Turning out the lights

I always dislike the end of the Festive break. As the decorations come down and the lights go off, everything looks so much more bare and less inviting.

I am one of those who stretch the 12th day up until the end of 6th January.

However the office decorations were taken down this afternoon.

This shot reminds me that once the lights go off we will still have left on the wall - and in our actions - the values of the organisation.

We’ve had a few quieter days - not without issues - but allowing some scope to write papers and do some planning. Monday will se everything ramp up and the year ahead will be busy and challenging and exciting. In Scotland it is the Year of the Young Person (YOYP 2018).

There will be recommendations from the review of care (led by young people).

We will see the establishment of the young persons board for the children’s hearings system - Our Hearings Our Voice - and we will need to make sure that it becomes a meaningful body treated seriously.

The work on developing the second generation digital platform for the children’s hearing system - with all the opportunities that will bring for enhanced participation of young people and better support for our volunteers - will dominate out work over the next 18 months and will bring its own issues and challenges. Just look at the Intel problem over the last few days where patches and upgrades across systems have affected us all.

The Parlaiment’s Education and Skills Committee will return to its review of the system and we will continue to seek to get a better handle on what improvements and outcomes are being delivered for children and young people.

We will be issuing a new tender for the provision of training in the system which will be a major and critical exercise.

And there will be YOYP 2018 itself bringing energy, excitement and posing questions about what we are doing.

To mention a few.

So fun times lie ahead and we will still have to keep our usual lights on with ever tighter resources.

As long as we hold firm to the values on this wall through thick and thin we’ll steer a path through all this activity and look forward to whatever the year brings.