Creating the workforce of the future through work placements

In the latest episode of our podcast series ‘The care exchange’, Kirsty Armstrong, Registered Manager of Kelly Park Caring Agency, discusses how she has worked with local education providers to offer work placements for students and recruit younger people. We give a preview on what she had to say in the episode.

Getting started with work placements

I first got started with work placements after I was asked via our local authority to sit on an advisory board for Durham College. Since then, we’ve been working in partnership with the college to support their students with work experience.

The students we’ve supported through work placements already have a vested interest in the social care area as they’re currently studying for their T-level Qualification in Health. The partnership has been a huge success and we hope to support the college in bringing an entry-level nursing course to their curriculum in the near future.

Through our placements we’ve been able to give both students and lecturers an insight into what it’s really like to have a career in social care, showing it’s much more than just a cup of tea and a chat. This is vital as it opens up young people’s eyes to different career paths within the social care sector.

Initially there was a lot of work to ensure the placements would be successful. We made sure to work closely with the college to ensure they knew what to expect from the placements, and we nurtured the students that we were going to take on, finding out what skillset they already had, and how as a business we could develop their existing skills.

It’s hard work and time consuming but I’m a firm believer that if we put in that work now, we can change the perception of young people coming into social care. They’re very important and they’re vital to the future of social care. I have no qualms that some of our students will be the leaders of the future.

We’re also working with universities to provide work placements to students undertaking a nursing degree. My health care assistants are loving that as it also provides them with more insight into technical information and it really engages them.

Networking has been key in making the relevant connections to make these placements possible.

Networking is so important in any job role and certainly in social care as it’s so vast – there’s care homes, home care, working with the NHS and much more. If you network you can make the right contacts, our local authority is pro-active in rolling out the right contacts, there’s a constant stream of communications coming out to all providers and that’s been very beneficial to me.

Supporting my current team

To prepare the existing team for the placements we sent out information about our plans and why this would be important, including why young people are needed in social care, and the challenges the care sector is facing with recruitment.

Very quickly most of my team said, ‘right I want to nurture a student, I want to turn them into something really great, and I want that person to succeed in life.’

So, it’s been really positive for everybody. There has also been a lot of cross-skill sharing with the younger people who are able to provide support to the older generation around using technology, and the older generation supporting the younger generation with the hands-on practical skills.

Recruiting younger people

Following successful work placements, I’ve ended up employing many young people to work with us on bank shifts; 15 of the 20 students we’ve had have taken up a bank position with us. It’s been a huge help with recruitment because as we all know recruitment in social care at the moment is very challenging. But there are many benefits to hiring younger people.

Young people can bring a vibrant new insight, they can bring change for the organisation and for the person drawing on care.

We have processes in place to support new-starters. We have a period of training when people first start where they’re shadowing an experienced carer for a period of time. They then move on to 2:1 care where the new-starter is the lead carer but they also have a second experienced carer work with them.

If young people can’t drive, we either pair them up with someone who can, or we have a bespoke walking route as well.

We have people who are 17 studying their T-level degree and they’re absolutely incredible. They tend to work on the 2:1 care and of course there’s stipulations around shift patterns and such for them, for example they can’t do night shifts.

There’s guidance on the Government website which makes it very clear what they can and can’t do and you just need to follow those guidelines.

People can be put off hiring people aged under 18, they might think they’re not ready for employment, but when I started working at 17 as a healthcare assistant, I was ready. I didn’t want to continue on with academic education, I wanted to be hands-on, I knew where I wanted to be and what sector I wanted to be in and that was evident through my whole school life.

I always knew I wanted to help people and I wanted to make a difference, and I think the students we have here, have exactly that same mindset, they have that vested interest. Starting my career at 17 fundamentally gave me the skills and the knowledge that I have today, and it made me the person that I am today.

Listen to the full podcast episode with Kirsty Armstrong.

Find more recruitment information and support on our #BuildYourWorkforce spotlight.

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