Get Connected and Care First Careers

16 December 2009

Today I have been at a meeting of the Get Connected Reference Group at SCIE. The Get Connected Project is a huge opportunity for care providers to receive grants to help with getting both service users and their families connected to the internet and also to connect staff to e training. For further information please visit the SCIE website:
http://www.scie.org.uk/workforce/getconnected/index.asp

Care First Careers

The Department of Health and Department of Work and Pensions are working together with employers to help them get the talent they need in the adult social care sector.

A new scheme, Care First Careers is launching nationally at the end of January following a pilot programme in four Jobcentre Plus districts; South Tyne and Wear Valley, Cheshire, Halton and Warrington, Coventry and Warwickshire and South West Wales.

Under Care First Careers, employers in the adult social care sector will be encouraged to take on young jobseekers by receiving a £1500 subsidy for every 18-24 year old that they employ who has been receiving Jobseekers Allowance for more than 6 months. This is part of DWP’s Young Person’s Guarantee that promises from early 2010, everyone in between the ages of 18 and 24 who has been looking for work for a year will get an offer of a job, work experience or training lasting at least 6 months.

The scheme is administered by Jobcentre Plus whose front line advisors will be primed to promote adult social care as a key route into work for long-term unemployed 18-24 year olds.

To support the introduction of Care First Careers a series of 11 regional launch events will take place in January and February across England, Scotland, and Wales, where adult social care employers from each region will be invited to learn more about employing young people and encouraged to participate in the scheme.

Care First Careers aims to stimulate wider interest in adult social care and attract a younger and more diverse workforce, with talent being spotted early on and helped to develop. Nurturing the potential core employees of the future from an early point in their careers can lead to more sustainable employment and help grow the workforce of the future.

Employers can visit www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk/carefirstcareers to find out more about Care First Careers and how to get the subsidy.