Council expands social work contact centre services

Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Social Work contact centre is expanding its services.

Following a successful move to introduce a Social Work specialism to the council’s contact centre, the trained call handlers will now be dealing with extra referrals.

As well as adult social work referrals, the Social Work ‘hub’ will be able to:

• Process adult concern forms from Police Scotland

• Send out Occupational Therapy self- assessment forms, and process Occupational Therapy referrals

• Deal with all requests for the attendance of a duty Mental Health Officer (through MH Managers)

The Social Work contact centre operates jointly through Social Work and Community and Customer Services.

Chair of Social Work Services, Councillor Andy Ferguson, said: “This collaboration between two different Council services has been very fruitful and shows what can be done when we think creatively across service boundaries.

“This call centre gives people access to the right services quickly, signposting when they can and putting people through to a Social Worker when necessary.”