Scottish Government Recruitment Focused Webinars – January 2023

Scottish Government would like to invite you to a series of Recruitment focused webinars which will be hosted by the Scottish Government but presented by partners, providers and experts from across the sector and within the field of employability, marketing and recruitment.

These will hosted week commencing the 9th of January and will include two webinar topics:

 

  • Recruitment Routes – Employability Partners
  • Apprenticeships and how to access as an employer from an employer’s perspective
  • Prince’s Trust employability programmes, supporting young people into roles in social care
  • Accessing local support from Developing the Young Workforce

 

  • Recruitment Insights and Marketing Support for Recruitment
  • Sharing overview of new approaches and success stories
  • Recruitment Guidance available
  • PR Approaches – Local
  • Social Media
  • Advice and Guidance
  • Support available

There are 2 dates for each topic to provide opportunity for you to hopefully join one of the dates and times offered. These are confirmed below:

Recruitment Insights and Marketing Support for Recruitment

Thursday 12th of January 09:30 – 10:30

Recruitment Routes – Employability Partners

Wednesday 11th January 09:30 – 11:00

Meeting links are hyperlinked in the dates and time above.

Scottish Government Recruitment Webinars – January 2023

Scottish Government would like to invite you to a series of Recruitment focused webinars which will be hosted by them but presented by partners, providers and experts from across the sector and within the field of employability, marketing and recruitment.

These will hosted week commencing the 9th of January and will include two webinar topics:

Recruitment Routes – Employability Partners

  • Apprenticeships and how to access as an employer from an employer’s perspective
  • Prince’s Trust employability programmes, supporting young people into roles in social care
  • Accessing local support from Developing the Young Workforce

Recruitment Insights and Marketing Support for Recruitment

  • Sharing overview of new approaches and success stories
  • Recruitment Guidance available
  • PR Approaches – Local
  • Social Media
  • Advice and Guidance
  • Support available

 2 dates will be offered for each topic to provide opportunity for you to hopefully join one of the dates and times offered. These are confirmed below:

Recruitment Insights and Marketing Support for Recruitment
Monday 9th of January 14:00 – 15:30
Thursday 12th of January 09:30 – 11:00

Recruitment Routes – Employability Partners
Tuesday 10th January 13:30 – 15:30
Wednesday 11th January 09:30 – 11:30

Links to the webinars will be issued the week commencing the 2nd of January, along with an overview and agenda for both topics.

Winter Vaccination Programme for Social Care Staff

The winter vaccination programme for social care staff is now live.

Social care staff of all ages who have a direct hands-on care role are eligible to receive a COVID-19 and flu vaccine this year. Appointment booking is open for frontline staff.

Frontline social care workers in the following settings are eligible for both vaccines:

  • residential care for children who are clinically vulnerable
  • community care for persons at home (including housing support, care at home services and personal assistants)
  • care homes/residential care settings for adults/older adults.

All staff working in any function (including catering staff, office staff etc) in care homes for older adults are also eligible for both vaccines.

The vaccine programme is targeted at those delivering direct care in these settings, whether employed by local authorities, private or third sector employers.

Find out more on: https://news.sssc.uk.com/news/winter-vaccination-2022

You could book your vaccine on: https://www.nhsinform.scot/wintervaccines

 

Home Care Decisions App

Home Care Decisions App:  Your Opportunity to Lead the Way in Digital Innovation in Care Homes and Care at Home

Dear all

Scottish Care and the Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre (DHI) invite you to become an early adopter of the new Home Care Decisions App.

What is the Home Care Decisions App?

This app is provided freely to all care home and care at home services in Scotland, as part of the national decision support programme funded by Scottish Government. It is available via the app stores by searching for “Home Care Decisions” and on the web at http://homecaredecisions.scot.nhs.uk

It delivers easy to use guidance and practical tools that improve safe, timely care and appropriate referral and escalation. The tools support care-workers in:

  • Delivering day to day care
  • Communicating in a shared language with the multi-professional team
  • Learning and personal development. 

The app offers two toolkits:

  • Care assessment and management– including Clinical Frailty Scale,  4AT tool for delirium screening, Malnutrition Universal Screening Tool, UTI assessment.
  • Palliative and end of life care

Care-workers strongly endorsed the app in the initial pilot, with 76-84% saying they were likely to use the toolkits in their day to day work.

What does being an early adopter involve?

Scottish Care, DHI, and colleagues in other early adopter sites will support you to embed this app in your service so that staff, service users and the wider healthcare team benefit from these evidence-based tools. We will help you to:

  • Put in place communication mechanisms to make sure all staff in your organization, including new recruits, know about the app and its benefits.
  • Define and implement processes and supporting technology to ensure that all staff who would benefit from the app have easy access to it in the work place.
  • Provide training, drawing upon national learning resources, to ensure that staff are confident in using the app.
  • Agree metrics and methods to evaluate impact of the app on practice and outcomes and take these measures over an agreed evaluation period.
  • Review evaluation results and agree improvements to the app and to the implementation process.

The learning you share as an early adopter will facilitate wider roll-out of the app in care homes and care at home services across Scotland.

