THIS year's Scottish Housing and Support Conference took place on 1 October in the Hilton Edinburgh Grosvenor Hotel. Over 150 participants attended and the feedback on the event was very positive. There was the opportunity to network with others, discuss the issues raised in conference sessions and consider the implications for services and for service users.

The active input of service users continues to sustain this Conference as a unique forum for Scotland. And the promotion of new ways of working helps to improve service delivery, policy and practice across the country.

In the interests of the environment, and in response to requests from participants last year, we made this our first paperless conference. Instead of printing handouts we agreed to put the speaker presentations onto this website as PDFs.

SHASC Conference 2009 presentations

• Personalisation and choice: Stephen Sandham, Scottish Government.

• The service user experience: Graham Morgan, Highland Users Group and Amanda Miller, Bield Housing Association.

• The local authority experience: Geoff Brown, City of Edinburgh Council and Julie Hunter, North Lanarkshire Council.

• TUPE and the service user voice when services transfer: Wendy Spencer, Turning Point Scotland.

• Using Fab Pad: Susan Aktemel and Colin Marshall, Impact Arts.

• Social reporting: Craig Sanderson and Sheila Maxwell, Link Group and Penny Morriss, Forth Sector Development.

• Service users as lay assessors - how do we make it work? Jo Phillips and Greg McFarlane, Care Commission.

• Circles of support and community connections: Laura Troll and family members, Equal Futures.

• Telling it as it is - invited service users in conversation about their services: the key points from this discussion will be included on this website next month.

• Local area co-ordination: Claire Green, Steve Robertson, Sandra Hooper and Dougie Purves, National LAC Team. This session was discussion-based and had no digital presentation.

• Self-Directed Support, what it means in practice: Julia Fitzpatrick, Inspiring Inclusion. This session was cancelled due to illness.

Download the 2009 conference programme here