October 2013www.skillsforcare.org.uk

P04Social careon the big screen

P07The Social CareCommitment

P12Caring communities

P14Working together to support social workers

The adult social care recruitment and retention toolkit

Finderskeepers

For Business

I was a community development worker early on in my career, so I jumped at the chance to see how Blackpool based n-compass are thinking differently, to tap into the vast array of skills and knowledge in their community.

They are one of the pilot schemes who are testing our community skills development work and I visited an innovative gardening project they are supporting, that will change the lives of people with disabilities or mental health issues.

It’s been a busy time as we launch new products including a search register to support the work of I Care…Ambassadors, who are spreading the good word about rewarding jobs in our sector. Are you already an I Care… Ambassador? If you haven’t signed up then you can find how on page 5.

Assisted living technology gets ever more sophisticated, making the lives of people who access services that bit easier and we’ve launched a new resource to help you make sense of the latest developments. And moving with the times we’ve produced a new smart phone app to go with it.

The National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) data you supply suggests we will need up to one million extra workers by 2025, which is why we’ve created a cinema ad to attract more young workers into social care.It tells the tale of an apprentice called Ellie who works with older people and she explains why she loves her job.

It was on screen before showings of the new Richard Curtis blockbuster ‘About Time’ so it reached a massive audience.

When people see the ad we want them to go home and find out more about working in social care, so we’ve revamped our Finders Keepers toolkit to help you when potential employees make contact with your organisation. It will help you attract more workers, take on the right people, foster talent, increase skills and keep your staff. It’s packed full of useful case studies that will help find and – as importantly – keep new workers.

It is vital that new staff as well as existing staff have the right values and behaviours to work in the sector. That is why we are encouraging employers and employees to sign up to the new Social Care Commitment which will have a huge role to play in improving public confidence in our sector and also the quality of care and support offered to people who need services.

It is vital that new staff as well as existing staff have the right values and behaviours to work in the sector. That is why we are encouraging employers and employees to sign up to the new Social Care Commitment which will have a huge role to play in improving public confidence in our sector and also the quality of care and support offered to people who need services.

02 | 03

Contents

Sharon AllenCEO Skills for Care

Welcome to the autumn edition of Care magazine.

Follow us:

www.skillsforcare.org.uk

04 Social care on the big screen

05 Good ambassadors for care

06 Living well through activity Getting to grips with assisted living technology

07-10 The Social Care Commitment

11 Skills to support dementia NMDS-SC dashboards

12 | 13 Caring communities

14 | 15 Working together to support social workers

16 60 seconds with Annette Baines

With another one million people needed in the sector by 2025, Skills for Care is looking to the younger generation to help build the future social care workforce.

If you missed the advert in the cinema, you can still view it by visiting

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/thinksocialcare

Social care on the

big screen

A campaign is underway, which aims to reach over half a million people aged 16 - 24, to raise awareness of the career opportunities available in adult social care.

Leading the campaign is a cinema advertisement. Made by Skills for Care, the advert was shown across England before the film ‘About Time’. The advert featured Ellie, an 18 year old apprentice in adult social care, who encouraged people to ‘think social care’ when it came to their career choice.

As well as the cinema advert, Skills for Care is promoting adult social care in career magazines, on career choice websites and directly by visiting school and college leavers across the country.

www.skillsforcare.org.uk 04 | 0504 | 05

Good ambassadors for care

Skills for Care has been running interactive workshops across England to welcome newly registered I Care…Ambassador services. The I Care…Ambassador service supports recruitment and retention of workers into the adult social care sector, using personal testimonies from enthusiastic people already working in the sector to dispel negative myths and promote a wide range of different career opportunities. At the events, employers, partnership coordinators and ambassadors collected a useful welcome pack of resources to help support the promotion of their service. They used the workshops to increase understanding of the new I Care…Ambassador service, and took the opportunity to network with other ambassadors to share good practice and tips for a sustainable service.

Emma White from The Suffolk Care Ambassador Employer Partnership attended the welcome event in Coventry,

Skills for Care will soon launch the I Care…Ambassador search register to help people find the right ambassador in their local area.

Skills for Care has been running interactive workshops across England to welcome newly registered I Care…Ambassador services.

To find out more about the benefits of registering as a service visit

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/icareambassadors

“I found the welcome events really

useful . I was able to engage with other

coordinators and ambassadors, which helps

to share good practice and provide support

to each other whilst the service

is being established. I have also found

the support and resources from Skills for

Care to be very good. When the I Care…

Ambassador search register is launched we

will be able to start reaching even more

people and hopefully make a real impact.”

www.skillsforcare.org.uk

Getting to grips with assisted living technologyA new framework and resource hub have been launched to support those involved in commissioning, design or delivery of assisted living technology (ALT).

“When I first viewed the ALT e-learning modules, I was impressed with how user friendly it is to use and the course certainly meets our needs. Our aim is to use the hub as an induction for new staff” Kusham Chadha, Training Officer (Adult Health & Social Care), Slough Borough Council.

