Skills for Care

Skills for Care is the strategic body for workforce development in adult social care in England.

Skills for Care is an independent registered charity working with 35,000 adult social care employers to set the standards and qualifications to equip 1.5 million social care workers with the skills and knowledge needed to deliver high quality care to people who use services and carers.

Vision

• Put employers in the driving seat on social care workforce issues
• Create a trained and qualified workforce providing high quality care
• Provide an expert voice to the social care workforce

Role

Skills for Care work with employers to gather data on the social care workforce through the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) that provides robust evidence to analyse emerging issues for the social care sector. NMDS-SC and other research projects are designed to create a well trained workforce capable of meeting the challenges the social care sector faces.

The New Types of Working and Workforce Development Strategy helps employers and their staff be innovative and flexible to capitalise on future business development opportunities.

Skills for Care have been a key partner in developing the new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) as a simpler, more flexible way of recognising and rewarding skills and knowledge in the social care workforce. Once the QCF is introduced in 2010 the common induction standards and knowledge sets will be linked into the framework.

The Accolades awards reward social care employers who deliver outstanding services. Care Ambassadors visit schools, colleges and job fairs to promote social care as a positive career choice. The 'I Care...' materials and the career pathway e-tool help employers promote social care as a long-term career.

Skills for Care makes sure the voice of social care employers and their workers is heard at the Department of Health and at Westminster. Skills for Care work closely with Government departments, MPs and Peers to make sure that the development needs of the adult social care workforce is reflected in new policy initiatives.

Area Networks

Skills for Care's seven supporting area networks contribute to the improvement of social care through workforce development activities in each region of England.

Skills for Care's area networks act as brokers for funding for workforce development and training.

Area Networks also develop partnerships with employers to help them to get the best out of resources available for social care workforce development in their area. They can help employers to plan their workforce development requirements.

External links

• Skills for Care
• Skills for Care & Development
• Children's Workforce Development Council
• CSCI
• GSCC