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WeCare Wales Week - Recruiting the ‘right people’ in Social Care

Published: 17/11/2020

Flintshire County Council has embarked on an exciting journey to challenge and change their traditional recruitment processes to recruit people with the right values in to social care roles. 

The WeCare campaign states that ‘Wales needs around 20,000 more people to work in care by 2030’, and in order to meet this demand, more needs to be done to showcase and promote working in care as a rich and fulfilling career. 

A small team of Social Services officers has been trained by Helen Sanders Associates and Well-being Teams in Values Based Recruitment, and have since been working to develop their own new approaches to recruit people in to social care. 

Our values and beliefs drive the way we behave, and people tend to thrive in places where they are able to demonstrate their values. Social Services needed to understand their own vales, before they could look for those values in others, and are now looking to recruit people who share the services values. 

Before Covid-19, Flintshire County Council began a series of recruitment days with a focus on encouraging participant to demonstrate the values they live by. These session included a team, listening and communication exercises and ‘what if’ scenarios. For part of the day, the candidates also took afternoon tea with people they may be providing care and support for. The workshops are observed by staff and individuals receiving services, who will look out for the ways in which the candidates interact with individuals and demonstrate their personal values. 

So far we have held in excess of 20 workshops for our direct care and support workforce, appointing over 60 people across services, some people have come from previous care roles working in other areas and other have had no care experience but wanted to make a change. We have held recruitment workshops of varying sizes from 6 candidates to 26. 

Feedback from candidates has been positive with some telling us it was the ‘best interview I have ever attended’ and that they ‘didn’t feel like I was being interviewed’. Candidates enjoyed meeting the tenants and left with a feeling of knowing more about the role that they would have if they had attended a traditional interview. 

Flinthsire County Council’s Cabinet Member for Social Services, Councillor Christine Jones, said: 

"We have an amazing team in Flintshire Social Services who are compassionate, person centred, adaptable and resourceful, and we’d like to build on this. If you think this sounds like you, please get in touch with us at SocialServicesRecruitment@flintshire.gov.uk or apply online. We’d love to hear from you."

Current vacancies can be found here: https://www.flintshire.gov.uk/en/Resident/Jobs-and-careers/Current-Job-Vacancies/Home.aspx 

A team at the Council is also now trained to share their knowledge and experiences with others and have delivered a Values Based Recruitment Training programme to independent sector care providers.