The framework is based on principles that an assisted living service can utilise. It’s presented in easy to use chapters so organisations or individuals can pick and choose the support they need. The framework is supported by an online resource hub which includes guides to enable face-to-face eLearning, allowing

organisations to use the right learning approach for their workforce. A new app – assistedliving – gives people in the field this information in their hands so they can choose the right sort of technology for people’s needs.

For more information visitwww.skillsforcare.org.uk/assistedtechnology The app is available to download from the Apple store.

The College of Occupational Therapists has launched an online toolkit to enable care home residents to continue with the activities that are important to them.

The free Living Well through Activity in Care Homes toolkit has been piloted in care homes and is now freely available. It helps to address many of the complications caused by a lack of physical and mental stimulation including infections, preventable falls and depression.

Supported by Skills for Care, the toolkit is full of practical exercises and tips to support reflection and learning and has separate guides for residents, family and friends, care staff and care home owners and managers.

The toolkit maps to the activity provision qualifications developed by Skills for Care following consultation with the sector. The level 2 award and level 3 certificate are designed to develop workers’ understanding of the potential benefits and build their skills in coordinating activity provision.

To access the toolkit visit www.cot.co.uk/living-well-care-homesFor more information on the activities qualifications visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/activityquals

Living wellthrough activity

Employers know that embedding clear values, attitudes and behaviours in their workforce is key to quality service delivery and the new Social Care Commitment is designed to reinforce that in workplaces across England.

It’s the sector’s promise to provide people who need care and support with safe, high-quality services. Organisations as well as individual workers make the commitment, with workers promising to put care values into practice and employers promising to give their staff the learning and support to do this.

The sector’s promise to provide people who need care and support with safe, high-quality services.

The Social CareCommitment

The employers view

Hear from employers about the importance of the commitment, the impact it will have on the sectorand how it can be embedded into learning anddevelopment across different organisations.

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/thesocialcarecommitment

06 | 07inform access plan implement review

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www.skillsforcare.org.uk 10 | 11

My NMDS-SC dashboards are revolutionising the way NMDS-SC account holders are accessing and interpreting key workforce intelligence, to help them understand their workforce information and to support business planning. They provide a quick and clear overview of your business and workforce data entered into the NMDS-SC.

Open access NMDS-SC dashboards are now available to anyone visiting www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk and provide access to aggregated NMDS-SC information on the social care sector and workforce. The data on topics such as recruitment and retention, pay and local demand, and intelligence, are graphically presented in an easy to understand format with tailored interpretation, simple

guidance and links to related resources. You can select the workforce area of interest to you and choose your own comparator group.

The new dashboards guide provides a useful introduction, showing you how to get the most out of them.

Skills to support

dementia

NMDS-SC dashboardsTo access the dashboards guide visitwww.skillsforcare.org.uk/nmds-scdashboardseguide

A guide to develop the skills of workers that support peoplein the advance stages of dementia has been produced by Skills for Care. This new resource is a case study-based manager’s guide to good practice in learning and development for social care workers, developed with employers and key partners.

The guide considers how reminiscence can be used by the workforce to support people with dementia. It provides examples of meaningful activities for the workforce to use to engage people who have dementia. It also highlights dementia specific qualifications, which can be used to develop the knowledge and skills of social care staff. The guide also lists what support is available from other professionals.

Throughout the guide there are a number of case studies and examples, as well as links to further resources to support organisations.

For more information visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/dementia

For Business

Quality people, quality care

The Social CareCommitment

Be recognised as a provider of quality servicesBy signing up, care providers will be recognised as an organisation who delivers quality care and support. Nigel Taylor, Group Learning and Development Manager at CareTech Community Services says providers could lose out on business if they have not made the commitment, as potential and existing customers won’t be able to quickly identify the quality of service that is being offered. For Nigel, signing up to the commitment “will identify providers who are committed to delivering quality care and differentiate them from those who are not, this alone will give a business benefit.”

Improving public trustThe commitment will have a key role to play in helping to improve public trust in the care sector. From December 2013, once a Care Quality Commission (CQC) registered care provider has signed up to the commitment the public will be able to see this on their NHS Choices profile. At the same time the public will be able to search the Social Care Commitment website and see which organisations have signed up, including any non CQC registered providers.

For more information visitwww.thesocialcarecommitment.org.uk@carecommitment #qualitypeoplequalitycare

“The CQC fully supports the Social Care Commitment and will assess the culture and leadership of services as part of its new approach to inspection.”David Behan, Chief Executive of theCare Quality Commission (CQC)

How do I sign up?

You sign up to seven commitments which are made up of ‘I will...’ statements and supporting tasks that help workers and employers put the commitment into practice. They focus on real issues such as effective communication, upholding dignity and protecting privacy. A major benefit of signing up is that people will gain access to a range of resources from around the sector to ensure they can meet the standards required.

www.skillsforcare.org.uk

Health and Wellbeing Services Manager, Joanna Solanki, told Sharon about a local man with alcohol related issues who was ringing the emergency services ten times a month. The ambulance service referred him to n-compass who arranged for one of their community support officers to meet with him. “He told us he felt life wasn’t worth living and he couldn’t see a future but we discovered he had a passion for fishing so we put him in touch with a local Fisherman’s Friends group. Now he is socially connected and he rings the emergency services only once a month for genuine reasons.”

