Five reasons why you should consider a career in social care in 2018
If you're looking for a new challenge in 2018, here are five reasons why you should consider a career in social care.
1. If you have the right values, there’s a job for everyone!
There’s hundreds of different jobs in adult social care, depending on what you want to do, who you want to work with and where you want to work.
You could work in a direct care role, management, administration or ancillary such as kitchen or domestic roles. This could be in the community, a care home, a hospice, an office or in someone’s own home.
Read more about the different job roles you could do.
2. You’ll make a massive difference to someone’s life
You could work with lots of different people, for example someone with a physical disability, a learning disability and/ or autism, dementia, or help someone recover from an accident.
Whoever you work with, you have the potential to make a massive difference to someone’s life. This can make it a very rewarding role, and this is often what people enjoy the most about working in the sector.
3. There are lots of opportunities to develop and progress
Adult social care services are growing and changing all the time, which means there are lots of opportunities to develop and progress.
When you start working in the sector, you should get an induction which includes the Care Certificate – these are the standard everyone needs to work in the sector. You’ll also usually do training relevant to your role.
You can also develop your knowledge through formal qualifications, which a lot of employers will pay for you to do.
4. The sector’s changing which brings exciting and new job opportunities
Adult social care services and health organisations, such as the NHS, are working closely together to support people who need care. This means there are new roles that involve both social and health care.
For example you could become a care navigator (sometimes also called a care coordinator or community navigator). This involves being the point of contact for an individual who uses social and health care services, to help them access the services they need. This could mean navigating through social care, health, housing and employment support in the local community.
Services are also exploring new ways of delivering care and support, which can bring innovative new ways of working. For example shared lives carers welcome people into their own home and support them there – this could be on a long or short term basis.
5. There’s demand for high quality care workers
The sector needs to find enough people to fill an extra half a million jobs by 2030 to meet the growing demand for adult social care services.
Employers are more frequently putting candidate’s values above their previous experience and qualifications – this means that if you’re the right type of person, there’s more opportunities to get into social care without a background in the sector.
Read more about the different job roles you could do, and how you can start your career in adult social care.