Engage: Young people working in social care – current situation and future demand
By Engage, , , , , ,

Skills For Care (SFC) have stressed the importance of inspiring the next generation of care workers into the sector to meet the growing demand for social care services.

According to the latest SFC report the number of adult social care jobs will increase by 31% to around 2 million by 2030; that means a need to find enough people to fill an extra 500,000 jobs.

The sector’s also facing challenges from an ‘ageing workforce.’ Workers aged 55 and over make up 22% of the adult social care workforce and could retire within the next 10 years, whilst only 12% of care workers are under 25.

One of the ways to meet these challenges is by attracting more young people to the sector. Younger workers with the right values and behaviours can bring new ideas and different perspectives into your organisation and they’re likely to be digitally savvy with good IT skills.

However, it’s a common view that younger people have negative perceptions about working in social care, and more needs to be done to inspire the next generation of care workers.

In the lead up to GCSE and A-level results day SFC have lots of tips and advice to help social care employers attract and recruit more young people. You can also follow their campaign and keep an eye on their enews, website and on social media using #newtalent.

Over the coming weeks, you can use this calendar of key dates.

  • 17 July – Young people in social care: the current situation and future demand
  • 24 July – Recruiting graduates into social care roles
  • 31 July – Joining I Care…Ambassadors to promote social care careers to young people
  • 07 August – Setting up an apprenticeship programme to support young people into work
  • 17 and 24 August – A-level and GCSE results day: tips and advice to recruit young people 

This week Lee Stribling, project manager for the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) talks about how you can use your NMDS-SC account to plan your workforce and meet future demand.

Keep an eye out on the blog section of the SFC website.