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Skills for Care

Skills for Care ensures that England's adult social care workforce has the appropriately skilled people in the right places working to deliver high quality social care. To achieve this, we focus on the attitudes, values, skills and qualifications people need to undertake their roles.

Who are we and what can we do for you?

Skills for Care supports employers (organisations and people who 'directly' employ PAs) to develop the skills of the nearly 1.6 million social care workers, and to plan for the future workforce.

Demographic trends indicate that demand for social care for adults including older people will increase steadily in coming years. That means that our sector will need to provide services in very different ways.

Traditional boundaries between sectors are blurring or disappearing entirely and the shape of the adult social care market is set to change radically. This gives a great opportunity to plan for the workforce in a different way.

Government policy and the focus on greater choice, including the increased take up of direct payments and personal budgets, together with more integrated community-based and innovative solutions, will impact on the shape of the social care workforce.

Skills for Care responds to these strategic changes by working closely with the 48,000-plus workplaces that provide social care. Skills for Care also works with people who use services and with carers and other key stakeholders to develop resources which meet the sector's workforce development needs.

Our plan for doing this is set out in the Workforce Development Strategy, Capable Confident, Skilled (2011).


How can Skills for Care help?

Supporting you to recruit the right people to meet the needs of your business

We raise the profile of the adult social care sector by:

  • encouraging our apprentice employer champions to talk to other employers about how social care apprenticeships are a positive way to develop long term careers in adult social care
  • celebrating and sharing the very best practice from the very best adult social care employers through our Accolades
  • encouraging people to take up rewarding careers in our sector through networks of care ambassadors.

Our Finders, Keepers and SME recruitment guide publications are practical resources for care providers to improve their recruitment and retention strategies. And the recruitment & retention strategy developed by employers for employers identifies how to navigate to a workforce that will enable the new vision for social care to become a reality.


Supporting you to retain your staff by investing in the right mix of skills and experience to create a committed and sustainable workforce

  • Making sure your staff can get the start they need to develop the skills and attributes to do a good job through appropriate induction in their first weeks in any new social care role. The Common Induction Standards set out key areas of expertise for people entering social care and those changing roles or employers within social care.
  • Developing qualifications that ensure the skills of staff are increased and recognised-this acknowledges the critical nature of the work that staff do and helps to build confidence of the people who use the services in those who support them.
  • Developing qualifications that are in 'bite-sized' pieces which support continuing professional development and ensure your workers are able to adapt as their role changes and your business develops.
  • Making sure that the sector has the leaders and managers needed to lead the workforce, by producing a range of resources to encourage effective leadership, supervision, and staff development.
  • Distributing the Workforce Development Fund to contribute to your investment in creating a capable, confident and skilled workforce.

As the profile of the population shifts, political requirements change, and the expectations of people develop, successful care providers will need to adapt their businesses to remain a service of choice for existing and potential customers-both individuals and commissioners.

Supporting you to remain competitive in the changing social care market

Highlighting the existence of innovative methods of delivering social care services, and supporting their development, including:

  • research, data and analysis which provide the overview of the social care sector as it is now and a critique of what the changes might be in the future. The National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) collects information online about providers offering a social care service and their employees
  • 'seven principles of workforce redesign' that set out the key things you need to take account of when changing the way in which your staff work to meet the challenges of the personalisation agenda and to remain competitive
  • a range of case studies that provide insight into how some ground breaking providers are delivering services in new ways
  • tools to support local authorities with developing Integrated Integrated Local Area Workforce Strategies (InLAWS) that will support commissioning across a local area and provide insight for employers on commissioners' requirements
  • 'common core principles' to promote self care, end of life support and dementia care, to support staff to deliver on personalisation, prevention and protection.

Skills for Care ensures that the voice of adult social care employers is heard in government, at Westminster and beyond. 

Information on how Skills for Care works with the voluntary sector.

Information on how Skills for care works with individuals who employ their own care and support staff.

 

In your area

Skills for Care has a network of workforce development experts supporting employers across England with information, resources and easy-to-use tools.

You can find out how to contact your local team by: