Let's change the story - Social Care is Amazing!!
If our workforce really are our most important asset in social care, it’s time for a rethink. You can’t have failed to hear about the crisis in social care and the large number of vacancies that are exacerbating pressures in the already overstretched sector. In my new blog mini-series, a collaboration with Andrew Burridge, NWADASS, I’m going to be examining why there’s a problem in the first place and providing some practical advice and solutions for changes we can make right now, as well as in the longer term, to recruit and retain more of the right people to work in social care.
Last time, I talked about why Adults Social Care is experiencing recruitment and retention challenges and it’s a complex picture (Adults Social Care Recruitment mini series - 1. Why the problem? — Kath Smythe Collective). With complexity comes opportunity to hone in, do things differently and connect things up. Today, I’m focusing on changing the story to help us think about how we collectively and consistently reframe social care for the wonderful opportunity it is to make a difference to people's lives every day.
Let’s start with the type of work that social care is and how it’s perceived. Most of us only get to really know what social care is if we work in the sector or a family member needs support. Perceptions of social care tend to centre around providing personal care and working in a care home. And yet, there is a huge diversity of roles in social care. Personal Assistants or Support Workers who may work with people with a learning disability to help them to be more independent, care workers who help people to live independently by helping out with practical tasks, befrienders who provide friendship and accompany people out into the community to do things they enjoy, cooks, receptionists, admin staff, tech people, business development. The list goes on.
Whatever part of the sector you work in, we’re not always great at promoting what’s great about it. As a care provider said to me recently, where else do you get paid to take people on holiday, go out for meals or to the cinema? Actually, at its heart, social care is all about relationships. When you work in social care, you gain an extended family. You get to work with like-minded people and to build solid relationships, grounded in trust with the people you support. When you have this kind of a relationship, your focus is absolutely on enabling them to have the best life possible, just as it would be for a family member.
All about Relationships
Solid relationships grounded in trust.
It feels appropriate here to tackle what can be the elephant in the room. Let’s be honest, social care isn’t for everyone. Not everyone can cope with the personal care side that some roles require. And that’s OK. What’s not OK is that people don’t get to hear about the bigger picture - the amazing relationships they will build, the smiles they’ll see on people’s faces, the stories and experiences they will share with the people they support - because for some people, when they get this, the personal care side of things stops being a barrier. We don’t talk about the more personal care elements of being a doctor or a nurse as an issue. Why because it’s social and not medical does it become a big barrier? We’re all human. We all have to go to the loo, keep ourselves clean, get dressed. If we need some help to do this, what’s the problem? Why can’t we reframe it and think about the dignity we are giving people who need some help with these day to day tasks and the positive impact that has on their lives?
I think it's interesting that social care isn’t generally promoted as a career option. There’s an over-focus on entry level jobs and little talked about the fantastic opportunity to progress. Social care is one of the few professions that someone can enter at grass roots level with no qualifications or prior experience and be supported, in work and funded, to gain qualifications and progress. Progression can look like developing specialist skills such as working with people with autism, learning sign language, learning how to peg feed, working with dementia or it could look like progressing through an organisation first into staff management roles and within a relatively short number of years to a Registered Manager position. A role that carries lots of responsibility and pays well and yet there is a shortage of supply nationally. There is a huge opportunity to change the story here.
The way that people think about social care currently is deeply rooted into how our society views elderly people and people with learning disabilities and other conditions, like autism for example. In 2012, the London Paralympics smashed through how society views people with physical disabilities. We need something equally impactful that enables people to see the person with all their strengths first, not their age, condition or learning difficulty and so people want to be around these wonderful people and enable them to live their best lives. For me, that’s the pull. We don’t want to attract just anyone into the sector, we want to attract the right people - people who care and share our values. People who may not have considered working in social care because they don’t really understand what it is and what the work involves.
The social care sector is diverse with a myriad of providers spread across independent providers and local authority organisations. Unlike the NHS, we don’t have a national brand or identity that people instantly recognise. What if we created one? What if we consistently and collectively retell our stories of social care loud and proud? What if we find ways to collaborate more and compete less? We don’t need a structural change to enable us to collaborate across organisational and geographical boundaries but we might need to think about changing our commissioning models and our business models. How do we find ways to remove barriers to collaboration within the sector? I believe that there is a will. We have to keep talking to find the way.
“Tell me what’s great about working in social care”
I’m a firm believer in just getting started when it comes to change so here’s my call to action. Tell me what’s great about working in social care - it can be one thing, it can be a story, it’s up to you. I’ll collect them together and at the end of this series I’ll publish them and we can all use what I collect to help us change how we talk about social care.
Andrew says:
In the NW ADASS Future Workforce Programme we’ve been focusing more and more upon reframing how we think about adult social care. We know that colleagues are currently working extremely hard and creatively to respond to current workforce pressures. However, we want to attract people into the sector and retain our fantastic care workers. We know that we need to celebrate what’s amazing about adult social care If we’re going to succeed. Adult social care represents a brilliant career for those people that have the right skills and values. Our NW regional recruitment campaign will champion what’s amazing about adult social care in order to captivate and enthuse young people to come aboard.
Our work draws upon research carried out by Social Care Futures, who explored how sharing a positive narrative with the public can change perceptions. A more positive story about adult social care stresses having life, caring and supporting one another rather than looking after the “most vulnerable”, celebrating people with gifts and potential rather than helping “people with needs”. Opportunity, rather than crisis.
Research showed that after exposure to this narrative people with more likely to regard social care as:
More important to themselves & those close to them
As benefiting both those who need support and the wider community
A greater priority for government above other areas of policy
More worthy of investment by central government Possible to reform in a better and more sustainable way now
We’re currently exploring created a NW “adult social care brand” to help employers improve the way they recruit. This will mean truly understanding people with gifts and potential – both the people who are the heart of care services and the workforce who in partnership help people live their best lives. It’s a big challenge but it’s a challenge we’re excited about tackling.