This is community skills development being brought to life, having a direct impact on people’s lives as well as achieving significant savings for other service areas. n-compassare one of Skills for Care’s community skills early adopter schemes who are spreadingthe concept right across their organisation.

“In our health and well-being strand, community skills development is very strongly embedded. We take a strength-based approach to working with individuals, and when working in the community to support the development of community activity. Our workforce understands how important it is to help people discover and utilise their skills, as they canhelp them to improve their situation, and thisis extremely empowering for the individual.” Every community has people with skills and resources that can be used by people who need care and support – but the trick is finding them. That’s why Skills for Care has been working with groups across England to find out how we can make community skills building a reality.

Our CEO Sharon Allen has been visiting projects to see for herself how they work. One of her first visits was to the n-compass team who provide a wide range of services across Lancashire including advocacy, carers, health and well-being, volunteering and services for people who self-harm.

Caring communities

12 | 13

With the support of n-compass this scrap of waste land now has two poly tunnels growing vegetables and the group have won a Health Lottery grant to build a log cabin as their base. “This project was created by two local women Pamela Laird and Paula Hartle. Our Community Development Officer, Sally Richardson, was able to use some of the thinking she developed through the Skills for Care project to help them to create a business plan, mind map their aims and develop a six month action plan.”

The Willow Garden Project is now a registered charity, with Sally as one of its trustees, and has picked up a Lancashire Green Award recognising their commitment to safeguarding the environment. Much of their produce is sent along to a local food bank which is linked to a cook and eat group, encouraging a healthy eating group that has been supported by Skills for Care and n-compass. They are now searching for additional revenue funding.

“I was a Community Development Worker early on in my career and this visit showed how organisations like n-compass can think differently to really tap into the rich array of skills and knowledge that exists around them”, says Sharon Allen. “It was really inspiring to see how Pamela and Paula have created such a peaceful garden from nothing that will help change the lives of people in their community.”

n-compass also showed Sharon the Willow Garden Project, which is a food growing community garden next to Fleetwood Cricket Club designed to support people with a learning disability or mental health needs.

Skills for Care has helped Creative Support to establish an Independent Sector network in Greater Manchester to promote the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE). The group is linked into the Skills for Care’s local social work partnership which enables them to benefit from the sharing of skills, resources, knowledge and experience in relation to social work and continuing professional development (CPD).

Creative Support is a national organisation providing person centred services for people with learning disabilities, mental health and other needs. It has always identified itself as a practitioner led organisation, employing over 60 qualified social workers in various roles. They offer social work placements, practice teaching and have recently developed an in house ASYE programme for six newly qualified social workers (NQSWs).

Creative Support has always been keen to bring the independent sector to the forefront of social work education, practice and development and, as a large employer feels able to assist smaller organisations to develop their social work workforce.

It has organised an Action learning set and four ASYE training days focused around the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) and positive social work practice, which are open to NQSWs from across the network.

14 | 15www.skillsforcare.org.uk

For more information about the ASYE visit

www.skillsforcare.org.uk/ASYE

Working togetherto support socialworkers

Emma Knight, Service Director for Creative Support has suggested some useful tips to help employers who are planning to implement the ASYE:

Think big: There are significant resources and a wealth of willing participants eager to move the ASYE forward.

Persistence is the key: Everyone is really busy delivering services, don’t give up.

Use our experience: Seek out other successful programmes and tap into Skills for Care and the wealth of resources available.

Annette Baines

Finding and keeping high quality social care staff with the right values and attitudes can be a challenge. If you have problems recruiting or retaining staff there could be a number of factors involved and a range of issues that need to be addressed.

Attracting and keeping the right staff leads to better outcomes for the people who use your service, which leads in turn to a better reputation, so there is a strong business case for taking more time to consider your recruitment and retention strategy.

What help is available?

Skills for Care has recently revised and updated Finders Keepers, a practical toolkit designed to help care providers improve the way they recruit and keep their staff. This free guide emphasises the importanceof planning your approachto recruitment and retention.

What’s in the toolkit?

Finders Keepers aims to help organisations improve their own plans and activities by providing information and advice over four themes:

attracting more people to your organisation

taking on the right people

fostering talent and increasing skills

keeping you staff.

The themes are colour coded throughout for ease of reference. The toolkit is illustrated with case studies, which provide lots of ideas for how to improve the way you recruit and retain staff.

Case study solutions include:

training staff to become I Care…Ambassadors

offering applicants visitand ‘taster’ sessions

introducing group assessments

creating a standardised interview process with an emphasis on testing for values linked to behaviours

introducing an Apprenticeship programme and promoting clear career pathways

introducing a fast-track scheme for supervisors.

Recruitment and Retention Programme Head, Skills for Care

www.skillsforcare.org.uk

Finders Keepers can be downloaded from the Skills for Care website with additional supporting resourceswww.skillsforcare.org.uk/finderskeepers

To order a printed copy please email marketing@skillsforcare.org.uk

The adult social care recruitment and retention toolkit

Finderskeepers