The “Kent Care in the Digital Age” conference in Sittingbourne, Kent on July 12th brought together 150 staff, volunteers, service users, carers, innovators and care providers from across the country to explore how digital technology can enhance community care and support.
The event was created by “Connected Care Network“, an organisation formed by combining the considerable talents of social care advocate (and co-host of the Disruptive Social Care Podcast, with Mindings‘ Stuart Arnott) Shirley Ayres, and communications consultant and designer James Souttar.
Kent is at the forefront of exploring innovative new ways of using telecare, telehealth and digital technologies to support people and enable them to live safer, healthier and more fulfilling lives.
One key to delivering this new revolution in healthcare delivery is harnessing the power of social networking – using services such as Twitter and Facebook – for communicating internally within care delivery organisations, and engaging with service-users in the community.
Speakers at the event included Dominic Campbell, Founder and Director of FutureGov, discussing “The Benefits of Supporting Care Innovations”.
Masterclass workshops, included:
“Social Media Basics – How to engage with social media and what are the benefits?” Paul Taylor, Innovation Coach, Bromford Group
“Developing a strategic approach to social media” James Lampert, Commissioning Manager – Community Support, Kent County Council Families and Social Care
“Advanced Social Media Masterclass” Mike Clark, Managing Editor Telecare Learning and Improvement Network
The event organisers also invited Mindings‘ founder Stuart Arnott, and Gill Phillips, creator of “Whose Shoes” community and discussion resources, to host a joint workshop. The lively and very well attended workshop was entitled “Supporting Carers and Families”, and the group discussed what digital tools and online services are available to careers, and what the barriers are to adopting them.
The event was a great success (#kentdigicare trending wildly that day), with people inspired and motivated to try out the many new ideas, tools and service that had been discussed with contacts old and new. The subsequent online discussions spoke of how a “movement” had begun that day. The intention is to repeat the event across the whole country.
In this video, James Lampert, Commissioning Manager – Community Support, Kent County Council Families and Social Care discusses how he discovered Mindings and uses it to great success with his own family.
And here’s Gill (and Stuart) discussing the feedback from their workshops.
Mindings Team
(You can read a fuller discussion of the day on Gill’s Whose Shoes blog).
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