ORGANISATIONS looking to take advantage of the small scale of the Wee County in order to build shared knowledge met last week for a networking event.

The Knowing Clackmannanshire event took place last Tuesday, January 21, at Alloa Town Hall with 120 individuals attending from 52 organisations and services.

The concept for the event was developed by partners in the Clackmannanshire Alliance to build relationships and shared knowledge between statutory services and community groups.

The idea was to create a living directory of services in the minds of staff and volunteers.

This is to enable social models of support to address the root causes of poor health, education as well as justice outcomes among vulnerable people.

Cross-sector staff and volunteers did exactly that during the half-day interactive event.

Fiona Duncan, chief social work officer and senior manager for children's services as well as the criminal community justice service, opened the day, acknowledging that creating a directory of services is no easy task, as they often don't capture the human element required to have a truly person- centred approach.

Delegates also heard from Anthea Coulter, chief officer at Clackmannanshire Third Sector Interface.

She took people on a whistle-stop tour of the local third sector, giving a flavour of activities, service provision as well as volunteering opportunities.

Everyone attending was given a unique networking plan to allow them to engage with the highest number of other delegates as possible.

Council leader Councillor Ellen Forson brought the day to a close, reflecting on how important local connections are and calling on everyone to keep Knowing Clackmannanshire by continuously building the living directory.

Yvette Malone, community neutering officer at Cats Protection, is new to the area and found the event particularly helpful.

She said: "It was a great event today.

"Lovely to connect with so many amazing groups and organisations.

"I made some great contacts for my community work, so thank you."

Many delegates suggested the networking opportunity should be an annual event and indeed, it is understood partners in the wider area are looking to replicate it for the whole Forth Valley region.