Vuyani Is On A Learning Curve

What similarities does South Africa have with England in terms of workforce development in social care? Surprisingly, says Vuyani Nkalitshana of Johannesburg,  “quite a lot.”

Vuyani is the Learnership Manager of the Health for the Health and Welfare Sector Education and Training Authority HWSETA (soon to change its name to Health and Social Development SETA) and was in England as an “exchange” guest of Skills for Care, the national workforce development body for adult social care.

During a packed schedule, he attended the Skills for Care national conference in Nottingham, and also met with programme heads at Universities and Colleges and leaders of key organisations on other parts of the country. He was particularly interested in the workings of the New Types of Worker programme, which will introduce new and merged health and social care roles, and the trailblazing National Minimum Data Set for Social Care, which is a mammoth information-gathering programme.

Says Vuyani: “It is good to share ideas, and I have returned with much information. Equally, I think that our Social Work Auxiliary roles, and Child and Youth Care and Community Development Worker roles may be of interest to people working in the sector in England.

“One thing is certain, we all have a shared interest in further improving standards of training and improving recruitment and retention numbers and we are looking forward to strengthening the partnership between ourselves, Skills for Care, and Skills for Health.”

Andrea Rowe, Chief Executive Officer of Skills for Care commented: “The exchange programme is very useful in terms of looking at the wider picture of workforce development in social care and learning from each other.”