To express interest in being an early adopter, please contact [email protected]

Home Care Decisions App flyer 19032022 v2

Value based recruitment toolkit

The SSSC created a values based recruitment toolkit a few years ago, that might be of interest to members.

The ‘Right values, right people’ resource was created in response to a request from employers during the exploration with stakeholders about the induction passport that was being muted at that time. Employers told SSSC that they wanted recruitment tools in one place and were particularly looking for help from this resource to improve retention.

You can access the toolkit on: https://learn.sssc.uk.com/rvrp/

Social Care Job Fairs – Hosted by Scottish Government and Department for Work and Pensions

Please see below for a flyer for a number of upcoming jobs fairs for the social care sector, hosted by DWP and Scottish Government. We would be most grateful if you would share the attached flyer with your networks and via social media to maximise reach.

If any social care providers would like further information, or to host a stand at one of the events, please contact [email protected]

Social Care Job Fairs Flyer SG

Social Care Workforce Open Space Event – 27 April

How can social care staff play a central role in the sector’s recovery post Covid-19?

It is an uncertain time for everyone in Social Care. Alongside ongoing efforts to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, there are systemic problems that have been driven by lack of priority, resource and funding for the sector.  Social care staff have given their all in responding to the pandemic where work and life balance has become harder to separate.  For some, the very idea of returning to the life they had before lockdown feels impossible.

We want to hear what social care means to you and how, working together, we can achieve recovery from the pandemic and for the sector as a whole. We have some big questions that we would like to explore. For example:

  • What are the main challenges with social care, working in your particular care setting?
  • How can we harness the voice of the social care workforce to make sure that is heard and listened to by those creating and supporting social care policy?
  • What kind of infrastructure do we need in order to support the growth and re-growth of social care — during and after this crisis?

But what are your questions? Your ideas? Your thoughts?

This event, organised by Scottish Care, in partnership with Abbotsford Care will bring together people working and learning in social care and key social care stakeholders.

The event will be facilitated by Improbable, a theatre company who specialise in using a process called Open Space Technology (OST). OST is a simple way for groups of people to think, work and take action together around a shared concern. There is no pre-set agenda, and you decide what is important and what gets worked on. This event will be held in person, allowing you to input into several different conversations in a single session.

These events are free and open to all. The more voices we have in the room, the more ideas we can bring together. All you need to do is register your place and we will send you details about how to participate closer to the time.  The event will be a relaxed environment.

The conversations will be in English. If you require any access support (including captioning or BSL interpretation), please let us know in advance.

Antibiotic Research in Care Homes – Support (ARCHeS) – Tayside and Fife

Study short title: Antibiotic Research in Care Homes – Support (ARCHeS)

Chief Investigator: Dr Charis Marwick

Principal Investigator: Dr Jane Dickson

Calling care homes managers and staff in Fife and Tayside. Please take part in a focus group as part of the ARCHeS: Antibiotic Research in Care Homes – Support study.

This study is being conducted by a research team based at the University of Dundee, in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh, University College London and Queen’s University, Belfast. They are working to improve the management of infection and antibiotic use in care homes.

ARCHeS Focus Group Invitation Flyer V1 21-01-2022 (002)

Healthier working lives for the care workforce

Developing careers. Promoting wellbeing.

Scottish Care is delighted to be working with Healthier Working Lives (HWL) programme (funded by the Innovate UK). This programme assesses the challenges and opportunities for the over 50’s care workforce and is led by King’s College London in collaboration with the University of Edinburgh.

The team is acting to tackle a crisis facing care workers and organisations. The adult social care sector is at a tipping point. A recurring set of issues have been rendered more intense by COVID and Brexit regulations. Demoralised experienced professionals are leaving in droves, many employees are chronically underpaid and business models are broken.

The crisis is reflected in unusually high levels of workforce turnover and vacancy rates. Many service provider owners and managers are struggling to maintain care quality levels with limited resources and increasing costs.

Aims

  • To identify ways to promote healthier working lives and ageing for older care workers – developing their careers, enhancing user continuity and promoting everyone’s wellbeing.
  • To transform aspects of the care sector workforce experience and culture – making their services more agile, innovative and accessible.
  • To attract and encourage professional, respected and confident workers and improve workforce planning and support.

Find out more about the programme and how you can contribute here.

Study – Effects of EU Exit and the Contribution of EU workers to the Scottish Social Services Workforce

The Scottish Government has commissioned Ipsos MORI, the independent research company, to carry out an update to a 2018 report on the contribution of EU workers in the Scottish Social Services sector.

This work will explore the current role and contribution of workers from EU countries in key parts of the social care sector, as well as the extent to which the departure from the EU has affected the service managers’ ability to address existing workforce pressures.

The information obtained will enhance the Scottish Government’s understanding of the challenges which Scotland’s social care sector is facing post EU Exit and will support Scottish Government, Local Authorities and service providers in other sectors, in developing appropriate responses.

Fieldwork will run until the 18th of March. Your views are needed.

Providers should have been sent an invite already. If not, please ask them to email the team at [email protected] and they will add you to the reminder mailouts.

When getting in touch, please let Ipsos MORI know your email address, the type of service you provide and the name of your organisation.