Truly successful businesses recognise that staff are their most important asset. Motivated, skilled and knowledgeable workers who work with the people that their service supports to lead their lives in a way which meets their needs and aspirations, will ensure the business thrives. That is why Skills for Care offers workforce learning and development support to all employers involved in delivering care and support, including members of EROSH.
We understand that depending on the type of housing service offered and the needs of the people who use it, there can be varying degrees of care and support offered. Some services focus on giving support helping people to maintain their tenancies, keep well and healthy, offering advice and support, for example benefits advice, and maintaining their independence. Others focus strongly on care, for example helping people to wash or eat, and some are a mix of the two. Whether it be support or care that is being provided, our role is to enable the staff delivering them to be skilled and knowledgeable in order to provide a high quality service.
Skills for Care is the strategic body responsible for the learning and development needs of the adult social care workforce in England. We work alongside employers to understand their challenges, helping them find solutions to deliver excellent care and support via well trained employees. Skills for Care is exploring the range of settings where care and support is an integral part of service delivery so that the workforce can be fully supported. Within the housing with care and support sector it is becoming increasingly important to understand and support the workforce that is delivering care and/or support services. We work with housing bodies such as Sitra, the Chartered Institute of Housing, the Housing LIN and EROSH to bring together our expertise and understanding.
Recently we’ve undertaken a survey and a series of interviews with housing with care and support employers to understand the challenges for the sector. In response to this, we are talking to housing with care and support employers about our existing resources and working on further resources that would be useful. So for example, we understand from our research that dementia is an increasing concern to housing employers. We have a range of learning resources on dementia, from guides for staff in how to spot dementia, through to guides for managers and those working with dementia carers. These are all free and can be found online at www.skillsforcare.org.uk/dementia.
Similarly, we know that roles within housing are changing, both to meet commissioners’ requirements and to meet the changing needs of tenants. Part of responding to changing needs will be the inevitable change needed within individual job roles. For example, we found that there were new roles emerging within extra care housing. For more details on this research visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/extracarehousingjobroles.
To help organisations who are undergoing any form of organisational restructure or transformation, Skills for Care has developed The Principles of Workforce Redesign. To access this practical guide please visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/powr.
Many of these roles will involve a culture change as people move towards a more personalised way of working. Skills for Care has developed the Culture for care: your toolkit for all social care and support employers, regardless of size or services delivered. To view this please visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/culture.
We want to show you more of what we have to help you meet your workforce challenges as well as listen to what else you feel you may need. To do this, we are running a number of events across England, aimed specifically at Housing with Care and support employers. They are:
15th October 2015 – 10.30 – 15.30 – SfC London offices – Lynton House, 4th Floor, 7-12 Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9LT
17th November – 10.30 – 15.30 – Durham County Cricket Club – Riverside, Chester-le-street, County Durham, DH3 3QR
26th November – 10.30 – 15.30 – Somerset County Cricket Club – The County Ground, Taunton, Somerset, TA1 1JT
3RD December – 10.00 – 15.30 – Cambridge – Back Lane, Cambourne, Cambridge CB23 6BW
9th December – 10.30 – 15.30 – BVSC the centre for voluntary action – 138 Digbeth, Birmingham, West Midlands B5 6DR
13th January – 10.30 -15.30 – Farington Lodge, Stanifield Lane, Farington, Preston, Lancashire, PR25 4QR
To find out more information and book on to one of these events visit www.skillsforcare.org.uk/housingevents.
We look forward to meeting and working with you!
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