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Care charity warns of looming social worker shortages

Finance | Celina Ribeiro | 12 Aug 2008

Innovation is needed to attract graduates to the social care sector in order to avoid disastrous staff shortages, the human resources director at a large residential and home care charity has warned.

With a nationwide vacancy rate for social workers of 9.5 per cent and charity care homes reporting a vacancy rate of 7.9 per cent, Care South’s Moira Brown (pictured) called for a new approach to draw young people in to the profession.

“I don’t think graduates see social care as a career opportunity. We’ve also got an ageing population, so where is that workforce going to come from? It’s not so much a skills shortage as a people shortage,” she said.

Care South, a charity operating 18 residential facilities as well as providing home care services in the South West, currently employs staff beyond retirement age.

Skills Academy to open next March

Concerns about the future of staffing in social care last year prompted the Department of Health to back proposals for the establishment of a National Skills Academy for Social Care. Plans are now in place for the opening of a Skills Academy for Social Care in March 2009, with bidders hoping to run the Academy to be selected from a competitive interview process next month.

As an employer-led organisation, the Academy will aim, among other goals, to “enable increased recruitment from across the diversity of the population” and “enable employers to attract and retain talented individuals who regard social care as a rewarding career option”.

The 2007 UK Voluntary Sector Workforce Almanac, released this year, reported that a quarter of all charities encountered recruitment difficulties. Yet the total workforce of the sector has increased by 26 per cent to reach 611,000 workers in the ten years leading up to 2006.

Councils too have reported increased difficulty in attracting social service staff, with 69 per cent in 2005 claiming to have encountered recruitment problems – up from under 50 per cent in 2001.

Care South moots own graduate scheme

In the meantime, Brown is looking to her own devices to boost recruitment from the young. “I wouldn’t say no to a graduate scheme, it is something I am considering bringing in. But the question is how we would mould it so that graduates and the employer could get something out of it,” she said.

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Who's Who: Celina Ribeiro