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Young people and the ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’

Gemma Jewell, Associate Director of People and Business Support at Response, a charity that provides mental health services and housing support in Oxfordshire and the surrounding areas, talks to us about the impact she hopes the Workforce Strategy will have on young people.

At Response, our goal is to help people across Oxfordshire live safely and independently. We work directly to provide support for those living with serious mental illness (SMI), autism, drug use and physical disability. At current, we support over 550 people in 190 properties across our region.

The ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’ is something that promises to have a big impact on our service, and which I believe could be transformational for the adult social care sector. In particular, I’m keen to highlight how the Strategy could help us attract more young people to adult social care, helping to alleviate the challenges we face as a result of an ageing care workforce.

When preparing to write this article, I consulted my 19-year-old nephew, who’s at a crucial stage in his life as he’s currently considering his career and further educational prospects. I asked him what he thought about the career opportunities offered by the care sector, and the types of people who typically work within it, to which he responded, ‘it’s mostly middle-aged women, isn’t it?’

I think that addressing this perception is possibly one of the most significant ways in which the Strategy can support us to bring more young people into social care. The Strategy recommends a 10-year attraction plan, centred around attracting those that our sector currently lacks – younger people, men and those with creative skills. I think it’s a huge step in the right direction to call for action directly targeting these demographics.

One of the other clear challenges for our sector is pay. Without reasonable pay, I don’t think it’s likely that adult social care will be seen as a career that young people will prioritise when considering their options. Our sector is one with such huge social value and it’s only right that its staff are paid like those working in other roles where human lives are the focus of the job. Quite rightly, the Strategy does this by making suggestions of things like a well-funded ‘sector minimum wage’, helping to differentiate our sector from the rest of the labour market.

In addition to this, zero-hour contracts and poor benefits are a big concern of mine. Stability is an important issue for young people, who are often facing the biggest challenges when it comes to our current cost of living crisis. The Strategy highlights the fact that 22% of social care roles are zero-hour, whereas the just 3.4% of the rest of the labour market is zero-hour. What incentive do young people have to consider this sector if most other opportunities offer a more stable income? Appropriately, the Strategy highlights this as one of our biggest challenges, which needs to be addressed alongside the pay issues.

Tying into this discussion around pay and career prospects is the topic of training and development. Apprenticeships are one particular area where young people are concerned. At Response, we’ve suffered from dropouts when it comes to our apprentices, with them often struggling with the stress of combined learning and working. It’s brilliant to see recognition of these challenges within the Strategy as it calls for a complete overhaul of the adult social care apprenticeship approach and working closely with education establishments, noting specifically the high dropout rates and poor current provision.

Outside of this, it’s incredibly encouraging to see continued support for the Care Certificate, a standard that Response has used as a minimum competence qualification as part of onboarding for over 4 years. The launch of the level 2 Care Certificate is highly anticipated and we’re happy to see the Strategy calling for DHSC to continue supporting people in social care to reach level 2 competency. In addition to this, the call for the development of a suite of pathways to support 80% of care staff to reach level 3 competency within five years is also very promising. I’m hopeful these moves will support our sector to become viewed as one that employs competent professionals with real training, transferable skills and great prospects.

In summary, I think the ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’ is an excellent opportunity for the sector to push for more young people joining our care services. It’s hugely important that we solve this problem to ensure that our services are well staffed into the future. I’m very pleased to be championing the Strategy and will be encouraging the adoption of these recommendations and changes wherever I can.

 Find out more about the ‘Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care’ by checking out the Strategy recommendations or by visiting our campaign hub.

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