Tuesday 28th August 2018, marks the fourth in a series of Being Human conferences hosted by the organisation I work for, C-Change Scotland. The organisation is a charity and by all accounts is a service provider organisation. It works with disabled people with additional support needs assisting them to live their good life. So why has the organisation been spending time talking about human rights, is that not someone else’s business, like policy makers, lawyers or the courts?

We think not, we think human rights and the debates and discussion about them are absolutely the stuff of social care. Dignity, the founding principle of human rights is the bedrock of good social care, indeed of any relational interaction. The problem is there seems to be a gulf between policy and practice and rhetoric and reality. The conference also heralds the launch of the book I have written, Human Rights and Social Care, Putting Rights into Practice. The book attempts to make inroads into that gap by connecting case law and practice examples. The book uses the PANEL principles of Participation, Accountability, Non-discrimination, Empowerment and Equality and Legality as a navigational tool to guide practice.

Book launches usually take the form of an author’s lecture and drinks reception. This conference and book launch is more of a celebration of the evolution and the potential of developing a human rights based approach to social care in Scotland. It provides the forum to showcase human rights in action across a range of areas of social care including work with children, women , disabled people and those affected by Alzheimers. We are also very fortunate to have Professor Alan Miller provide the keynote presentation.

Human rights requires leadership. In Scotland we have strong and positive cross party political support for the human rights agenda. However this is not enough, we need to strengthen our citizen leadership. For people to exercise their rights they need to know about them. The aim of the conference and the book is to raise awareness of the potential of adopting a human rights based approach to social care.

We hope you can join us on the day but if not please follow us on social media using the hashtag #rightsintopractice.