With so much really useful and practical advice and guidance around we thought you might find it useful if we collated a few together to share with you. We hope you find them helpful.

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May Calendar – Action for Happiness

This Meaningful May Calendar has daily actions for May 2020 to help us respond to this global crisis with a sense of purpose and meaning. 

Click here for further useful information from Action for Happiness

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Top tips for bedtime = Parent Club

Many parents are reporting that due to the current COVID-19 situation they are seeing changes in their children’s sleeping patterns etc, Parent Club provides really useful advice and top tips – visit Parent Club and enter ‘sleeping’ to their search facility to view a host of options to explore.

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What’s the Problem? – Stop it now

Being online with their friends, doing lessons etc. is the norm at the moment for our children – What’s the problem? – is a useful guide for parents about staying safe online and what to do if problems arise from ‘Stop it Now’

Click here to access

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At Home with Ziggy toolkit (as highlighted in Education Scotland)

Road Safety Scotland’s free ‘Go Safe with Ziggy!’ road safety learning resource helps equip young children with the skills, knowledge and attitudes that will help them stay safe now, and in later life. Download the toolkit here.

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Mindfulness – Information from NHS

NHS state:

“Paying more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you – can improve your mental wellbeing”.

This useful page provides you with access to ‘mood self-assessment’ quiz, information on ‘mindfulness’ and links to other useful wellbeing information.

Click here to access

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Care and Learning Alliance

We have created several different pages on our website which we hope families are finding useful. Check them out at:

Keep safe information for families during COVID-19 – quick useful links to both national and local services to support families

 Click here to access

Play and Learning Ideas – lots of simple play ideas to do at home for children of all ages

Click here to access

Keep up to date with news from CALA services – our practitioners from each of our sessions are working hard to stay connected and continue to support their children and families. Each setting is posting messages and ideas.

Click here to access.

Child Protection – Information on how to keep children safe and how to share concerns.

Click here to access.

COVID 19 – Interim Changes to Highland Child Protection Guidance

The Highland Child Protection Committee has issued an update to Child Protection Guidance for during COVID-19. They state:

“The Scottish Government update to National Child Protection Guidance supports interim changes to local arrangements for child protection practice. Following this document, some small amendments have been agreed to Child Protection Guidance in Highland. These will be in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and reviewed regularly. The Interim Guidance should be considered alongside the Highland Child Protection Guidance and can be accessed here.”

Click here to access

CALA News

Here at CALA we are continuing to work hard to find new ways of working to ensure where possible, we continue to meet the needs of our members, families, and children during this ongoing period of change and uncertainty.

Most of the CALA team are currently working from home including our office teams in Inverness and Dingwall who are doing an amazing job of keeping up with ‘business’ as usual for us.

Some of CALA ‘s settings continue to open providing essential quality childcare for the children of frontline staff.

Our Direct Services, Family Services and Learning and Quality teams have been collaborating on a range of tasks including populating our dedicated ‘Family Information and Support’ pages on our website and delivering virtual continuous professional development sessions.

We are seeing a significant increase in numbers of learners accessing our e-learning, A big THANK YOU to the 927 users who have accessed our free Child Protection related e-modules since the 1^st of April, and are helping to keep our children safe.

Through our social media, blog and membership services we continue to try and take some of the leg work out of sourcing through the increasing raft of information and guidance to select the most important information that we feel will be useful to share.

We would like to use this opportunity to thank all our members, staff, families and partners for their continued support. Please keep talking to us, let us know what and where advice or support is needed. We can’t promise to always be in a position to help, however, we will always listen and where possible signpost you to information or services who may be able to help.

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News from Care Inspectorate

1. Care Inspectorate announced Scotland’s first Bereavement Charter for Children and Adults:

“The Charter, together with Guidance notes and frequently asked questions (FAQs) contains 15 statements that describe what the best bereavement care and support should look like. It has been developed to support individuals and communities who struggle with the death of someone they know or someone in their community.

Today, the need for such a Charter has become even more important due to the unique circumstances we currently find ourselves in as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. People who are bereaved may not have been able to be with a person as they approach the end of their life and may be isolated from their usual networks of support. It has also changed the traditional ways we are able to mark our grief. Traditional bereavement rituals and funerals have changed with many people now unable to attend funerals in the way that they might have in the past. Many deaths have become sudden, with little or no time to prepare.

Every death is unique and the way we each come to terms with a death is individual. this Charter and Guidance attempts to describe what good bereavement support can look like and what difference it can make. #becausegriefmatters”

2. COVID-19: revised personal protective equipment guidance (PPE)

“Health Protection Scotland has published revised guidance on the use of use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by health and social care workers. You can download the guidance by clicking here”