focuses on creating a more resilient special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) system.
• We will also share some advanced findings of our Valuing Care report that will be published with CCN on 6 December, with unique insight from analysis of 3,500 children in care, for the first time showing the link between needs and costs and pointing to transformational potential for children in care.

We believe passionately that by growing our inclusive ambition we can create better outcomes that leave lasting change, and we really look forward to discussing with like-minded colleagues at the conference.

We look forward to catching up with adult and children’s services colleagues next week – please do visit stand D20 to grab a cup of the best coffee at the conference and say hello!