Athens passwords for social care pilot

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Since the 1 November 2008 local authority social care staff in five regions and all London boroughs have been able to access a wide range of e-journals and databases free of charge as part of a sixteen month pilot.

About Athens
The pilot
Resources and training
Participating authorities and eligibility
Apply for an Athens account
Login to your Athens account
Promotional material
Pilot contact

About Athens

The Athens Access Management System (AMS) controls access to web-based subscription services. The service has been in active use since 1996 in the UK higher education community, providing the means of controlling access to many centrally-funded web-based services. Athens has also been in use by the UK National Health Service since 2000 and is currently used to control access to NHS Evidence. Staffs working with NHS patients are entitled to a password in order to access the NHS national core content collection. This is called the ‘Athens’ password.

To find out more about Athens visit the Athens website (external website).

The pilot

In April 2008 the NHS national core content collection on the NHS Evidence became accessible to “Government funded bodies providing social care” and SCIE was asked to take on the password and account administration for the social care workforce that are now eligible to access and use the online collection. To this end SCIE have set up a pilot where local authority staff have volunteered to become Athens password and account administrators for certain social care staff in their region (see list of participating regions). The pilot will last for 16 months and at the end of this period we hope take up and usage will enable us to identify administrators for other regions and roll out national access. NHS librarians will be acting as “buddies” for the regional social care administrators. SCIE is also hosting a national administrator for the period of the pilot. The pilot will also include enhancing the collection by procuring and adding key social care e-journals.

Resources and training

The NHS national core content collection, as you would expect holds resources which primarily have a health focus. However, there are already several social care related resources and SCIE is adding a number of key social care e-journals over the next couple of months.

Journals available in full text with an Athens for social care password
NHS Evidence content relevant to social care
NHS Evidence content relevant to social care (38kb PDF file)
User training section on the NHS Evidence website (external website).
Taylor and Francis journals via informaworld (external website).
Including: Disability and Society Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties; Ethics and Social Welfare; European Journal of Social Work; Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law; Journal of Social Work Practice.
Cambridge Journals: Ageing and Society
Oxford Journals: British Journal of Social Work
Pier Professional journals; Advances in Mental Health and Learning Disabilities; Tizard Learning Disabilities Review.

Participating

Eligibility for an Athens password depends on two factors:

You work for a participating Local Authority.
Your occupation or social care employment type is included in the pilot for that authority.

Areas Covered	Types of worker included
East of England
Bedfordshire, Essex, Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, Luton, Norfolk, Peterborough, Southend and Suffolk.	Social workers, OT's and business support
London (Metropolitan Boroughs)
Barking and Dagenham, Barnet, Bromley, Camden, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hammersmith and Fulham, Haringey, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington & Chelsea, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Redbridge, Richmond upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth and Westminster.	All social services staff
North West
Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Bury, Cheshire East Council, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Cumbria, Halton, Knowsley, Lancashire, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham Metropolitan, Rochdale Metropolitan, Salford, Sefton, St Helens Metropolitan, Stockport Metropolitan, Tameside Metropolitan, Trafford Metropolitan, Warrington, Wigan Metropolitan and Wirral Metropolitan	Registered social workers, social care staff (e.g. social care workers, support workers, rehabilitation officers, service brokers, transition workers, senior practitioners, support, time and recovery workers, team managers, LA employed OTs, etc.), social care service development staff (e.g. researchers, development managers, Heads of Service).
South Central
Bracknell Forest, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Oxfordshire, Portsmouth, Reading, Slough and Southampton, West Berkshire, Wiltshire, Windsor & Maidenhead and Wokingham.	All social services staff in local authorities, including registered social workers, nurses, OTs, etc.
South East
Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, Kent, Medway, Surrey and West Sussex	LA Social work/care staff
West Midlands
Birmingham City Council, Coventry City Council, Dudley MC, Herefordshire Council, Sandwell MBC, Shropshire County Council, Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, Staffordshire County Council, Stoke on Trent City Council, Telford and Wrekin Council, Walsall MBC, Warwickshire County Council, Wolverhampton City Council and Worcestershire County Council..	Social Workers registered with GSCC and employed by one of the local authorities listed, as evidenced by having a local authority email address.
National
CAFCASS	Registered social workers

Apply for an Athens account

If you think you are eligible for an Athens password, apply for an Athens account now. As part of this process you will be asked to login / register with Social Care Online before you can apply for an Athens account.

Login to your Athens account

If your local Athens administrator has issued you with your Athens account details, you can use these details to log into the NHS Evidence.

Promotional material

Pilot contact

Diane Gwynne-Smith, Head of Knowledge Management, SCIE

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